The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment has released the results of a survey of provosts at 811 colleges on their thoughts about the assessment of student learning. Backed by a decade’s worth of research on trends, the institute’s report uncovered several positive findings, including that provosts increasingly are providing support for faculty and staff members to practice meaningful assessment, especially at the course level.
The project, known as SEMINAL: Student Engagement in Mathematics through an Institutional Network for Active Learning, has been led by San Diego State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, which have reworked their math curricula to improve student success in early courses, particularly students from underrepresented minority groups.
Theories abound as to why women remain underrepresented in many fields. A new study says that perceived gender bias in a given discipline is the primary criterion women use for selecting a college major, not the perception that a field is science or math oriented.
Deborah J. Cohan, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort, suggests strategies for generating discussion and engagement in large classes.
As faculty developers, we cannot control all aspects of the teaching and learning environment. Sometimes local, national, and international events send shock waves through our communities that most of us cannot ignore and that all of us—students, faculty, and staff—experience in different ways. Although we can never predict how to respond in such moments, here are a handful of resources that might help with framing conversations both in and outside of the classroom—click HERE.
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals generate a stream of scientific discoveries and technological innovations that fuel job creation and national economic growth. Ensuring a robust supply of these professionals is critical for sustaining growth and creating jobs growth at a time of intense global competition. Undergraduate STEM education prepares the STEM professionals of today and those of tomorrow, while also helping all students develop knowledge and skills they can draw on in a variety of occupations and as individual citizens. However, many capable students intending to major in STEM later switch to another field or drop out of higher education altogether, partly because of documented weaknesses in STEM teaching, learning and student supports. Improving undergraduate STEM education to address these weaknesses is a national imperative.
The new report identifies national indicators to measure the status and quality of undergraduate STEM education.
Even though colleges and universities in the United States produce nearly two million graduates each year (Ryan and Bauman 2016), American higher education is not without significant challenges related to the success of its most valuable stakeholders—undergraduate students. Arguably, most pressing among these is the hemorrhagic loss of talented undergraduate students from the STEM disciplines. Indeed, every fifteen minutes, a student majoring in STEM either changes his or her major to a non-STEM discipline or withdraws from college altogether (NSF 2017). This phenomenon disproportionately, although not exclusively, affects African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American (collectively, AALANA) students, who now comprise the fastest-growing undergraduate populations in US colleges and universities (NSF 2017).
A new article about the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative has been published in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. The article discusses the approach taken by AAU and identifies the cross-cutting implementation, dissemination, and institutionalization strategies from eight pilot projects and from a growing network of AAU research universities committed to improving undergraduate STEM teaching and learning. What AAU has learned from the Initiative can help us understand the process of systemic institution-wide educational reform, with emphasis on change being at the department level.
– Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning
Delivering on educational quality and completion is a must — not only for institutions but the country. This report proposes a collective, national approach to achieving educational quality. Specifically, the report urges a three-part “national strategy” ensuring that students have high-quality learning experiences, that institutions increase their overall completion rates and reduce inequities among student groups, and that college costs are controlled. – Inside Higher Ed
Direct link to full report
Major study by American Academy of Arts and Sciences seeks change in curriculum and assessment, commitment to funding public higher education, new ideas about the faculty role, and more.
Compelled by research providing evidence that active engagement and collaboration improve student learning, many University of Arizona faculty members are redesigning their courses to move away from traditional lectures and toward more student-centered active learning in the classroom. To facilitate evidence-based collaborative active learning strategies, the University of Arizona has begun overhauling spaces across campus – big and small – to create environments that foster interaction, hands-on activities and small group exploration of the topics at hand.
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