From: "Nancy Forde" <nforde@sfu.ca>
To: "Adrienne Burk" <alburk@sfu.ca>
Cc: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Sent: Thursday, December 6, 2012 11:14:29 AM
Subject: Re: A little more on learning outcomes
Hi all,
Does anyone know when and where the video link of the SFUFA meeting will be online? It sounds like there were some useful presentations at the meeting, and I would like to see them before submitting my feedback on the Learning Outcomes document, but time is running very tight.
Cheers,
Nancy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrienne Burk" <alburk@sfu.ca>
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Sent: Wednesday, 5 December, 2012 14:09:13
Subject: A little more on learning outcomes
Hello-
I want to echo that the SFUFA conversations (soon to be video - linked) were also very helpful to me to understand the process of Learning Outcomes as a formal requirement, and the implications which follow. The distinctions drawn on this list in earlier posts - between learning goals and outcomes, and articulating intentions vs. assessing 'achievements' - are very helpful. Apologies for a slightly longer post here, but I want to address what I think has not been fully understood is how this actually plays out.
My read of all the documents (and yes there are a lot) as well as additional literature and the presentations of two of the three SFUFA conversations by those in units already working with Learning Outcomes (do watch all three videos if you can) is that once a learning outcome has been set, a metric has to be designed to measure it, and that measure has to be used to evaluate each student's work every time that course is offered , the 'results' aggregated, interpretations made and implications drawn. As I understand it, the process never ends.
Thus, there are many, many aspects to this that trouble me. Some teachers claim their intention for students taking their classes is to learn to 'understand current events differently'; others may want students to be able to 'select the correct answers' for solving a problem. Though both may be indications of critical thinking skills improving, only one set is measurable via a metric. Yet I believe both sets potentially involve valid challenges and tasks for students to undertake in courses. To be clear, I think there are incidences in which such metrics are appropriate - but I emphatically do not believe that to be true for most of the courses taught at university.
That concern - to place learning exclusively in a context in which metrics can be designed to 'measure' it - joins other concerns. Among the most prominent of these are about the costs (in time and money) to support this, its admittedly non-pedagogical origins, how it can possibly be meaningfully imposed when we have such large numbers of contingent faculty and fairly dramatic diversity in student demographics, who gets the 'data' and under what conditions, what results from aggregating it all to say something meaningful about it, and most of all, how this plays out as being of benefit to student learning (there is nothing in any studies I have seen that says there is such a link). So I am left, in short, questioning the point of the exercise, as well as the considerable impact it will have on each of our classrooms and courses as we come to terms with figuring this out.
For the record, I *always* let students know at the outset of each course what I think the course is about, and what I expect them to know and be able to do by the end of it, should they attend, do the assignments and readings and participate in class activities, and talk with me or my TA if they hit a roadblock. The helps both the students and me, but also allows for the flexibility Charles Bingham refers to (presenter # 3 in that video).
As with others posting, I urge you to review this matter and send your responses to Dr. Driver by this Friday. ucilsec@sfu.ca
Adrienne Burk
Sociology and Anthropology
Teaching Fellow: FASS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elise Chenier" <echenier@gmail.com>
To: "Nancy Forde" <nforde@sfu.ca>
Cc: "Lisa Shapiro" <lshapiro@sfu.ca>, "Christopher Pavsek" <cpavsek@sfu.ca>, academic-discussion@sfu.ca, "Bernhard Riecke" <ber1@sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:13:23 PM
Subject: Re: Open letter regarding learning outcomes
Hello,
I went into the last SFUFA meeting thinking that clearly stated learning outcomes would be a good thing for reasons some of you have stated. I had a discussion with Charles Bingham of the Department of Education on that point and his view was that we can set goals, but determining an outcome before we even meet students does not allow us to account for what the class actually needs, and limits our ability to lower, raise, or go sideways from the stated "outcomes." I was completely convinced by his argument; it clarified for me one of the serious problems with the current LOA initiative.
Bingham was on the LOA panel that was a feature of the last SFUFA meeting, and you can hear his very insightful comments on the Youtube video of the discussion, which SFUFA tells me will be available today or tomorrow. I encourage you to do so, I found it very helpful. SFUFA says they will be sending out the link when it is up.
I do hope everyone takes time to provide feedback by the 7th, whatever that may be.
Best wishes, Elise
On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Nancy Forde < nforde@sfu.ca > wrote:
Hi Lisa,
That is very clearly articulated.
I think aim 1 has clear benefits for students and for faculty (to ensure consistency of expectations when teaching of the course rotates among many faculty). It may be challenging to come to an agreement on this for some courses and programs, but it is a useful discussion to have and should not add excessively to our on-going workloads (being a one-time discussion, revisited periodically to ensure that the stated learning outcomes are still those desired.)
Aim 2 is far more fraught with challenges (how to "achieve" assessment as you state so clearly below) and with the potential to add to on-going workloads of all faculty. Initially, I thought that, if we could not assess whether learning outcomes were being met, then it seemed ridiculous to expend the effort to articulate them. However, I do believe that they are worthwhile to articulate (aim 1) for the benefits to students and faculty, and that striving to address these through our teaching and assessment will improve our teaching and hopefully the learning experience for our students.
Just my two cents,
Nancy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisa Shapiro" < lshapiro@sfu.ca >
To: "Bernhard Riecke" < ber1@sfu.ca >
Cc: "Christopher Pavsek" < cpavsek@sfu.ca >, academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Sent: Tuesday, 4 December, 2012 19:05:21
Subject: Re: Open letter regarding learning outcomes
There seem to me to be two distinct issues around Learning Outcomes and Assessment:
1. Making explicit what we as faculty expect students to accomplish (i.e. articulating learning outcomes) in a course, in degree programmes, in graduation requirements, etc.
2. Devising ways of measuring or assessing these expectations and whether they were achieved.
It strikes me that (2) is far more problematic than (1), in a number of ways. First, it is not clear how to measure what is supposedly being measured. Second, it seems that devising and implementing any such measures is where the risk of added workload lies. Third, the need for measurement if improperly understood can put pressure to homogenize pedagogical methods. I am sure there are other potential issues that are not occurring to me right now.
As the process of LOA goes forward, it is important to be clear about this distinction and the various burdens that may or may not be imposed.
Cheers,
Lisa Shapiro
Philosophy
On 2012-12-03, at 10:54 PM, Bernhard Riecke wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
to make this discussion a bit more diverse and interesting, I'd like to contribute my 2 cents and recent experience here:
I'm currently re-designing a course, and was trying to determine what exactly students from the per-requisite courses were actually (supposed to be) able to do when the coming into my course. So I looked at the course syllabi of those prior courses - alas, there was no clear indication what students were really supposed to learn (as they had no clear learning outcomes listed). First of all, I think this is not fair to the students if we do not share what we have in mind (we do have something in mind I suppose ;-). Also, this lack of clear LO resulted in me having to ask a number of instructors to get a better picture of what they really do in their course. While I don't mind asking them, it's simply inefficient and I honestly do not see any good argument why we should not communicate what we, the instructors, hope students will learn and get out of our courses.
While I can imagine certain political reasons and process-related issues that might argue against the current implementation plans, I find that in general, clear learning outcomes can be an invaluable tool in designing good courses: They help us to design aligned teaching/learning activities, they communicate to the students some of the things they might learn in this course, and help us all to reduce unnecessary redundancies and thus layer courses better, so we can teach at an appropriate level.
The main potential issue I see with providing explicit desired learning outcomes would be if they were written in stone and couldn't be adjusted as necessary/appropriate without much administrative effort. If this is part of the current plan (no sure on this - I honestly didn't manage to dig through all the documents), than I would suggest that the ongoing discussion might want to address this issue directly, instead of in general arguing against LOs (which imho can be quite useful and improve both teaching and learning). I do believe that there is potential (and sometimes a need) to improve our teaching.
My 2 cents
Bernhard
On 2012-12-03 20:46, Christopher Pavsek wrote:
Dear Colleagues: Apologies for any cross posting.
Below please find the text of an open letter to the VPA, Jon Driver, and the President, Andrew Petter, in response to the recent report of the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Working Group (aka the LOAWG) that Carolyn Lesjak and I, Christopher Pavsek, have drafted in collaboration with several other faculty at SFU. We have kept it short and to the point.
We are hoping that others at SFU who are opposed to the implementation of a Learning Outcomes and Assessment framework will join us in signing this letter.
If you wish to sign this letter, please reply to Christopher Pavsek at cpavsek@sfu.ca ; please indicate your name, title, and departmental/school or other affiliation at SFU and your name will be added to the signature list.
The letter will be submitted electronically and in hard copy to the VPA and President on Friday, in time for the deadline for replying to the LOAWG report.
Please note: we feel that it is urgent to submit individual replies to the report as well. We do not think that this letter should replace individual or other collective responses to the report. To see the report, please go to this link: http://www.sfu.ca/vpacademic/committees_taskforces/LOAWG/reportloa.html
Responses to the report should be sent to the following email address not later than this Friday, December 7, as per recent instructions from the VPA's office: ucilsec@sfu.ca
TEXT OF THE LETTER:
An open letter to Andrew Petter, President, and Jon Driver, Vice President Academic.
Dear President Petter and Vice President Driver:
We the undersigned oppose the initiative to create a learning outcomes and assessment (LOA) framework at Simon Fraser University.
Based on the report of the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Working Group of October 29, 2012, we see no compelling evidence that such a framework is needed. We also see no compelling evidence that such a framework would be beneficial to the students at SFU.
In fact, there is much to convince us that an LOA framework will be detrimental to our curricula and that the implemention and administration of LOAs will be an unnecessary and heavy burden for faculty. Furthermore, we believe that the basic principles of learning outcomes is contrary to the development of the sort of rich and diverse pedagogies that should be the basis of an excellent university education.
Signed,
END OF LETTER.
Thank you very much for your time.
Christopher Pavsek
Associate Professor of Film
SFU Contemporary Arts
Simon Fraser University
149 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 1H4
Canada
778 782 4672
cpavsek@sfu.ca
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dr. Bernhard E. Riecke, Assistant Professor
School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT)
Simon Fraser University Surrey
250 - 13450 102 Avenue, Surrey, BC V3T 0A3, Canada
web: iSpaceLab.com/Riecke www.siat.sfu.ca/faculty/Bernhard-Riecke office: 2830 (2nd floor) E-mail: ber1@sfu.ca phone: +1 778.782.8432 fax: 778.782.9422
--
Nancy Forde
Associate Professor
Department of Physics
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Dr.
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
--
nforde@sfu.ca
778-782-3161 ; 778-782-3592 (fax)
http://www.sfu.ca/fordelab
"Emergence & Complexity of Life" colloquium: http://www.sfu.ca/dean-gradstudies/events/dreamcolloquium/FallColloquium.html
--
Nancy Forde
Associate Professor
Department of Physics
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Dr.
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
--
nforde@sfu.ca
778-782-3161; 778-782-3592 (fax)
http://www.sfu.ca/fordelab
"Emergence & Complexity of Life" colloquium: http://www.sfu.ca/dean-gradstudies/events/dreamcolloquium/FallColloquium.html