a course designed to be offered in the final semester/quarter/year of a student’s major that ties together the key learning objectives that faculty expect the student to have learned during the major, interdisciplinary program, or interdepartmental major, and which serves as a transition from the classroom to the workplace.

Foundations Course

Freshman Experience Course

The natural role of a capstone course is to minimize the gap between the expert profile typical of professionals in a particular field and the student’s current state of preparedness. Capstone courses offer undergraduate students nearing graduation the opportunity to summarize, evaluate, and integrate some or all of their college experiences, and demonstrate that they have met the goals established by their educational program. Depending on the discipline and institution, capstone courses may take the form of group projects, senior seminars, undergraduate theses, or clinical experiences that integrate and synthesize what students have learned through the academic program. Ideally, graduate and alumni performance should match the learning and thinking profiles typical of professionals in their chosen fields.

2.4.3    Development and Use of an Expert Profile

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A challenge grant, or matching grant, is a gift that will match, dollar-for-dollar, donations received from other sources, up to the limit of the grant

(Keep this paragraph as a potential extended definition—even though it is an INTERNAL challenge grant SYSTEM, which applies only to higher education.)  See what Carol and Steve think.

From: 1.3.6  Implementing an Internal Challenge Grant System

An internal challenge grant system is a process by which an institution sets aside a portion of its own (internal) funds to invite and finance innovation within the institution in ways that will improve its effectiveness. The idea is not that the institution will finance the entire project, but rather that it will provide seed money to get a project started and facilitate a strong enough beginning to better enable the grant recipient(s) to solicit sustaining funds from external sources. It is a challenge in that it is a competitive process designed to encourage new ways to promote institutional or academic goals using the broader strategic plan as the source for establishing selection criteria. It is a system because typically funds are allocated every year for this purpose, and the project selection committee members often become increasingly skilled at facilitating change within the larger institutional culture, sometimes with the help of an external change agent.

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the predictable series of stages an organization will go through while it undergoes major transformational change. There is an assumption that these stages are common to all large change situations and that often the likelihood of successful change can be increased when this process is analyzed, understood, and mediated

Change Advocate—the individual or group who want(s) to achieve change, understand(s) the implications and importance of the change, but who lack(s) the power to sanction it.

Change Sponsor—the individual or group who has the power and influence to legitimize the change; most often an executive or person in upper administration

Change Agent—the individual or group responsible for seeing that a previously determined change occurs. Change agents serve as planners, diagnosticians, implementers, translators, ombudsmen, coaches, and negotiators during the transition stage. Within colleges and universities the role of change agent is normally played by middle or lower level administration.

Change Participant—the individual or group who, as a result of the change, will alter their knowledge, skills, attitudes, or behavior. By their participation or non-compliance, change participants determine whether or not the intended modification of knowledge, skill attitudes, or behavior actually occurs and is lasting.

Transformational change affects all levels of an organization, challenging established behaviors as well as core values and culture. According to one model of transformational change, the organization must move through three stages in order for effective and lasting change to occur. First, stakeholders must first accept a disruption in stability (unfreezing) as established frames of reference and accepted patterns within the organization are invalidated. Next is a transition state during which people no longer act the same, nor are they settled in a new behavior pattern. Stakeholders feel a need to reduce anxiety caused by this disruption, and they respond either by creating a new pattern of stability, or by reverting to the old state. Finally the new behaviors must be firmly established (refreezing) so that the change sticks. If the unfreezing and transition states are well planned and managed, the refreezing process results in the desired state. If the unfreezing and transition states are not handled appropriately, the organization is likely to refreeze in an undesired state.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper and Row. 

1.3.8    Successful Institutional Change—The Human Dimension

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techniques used by faculty to determine what students in their classrooms are learning and how well they are learning it, conducted in periodic, ongoing ways that allow faculty to adjust their methods in response to assessment feedback.

These assessment techniques can be used by any teacher of any discipline to assess students’ learning during the semester while there is still time to improve in response to the assessment feedback. When these techniques are practiced regularly, classrooms become laboratories and teachers become researchers, adding to the body of knowledge about the kind of teaching that maximizes learning.

3.3.1    Overview of Effective Teaching Practices

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously. Ideally when learners recognize incongruity they reshape their framework of understanding (accommodation) to correct earlier misconceptions or to find a superior framework that explains both

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a group of learners who attend together all of the required courses leading to a degree or point of completion

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3.4.2 Designing Teams and Assigning Roles

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a sense that all participants in a classroom situation or any group are “on the same page” with respect to their commitment to working together to achieve a mutually understood and embraced goal.

In every learning situation, success depends in large part on how committed the participants are to themselves, to the community of learners, and to the process of learning. Commitment to self entails a belief that one’s potential is not limited by current abilities; that every learner can learn to learn better. Commitment to the community of learners involves accepting a shared vision in a cooperative venture and being willing to participate fully, even though participation may entail significant risk-taking in front of others and the need to work past failure of self and others. Commitment to the process of learning requires openness to diverse learning approaches and ideas and willingness to experiment and fail. Students also want to know that the instructor is determined to help them achieve course outcomes and to develop as learners. It is helpful to make this commitment explicit and public, perhaps in the form of a contract.

3.1.6  Obtaining Shared Commitment

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Institutions and individuals with a commitment to excellence routinely look for ways to improve and embrace quality improvement beliefs and practices. In well-designed courses instructors set high expectations for their courses and provide resources and support structures to help students tackle these challenges. Institutions demonstrate their commitment to excellence by requesting that accrediting organizations regularly assess and evaluate their programs as they strive for improvement standards that they have set beyond the minimal expectations of the accrediting agency.

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special type of informal network that emerges from a desire to work more effectively or to understand work more deeply among members of a particular specialty or work group. At the simplest level, CoPs are small groups of people who've worked together over a period of time and through extensive communication have developed a common sense of purpose and a desire to share work-related knowledge and experience.

http://www.tfriend.com/cop-lit.htm

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Definition 2: the various ways in which the University extends its expertise for the direct benefit of the local community and other external audiences (http://www.colorado.edu/ContinuingEducation/outreachdefinition.htm)

• make products of research and creative activity useful beyond the academic community
• enable learning to occur outside the classroom
• encourage the creation and dissemination of knowledge about professional practice
• collaborate with local government, industry, and education entities in meeting shared goals

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an organizational scheme for instructional design, building on Bloom’s taxonomy, that helps educators and learners identify the most comprehensive list possible of transferable learning skills that apply to multiple disciplines and which are needed for successful performance in work and in life.

(can add or cut…)

This scheme is distinct in that it recognizes the need to develop many types of skills that are necessary in life and work but which are often ignored in traditional curricula and learned, sink-or-swim fashion, on the job.

(Really these are sub-terms under this umbrella. The first def is looking at the Classification from afar, and these terms look at it using binoculars. They are all important and deserve good treatment because they’re so central, so let’s not skimp just because we are alphabetizing these under a larger umbrella term)

• General Skills--?

• Specific Skills--Specific behaviors and attitudes which enable the learner to develop performance in general skills

• Domain: a sphere of functioning performance

To ensure that important learning skills are not overlooked in designing curricula or performance criteria, educators have inventoried the skills and classified them under four distinct but interconnected domains: cognitive, social, affective (skills related to regulating emotions), and psychomotor (skills that involve physical competence). Skills within the domains are ranked in order of difficulty/sophistication to help curriculum designers build appropriate skills to appropriate/realistic levels. Language development is a fundamental prerequisite for developing skills in all domains, and assessment (continuous reflective practice and improvement) is the engine that drives growth in all skills. The Classification expands on Bloom’s taxonomy, but, whereas Bloom described levels of attainments, he did not substantially address process skills or the manner in which the learner proceeds from one level to the next. 

• Cognitive--skills related to thinking and attaining knowledge

The cognitive domain contains learning skills predominantly related to mental (thinking) processes and include a hierarchy of skills such as information processing, constructing understanding, applying knowledge, critical thinking, problem solving, and research. It also encompasses skills that are independent of context and discipline. Cognitive skill development is best sequenced following the levels that parallel educational objectives laid out in Bloom’s taxonomy because learning skills from lower-level processes are embedded in learning skills associated with higher-level processes

information: Knowledge acquired in any manner; for example by facts, data, learning, or lore

information processing: Methods used for collecting, retrieving, assessing, organizing, and storing information. Processing information includes collecting data, generating data, organizing data, retrieving data, and validating information.

constructing understanding: includes analyzing, synthesizing, reasoning, and validating understanding.

applying knowledge: includes performing with knowledge, modeling, being creative, and validating results

critical thinking definition needed if we include these sub-sub-terms

 

solving problems: includes identifying the problem, structuring the problem, creating solutions, and improving solutions.

 

conducting research: includes formulating research questions, obtaining evidence, discovering, and validating scholarship.

2.3.4 Cognitive Domain   Table 1

• Affective-- attitudinal skills predominantly related to emotional (affective) processes.

The learning processes in the affective domain include being open to experience, engaging in life, cultivating values, managing oneself, and developing oneself. Monitoring and managing ones affect is critical for motivation to learn; it is essential if one is to have the discipline to put in the considerable time, effort, and discomfort that it takes to improve as a learner and to grow as a person. When people are challenged with learning experiences, they may need to address basic emotional issues that were put on hold earlier in life which now require growth. The higher levels of the framework reflect the affective control and performance desired by wise, mature, and integrated persons.

(Elsewhere—in a graphic, maybe?—these three are listed, which basically match, except for aesthetics. Need to change something for consistency?)

Value Development

Personal Development

Aesthetics

2.3.6    Affective Domain   Table 1

• Social Domain interpersonal skills

All of the process areas and specific skills in this domain involve interpersonal performance in the large range of social contexts in which learning occurs. Skills are organized hierarchically and include communication, teamwork, management, and leadership. Some of the benefits of learning about social domain skills include greater awareness that communicating and teaming skills support management and leadership skills, that context greatly influences selection and uses of knowledge, and that integration of social domain processes into any learning process will enhance transfer potential.

2.3.5 Social Domain   Table 1

• Psychomotor Domain skills deal with one’s physical development, wellbeing, and skill in working with objects and using tools. These skills range from the habit of keeping oneself healthy enough to have the necessary strength and endurance to perform optimally to having the fine motor skills or muscle memory necessary to perform necessary tasks on the job.

*We do not yet have a FGB module that deals with the Psychomotor Domain.

Traditional curricula often fail to address the development of many skills needed for successful performance in work and life, assuming that learners will acquire these skills as needed on their own. Too often this does not happen and learners who were successful students find themselves in careers for which they are not suited because they lack skills in areas that severely limit their performance. In constructing the Classification, educators inventoried those learning skills deemed most critical for success in various disciplines. The Classification can also be used to address a number of educational research questions of interest to higher education. Which learning skills are most critical for a well-rounded education? How do individual learning skills relate to each other? How can they best be taught, especially in concert with the content-mastery skills essential to specific disciplines? How should these learning skills be measured and documented? How can these skills be best communicated to support transfer from one discipline to another?

http://www.pcrest.com/LO/CLS/1.htm

2.3.3    Classification of Learning Skills

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http://ca.encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861599121/competence.html

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General idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences; a generalized idea of a thing or class of things.

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A diagram illustrating the relationships among concepts, sometimes showing clusters of closely related terms connected to the main term, sometimes showing hierarchical relationships, sometimes illustrating causal connections

We need to explain why concept maps are useful. Something about constructivism and anticipating what ideas and associations are likely to occur in students’ minds? Is it a tool for instructional design primarily, or are they useful tools to use as hand-outs or visuals in class? Help, Carol and Steve.

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Any construct that illustrates a concept; can be formed using language, physical objects, mathematics, or pictures. Examples include Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, a model of a molecule, or a double helix.

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An idea constructed by the mind, such as a theory, a working hypothesis or concept, or an idea produced from an ideology, history, or social circumstances

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an interruption of the work or learning or work process by a facilitator with questions or actions intended to improve students’ learning skills and/or work product. The purpose is to help students build skills, not to provide answers.

While students (or group members) are learning or working, often in teams, the facilitator observes the process in order to identify and assess the use of essential skills needed for performance mastery, and, when necessary skills are lacking, interrupts the process briefly to guide the learner and encourage him/her to elevate the appropriate skills to the level needed to successfully perform. When students struggle in performance contexts, it is tempting to intervene by providing or clarifying disciplinary knowledge; but such interventions must be done so as to facilitate mental independence and support active learning. The word constructive is used both in the sense of providing positive assessment feedback and in the sense of helping learners to elevate and expand their learning skills, i.e., to construct better skills through reflective practice.

3.2.7    Constructive Intervention

3.2.8    Constructive Intervention Techniques

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a theory of knowing that regards learners not as blank slates, but as active agents in their learning who construct their own knowledge, making