Draft Learning Goals for Writing and Speaking

June 25, 2009 By 1 Comment

I was reminded today that I once drafted a set of learning goals for writing and speaking at the undergraduate level for a project headed up by our office of advisement and orientation. While these goals implicitly inform the curricular support and development work of the institute, they have not been codified beyond the document I created in 2006 (before I learned about Bloom’s taxonomy). These goals have not seen the light of day beyond their very limited original context. With that, I thought I’d post them for discussion. Take a look and let us know if you find these useful and/or whether you’d recommend revisions. Here we go:

By the end of their undergraduate experience students should be able to:

  • comfortably pose pertinent questions to faculty both in and out of class
  • demonstrate proficiency in a number of everyday written genres (email, letter, etc.)
  • demonstrate sensitivity to audience in oral and written communication – write and speak in a manner appropriate to audience – articulate similarities and differences in addressing different audiences (email to peer vs. email to faculty, conversation with parent vs. conversation with prospective employer)
  • demonstrate awareness that all communication is purposeful – each individual communication is meant to accomplish a particular goal or set of goals – sensitivity to purpose
  • grasp rhetorical purpose of own written work (what is this paper, email, memo, etc. meant to accomplish? What do I need it to do? What should it accomplish?)
  • articulate how they might go about accomplishing purpose of given communication (in order to accomplish X in my email to my professor, I need to make clear that Y and establish Z before making the argument that A)
  • work responsibly and productively as a member of a group – to communicate appropriately with all group members
  • comfortably speak before an audience – impromptu and prepared presentations
  • articulate own understanding of how they can become better communicators (what do I need to work on to become a better writer/speaker?)

Discuss.

Filed Under: Assessment, Communication Intensive Courses (CICs), Oral Communication, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Instruction

Lessons from a First-Time Course Blogger

June 12, 2009 By 10 Comments

I’m finally looking back to Spring ’09, when I had my first experience using Blogs@Baruch in two sections of COM1010, Intro to Speech Communications. I used the blog for the midterm, in which students write critiques of speeches they’ve found online. In past semesters, students have been inventive in their speech choices and committed in their critiques. But the question of how to best enable their classmates to see these videos still lingered. Curious about Blogs@Baruch, I decided to migrate this assignment onto a blog, allowing students to watch (and comment upon) each other’s videos and share their critiques of the speeches. Having learned from the adventure, here are a few words of advice to potential Blogs@Baruch-ers.

1. It’s not difficult. Considering the gong show of Blackboard’s tech problems this semester, it was almost comical how smoothly the blog functioned. A handful of students ran into some problems accessing it at certain computers, but often I found that problems encountered by students were frequently due more to lack of time and preparation on their part than any issue with the blog itself.

2. Don’t be conservative! I was. As one of my students told me at the end of the semester, “the blog was just there.” It wasn’t as dynamic as it could have been, in part because I didn’t use it to capture anything in progress. Students cut and pasted their work onto the blog, and then made the requisite comment on a post, creating a static space outside of the classroom, not a particularly engaging one. While it was satisfying to see this vast collection of interesting video clips assembled in one place—along with frequently cogent, in-depth analyses of them—I see now that I used the blog to solve a problem (that of my midterm assignment) rather than tailoring it for uses that would really suit the nature of the blog. Recent conversations with my students and others have highlighted a range of ways that it could be used in an Introductory Speech course– sharing audio files or outlines of student speech drafts that could be revised as the “audience” comments. On a related note, the public forum really does elicit strong work. When students feel the watchful eyes of their peers, the bar is set somewhere different. This makes my mouth water for the possibilities of the course blog—like facilitating peer review, for example—that I didn’t explore.

3. Be forewarned: out of sight, out of mind. In part due to #2 above, the blog can feel like that side dish you ordered but weren’t quite hungry for. It’s easy to lose track of the blog, and its implementation should be planned with an eye towards avoiding this. Usually, the material nature of grading compels you to eventually plop down on a long train ride and hit it out of the park. With the blog, not so easy. I had good intentions—I wanted to comment on posts frequently, but commenting is time-consuming, especially if students are posting 40-minute inauguration speeches. This in turn leaves less time to evaluate the work for grading purposes. From the student side, they were assigned a date for one post; once students posted, they didn’t have a strong incentive to return, which would leave me begging them to “visit the blog!” when I myself was embarrassingly behind on reading their old posts.

4. Students might be less excited about instructional technology than you are. (…How to get them more excited is part of the task.) Take ‘tagging,’ for example—it was harder than I might have imagined getting the ‘tagging’ to happen. Some assume that the ‘Sidekick generation’ will tag as if it were natural as breathing. Not so– every nineteen-year-old might know how to search YouTube, but they’re not all writing Facebook applications or even their own blogs. Making some class time available to teach students the rhyme and reason behind some aspects of the blog is arguably essential, and yet somehow easy to overlook.

The Com1010 Public Speaking Award Goes To...

The Com1010 Public Speaking Award Goes To...

5. Students love Pacino. As in past semesters, his speeches were cited with a remarkable frequency, rivaled only by Randy Pausch. This is perhaps not a surprise, since the first hit from googling “inspirational speech” is Pacino’s “peace by inches” monologue from Any Given Sunday, but still. City Hall has a less predictable—and arguably far better—dramatic monologue that I’m glad one of my students spread around.

I’ll end here with a question. As Luke articulated so well in his WordCampEd post, these open source technologies are blessedly DIY. But I can’t help feeling a little protective of the adjunct in this discussion– don’t adjuncts “do it themselves” enough? Can the full potential of Instructional Technology really be unleashed with the real limitations of the adjunct labor force operating in higher education? I’m in a distinctly lucky position as a dual-hatted Communications Fellow and adjunct; working with people jazzed and knowledgeable about these technologies has taught me tremendous amounts about how to use it and why. But how will Jane Q. Adjunct learn about the potential of a course blog, after tearing her hair out over Blackboard for months and missing the departmental meeting that announced a later workshop about blogs, all time she’s not paid for? How will Jane Q. Adjunct get excited about the potential of these tools, and why will she motivate to prioritize the time required to integrate them thoughtfully and productively in her course?

Filed Under: Assessment, Baruch College, Blogs and Blogging, EdTech, Higher Education, Technology

Fun With Clickers!

May 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

language-chartThe Finance Economics team recently experimented with using the Turning Point Technology. It is an audience response system which allows students to participate in presentations or lectures by submitting responses to interactive questions.

Each student holds one of the thin little clickers and answers the questions you placed in your Power Point slides. You can see the results immediately (or hide them from the class if you choose).

We were apprehensive about having to learn new software and then adjusting it to work with a Power Point presentation and a workshop we have been working on for months already. But it worked very well. The IT resources tech support person was happy to train us, it took barley half and hour. A little experimenting later and we were able to figure out how to make it work for us. It was as easy as creating additional slides to add to our Power Point. But the benefits were clear: we were able to ask students to respond to questions which then allowed us to introduce a related element of the workshop, or helped us explain a point we were making, or, at the end of the session, we were able to ask student to asses the workshop: what they learned, found useful, found challenging. After the session, with a click of a button, we printed out a report with percentage and graphical representation of the answers (see the fragment of it at the picture attached to this post). We designed very simple “yes” and “no” questions but the possibilities are endless.

The added bonus is that the box of clickers for students is brought to the classroom and then taken away after the class is over, by an IT person. You don’t even have to pick it up. Hopefully, some of our Institute’s PCs will have the Turning Point installed. You can also try it on your home PC. Give me a holler if you need help figuring it out.

Filed Under: Assessment, Communication Intensive Courses (CICs), Feedback, Uncategorized

James Paul Gee on Learning and Games

December 4, 2008 By Leave a Comment

From Edutopia, the website of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, an excellent interview with James Paul Gee, a linguist who has become the leading authority on video games and pedagogy and who gave a great talk at the CUNY Grad center last year. Enjoy.

Filed Under: Assessment, Grading, Media, Technology, Writing Across the Curriculum

You know, it’s cultural….

October 23, 2008 By 2 Comments

I am not saying this just to make Mikhail happy about assigning me the Accounting Department in my first year at Schwartz, but I really am enjoying working there. I had my misgivings early on, especially about the students treating me as a second-class citizen, a “fellow” who apparently has no clue about accounting, thus no need to pay attention to her. What I have been experiencing, however, is a great deal of gratitude on their part and a sense of appreciation that, at times, makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. After all, I tell them, I am only doing my job helping them with their presentations.

Maybe it is because of their responsiveness to me that I become a softee when it comes to the evaluation of their performance. Luckily I do not have to grade them, but I talk with their professor about how they did, and, more often than not, I find myself taking their side. I want the professor to be more generous, more understanding of how nerve-wracking a presentation can be, more embracing of the students’ individual skills and needs, etc, etc. On the professor’s side, I am facing a set of extremely well organized grading scale that breaks down final grades to the smallest percentage. This is how grading should really look like, I tell myself, envying the social sciences for their apparent efficieny that messy humanities people, let alone literature buffs like me, tend to miss. Yet, I feel like a coward when the professor mentions a student’s way of being too “soft-spoken” and I let it go saying only that her “softness” comes from her cultural training as a Japanese woman. (Apologies if this comes across as relying, yet again, on stereotypes about Asian women. Obviously not all Japanese women are low-key, but I just finished reading Kyoko Mori’s memoir, Polite Lies, and I think I got at least a better appreciation of Japanese cultural normativity than I had before reading the book.) Evidently, the professor, who has earned all my respect for his superbly organized way of doing his job, cannot let himself bogged down by my remark since he has to evaluate the final product, but I am left with a sense of failure.  I wish I had a way of giving more time and space to the process, of being able to assist each student individually while I do not run around myself trying to finish up my dissertation. In my dream-world, I use a grading rubric that includes “cultural baggage” as a big bonus point because I know how heavy it gets at times and how important it is to keep carrying it on in spite of all.

Filed Under: Assessment, Baruch College, Cross-Cultural Communication, Interpersonal Communication

Communication, the MTA and You!

October 21, 2008 By 2 Comments

Has anyone else noticed the new signs on the subway? For the second time in two years, the MTA is conducting a survey of its riders. I don’t remember seeing the signs when they were doing the survey the first time around, but it was apparently some time in 2007, and they wanted to know what suggestions we had for making the subway system better. You can go to to their website and see the results — what they call the “Rider Report Card.”

Now the MTA wants to know exactly how and why we New Yorkers get around the city. When I first saw the advertisement for the survey I was skeptical. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were actually going to take our feedback seriously or if this was just a public relations move to get us all to feel a little more hopeful that better commuting days are ahead. When I got home, I went online to learn more about the survey. As it turns out, the MTA has contracted an outside firm, Nustats, to gather this information for them. Somehow, the fact that they are investing money to do this made me feel a little more confident that the MTA is actually making an attempt at genuine communication with its customers.  However, I found two things rather peculiar: The MTA does not actually mention this current survey on their web page; I actually had to google “MTA Survey” to find it. Also, the survey is not being made available to the public via the internet. In order to participate you need to either download a paper form from a PDF file or call a toll free number and take the survey over the phone. I’m curious about those choices. I’m also curious about the $500 prize they are giving out weekly to one survey participant who is to be chosen at random from a drawing. If you’re interested, go to:

http://www.nustats.com/mta/

As the presidential election approaches I find myself thinking a lot about communication between institutions and individuals and wondering how much weight does the individual voice carry. But also, how important is it that individuals feel their voices are being heard? Will the chance for $500 entice subway riders to actually pick up the phone or download the file and participate in this survey? How sincerely does the MTA actually want us to?

Filed Under: Assessment, Media, New York, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

The Dangers of Online Reading?

September 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I just read an interesting article by Mark Bauerlein in The Chronicle about how students’ approaches to reading and interacting with information online seem to be hindering their ability to read and learn from texts in more traditional settings.  Specifically, he contends that:

The inclination to read a huge Victorian novel, the capacity to untangle a metaphor in a line of verse, the desire to study and emulate a distant historical figure, the urge to ponder a concept such as Heidegger’s ontic-ontological difference over and over and around and around until it breaks through as a transformative insight — those dispositions melt away with every 100 hours of browsing, blogging, IMing, Twittering, and Facebooking.

This brings up a lot of interesting questions as educators are increasingly trying to incorporate some of these technologies into the classroom and publishers are pushing textbook content into more profitable eBooks.  Are we actually helping students by doing all of this?  Some initial studies of middle and high school students suggest that technology-intensive curricula do not improve student achievement.

Bauerlein has many interesting points in the article and makes a good case for “unplugging” some aspects of teaching and learning.  However, in my opinion, the question of whether or not technology in general improves/impairs student learning is not that interesting.  Instead, we should be focusing our assessments on understanding which technologies can be usefully employed in which aspects of the curricula.  Finding pedagogical fit for relevant technologies seems to be what we are striving towards at BLSCI.  Thus, as an institute, we undoubtedly have much to contribute to this important discussion.

Filed Under: Assessment, Blogs and Blogging, Higher Education, Literacy, Pedagogy, Technology

Institutional Growth at The Schwartz Institute: 1997-2007

April 8, 2008 By 4 Comments

In BLSCI’s application for the TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Award, we made use of the writing diagnostic assessment data to demonstrate the many ways the Institute has grown over the past 10 years.

As Figure 1 and 2 below show, BLSCI fellows support faculty teaching a number of distinct Communication Intensive Courses (CICs) across a variety of disciplines. As Figure 2 shows, the largest representation of faculty teaching CICs is in departments that have traditionally placed a heavy emphasis on both written and oral communication, such as English, Modern Languages, Marketing, Management, Performing Arts, Sociology and Anthropology. However, the institute has also supported CICs in departments that have not traditionally incorporated communication intensive elements into their curricula, such as Accountancy, Natural Sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and environmental sciences), and Computer Information Systems.

Figure 1

[click to enlarge] 

Figure 2

[click to enlarge] 

When we look at these data and hear about all of the great work going on at the Institute during our staff meetings, what we often don’t take into consideration is the amount of expansion that has taken place over the past ten years. As Figure 3 demonstrates, the number of faculty supported by BLSCI has steadily increased, reaching a peak of 144 last year. The number of faculty currently teaching CICs is nearly three times what it was ten years ago. Despite some minor fluctuations, the number of sections of CICs has also increased dramatically. Specifically, as shown in Figure 4, the number of sections of CICs offered last year is nearly five times as many as there were in 1997.Figure 3

[click to enlarge] 

Figure 4

[click to enlarge] 

There is no doubt this kind of institutional growth contributed to BLSCI’s being awarded the Hesburgh award. However, the most interesting growth going on at the institute is arguably what happens on a more micro level among students, faculty, and fellows throughout continued mentorship and collaboration. Although we all get to observe this in our individual work, it’s often hard to demonstrate this kind of growth across the institute. As we keep on thinking about and celebrating growth at BLSCI we continue to think about ways to assess it. It’s my hope that this post will spark some ideas among readers on how we might approach this kind of assessment next semester.

Filed Under: Assessment, Baruch College, Communication Intensive Courses (CICs), Faculty Development

Assessment and the Transformative Experience

January 15, 2008 By 1 Comment

images.jpeg

Assessment, assessment, and assessment; this seems to be all I am hearing these days. Editors at academic journals inform me that if I have an article on assessment, they would be happy to publish it… Even my daughter’s 2nd grade teacher had a meeting to explain to the parents how our 7 year olds would be assessed over the school year. In my new position as Deputy Director of the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute, I am currently overseeing two major assessments: one of the Institute’s programs and another of student writing in CICs. Surprisingly I find myself enjoying it immensely.

As assessment seems to be the 21st century companion to the education field I guess it is time to just jump in. I find myself fascinated and passionate about looking at and assessing students’ writing over a ten-year period and all of its infinite possibilities. However there is a small part of me that feels there is a fine line that is frequently crossed in assessment. It is when educational institutions, or even individual educators, over-invest in the assessment of whether students attain pre-established learning goals to demonstrate that students have learned. When student outcomes, in relation to pre-set learning goals, are the main goal of an assessment, outcomes can easily become the dominant product of education rather than the messy but profound experience of learning itself, which does not always produce a clear outcome. And if this becomes the assessment norm, to measure outcomes rather than transformative experience, than education runs the risk of merely accumulating material and compromising its fundamental role. This is a line I feel is dangerous for any educator to cross.

Ken Buckman, professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, wrote in the fall issue of Thought and Action that, “the primary character of education is its transformative influence…” Therefore, experiencing the process of learning is as important if not more than the final goal of having attained an acceptable outcome or learning goal. Yet this is one of the hardest areas of learning to assess: the transformative experience.

However, there might be a way of examining student learning as a process and not an outcome. Follow the same students for several years and see what parts of their learning process have become integrated into the way they talk or write. In a sub-sample set of the written diagnostic data we are now examining the same set of students writing over a period of 3-4 years. Their vocabulary, their expectations and the complexity with which they express themselves can be analyzed as well as how this has been transformed over time. This data will not tell us whether the students did well on the final exam or whether they were able to write an “A” term paper. But we might be able to note when and if the student was going through a transformative process between the times they started writing in their first CIC course and the 3rd or 4th CIC.

There is no doubt that any educational institution needs to be able to demonstrate that its students on an aggregate level are reaching the goals and outcomes that have been put forth. However, students should also be studied as distinctive learners with unique goals and experiences. As for my part, I can’t get enough of knowing that my students might have been transformed.

cartoon_large_intro.gif

Filed Under: Assessment, Pedagogy

Writing Diagnostic Assessment: Some Preliminary Findings

December 5, 2007 By Leave a Comment

As many of you know, last month BLSCI applied for external funding from an organization that recognizes exceptional faculty development programs focussed on enhancing undergraduate teaching and learning. In order to make our case for the award, we included some preliminary results from the Writing Diagnostic Assessment data. I’d like to use this post as an opportunity to share some of these results with readers to demonstrate the effectiveness of the work that many have been doing over the years and get some feedback regarding ideas for future analyses.

When looking at the data, on average, students start the semester with scores on both the expectations and writing quality variables in the “middle” range (scores around 3). When we then looked to see if students’ scores significantly improved over the course of one semester in a CIC, there were no major findings. This was because many students started the semester out scoring high (scores from 4 to 5) on many of the variables, and thus did not have any room for improvement (as measured by the diagnostic scoring criteria).

However, when we looked at students who scored in the “low” to “middle” range on all of the variables (thanks Diana for this suggestion!) we observed statistically significant increases from the beginning to the end of the semester on all variables. These increases were consistent across disciplines and schools as well. The figures below illustrate the changes we observed in the data separately for the Weissman and Zicklin Schools.

[click to enlarge]

[click to enlarge]

Although these results are based only on a subset of the data we’ve been able to clean, match, and analyze (~ 5,000 students), they nonetheless illustrate that the work of BLSCI in creating and implementing CICs seems to be paying off for students across the board. Although most probably knew or were able to sense this already, it’s always great to have “hard data.” We would love to hear readers’ thoughts on these findings and how you see these data stacking up next to the work you’re doing with students in your own classes. Also, as always, any general thoughts and/or questions on the assessment data are welcome.

Filed Under: Administration, Assessment, Faculty Development, Funding, Higher Education
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »