We asked many questions: What are our needs? How can this committee meet our needs? What do we want to know about? What speakers do we want to hear? What would help us increase student learning? Ideas the committee decided to pursue to gain answers included: measuring learning; using Quality meeting tools in the classroom; developing support outside the classroom for what happens inside; and inviting others to join us in learning together.
Our entire year involved Listening to Students and Sharing with Each Other. Our learning was enhanced by pre-meeting reading and preparatory work and student participation at our meetings. Pre-meeting readings helped stimulate our thinking before our meeting conversations began. Preparatory work enhanced our learning because it allowed faculty to gather and bring student feedback into the conversation. The students participants provided a necessary perspective and insight.
Our first meeting focused on Quality in the Classroom/Student Teams; with Dr. Barry McNeill, ASU Engineering Professor and one of his Introduction to Engineering (ECE 100) four-person student teams. A number of ASU Engineering faculty redesigned ECE 100 using Quality tools and processes. Quality principles, student teaming and faculty and peer assessment are emphasized. According to the students, they now take more responsibility for learning and for assessing their own learning and "teaming." Dr. McNeill's materials with specific examples of applications, curriculum, assessment, etc., are available by contacting Donna Schober or Gloria Smith.
Next, Student Teams was our focus. This enabled us to follow up on last year's faculty Quality survey where student teamwork was cited as the number one Quality tool or methodology used by faculty and continues the concepts highlighted by Dr. McNeill and his student team. Prior to the meeting, participants were asked to explore whether student teams increased student learning. Faculty were urged to invite their students to discuss this topic and compile student comments to share. In addition, students attended the meeting and shared their experiences.
In February we concentrated on the concept of Customer in the Classroom. We viewed parts of the UW-Madison Quality in the Classroom videotaped program, discussed Tom Peters' article "Service or Perish," and shared student comments responding to the question: What does it mean to be a customer in the classroom? As a result of this meeting, participants have an increased understanding of the concept of "customer" as applied to students from the perspective of our students. A significant number of our students feel they are our customers.
For our work on Assessment of Learning we began by attending Jeanne Fitzgerald's MAT 133, Theory of Elementary Mathematics, class at Phoenix College. Student teams presented math lessons, allowed us to be their students, and asked us for our feedback on their lessons. Then, one of the MAT 133 students participated in our meeting while we explored various definitions of assessment and different methods for developing assessment tools.
We concluded our year with the Peter Senge video conference Inside the Learning Organization: Pathways & Processes along with an article by Harvard professor Chris Argyris, "Good Communication Blocks Learning." We were able to weave together a number of thoughts about learning organizations vs. learning communities; real life examples of Argyris' principles; and our need to involve students to enhance our own learning.
Focusing on related topics throughout the year helped us to cover exciting subjects in greater depth and breadth. Our meetings were well-planned and structured to ensure learning and having different faculty attend each of our meetings added to the conversations because they injected new ideas. Yet, we are disappointed we are reaching only a small group of people; our A-1 distribution list is long, but our meeting attendance did not reflect such a large number.
Depending on the decision(s) concerning the future of Ocotillo, we will then decide what's next for the Quality in Learning Committee. We make this rather radical statement because we are disappointed that our intentions are not matched by what actually occurs. We have had excellent learning sessions - yet relatively few faculty, staff and students attended our meetings and participated. Attendance at our meetings ranged from 8 to approximately 17 (faculty, staff and students) with an average of about 12 at each meeting. We tried to hold learning sessions to meet the needs of the Committee as a whole, and we believe the participants found value in our sessions. Should we accept some benefit for a few? or demand more?
