Course Evaluation
Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education
Arthur Chickering
Memphis State University
Zelda Gamson
The University of Michigan
Apathetic students, illiterate graduates, incompetent teachers, impersonal campuses so rolls the drumfire of criticism of higher education. Two and a half years of reports have spelled out the problems. College and university task forces scramble to respond. States hold out carrots and beat with sticks.
But how can faculty and students improve?
We offer a framework that will help people on campuses make improvements. Research findings regarding good teaching and learning in colleges and universities can be stated quite simply. Good practice in undergraduate education:
- Encourages contacts between student and faculty
- Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students
- Uses active learning techniques
- Gives feedback promptly
- Emphasizes time on task
- Communicates high expectations
- Respects diverse talents and ways of learning
These seven principles are intended as guidelines for faculty members, students, and administrators-with support from state agencies and trustees-to improve teaching and learning. These practices seem like good common sense. They are, because many teachers and students have experienced them and because research supports them. They rest on 50 years of research on the way teachers teach and students learn ' how students work and play with one another, and how students and faculty talk to each other. While each practice can stand on its own, when all are present their effects multiply. Together, they employ six powerful forces in education: activity, cooperation, diversity, expectations, interaction, and responsibility.
Good practices hold as much meaning for professional programs as for the liberal arts. They work for many different kinds of students---white, black, Hispanic, Asian, rich, poor, older, younger, male, female, well-prepared, unprepared.
We address the how, not the what, of good practice in undergraduate education. We recognize that content and pedagogy interact in complex ways. We are also aware that there is much healthy ferment within and among the disciplines. What is taught, after all, is at least as important as how it is taught. In contrast to the long history of research in teaching and learning, there is little research in the curriculum. We cannot, therefore, make responsible recommendations about the content of a good undergraduate education. That work is yet to be done.
This much we can say: An undergraduate education should prepare students to understand and deal intelligently with modem life. What better place to start but in the classroom and on our campuses? What better time than now?
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Contact Between Student and Faculty
Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of classes is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty caring and concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well helps students think about their own life styles, values, and future plans.
Some examples: Freshmen seminars on important topics, taught by senior faculty members, establish an early connection between students and faculty for many colleges and universities. The tenured faculty member who acts as a -master learner" in SUNY-Stony Brook's Federated Learning Communities becomes a role model for undergraduates. In the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, three out of four undergraduates join three-quarters of the faculty as junior research colleagues.
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Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students
Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort than a solo race. Good learning is usually collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions sharpens thinking and clarifies understanding.
Some examples: Even in large lecture classes, students can learn from one another. Learning groups are a common practice. Students are assigned to a group of five to seven other students, who meet regularly during class time throughout the term to solve problems set by the instructor. Learning communities are another popular way of getting students to work together. At Rollins College students take several courses together. The courses, on topics related to a common theme like science, technology and human values, are from different disciplines. Faculty teaching the courses coordinate with one another, and another faculty member called a -master learner" takes the courses with the students. Under the direction of the master learner, students run a seminar which helps them integrate ideas from the separate courses. Many colleges use peer tutors for students who need special help.
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Active Learning Techniques
Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes, listening to teachers talk, reading pre-packaged assignments, memorizing, and then spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.
Some examples: Active learning is encouraged in classes which use structured exercises, challenging discussions, team projects, and peer critiques. Active learning can also occur outside the classroom. There are thousands of internships, independent study, and cooperative job programs across the country in all kinds of colleges and universities, in all kinds of fields, for all kinds of students. Students also can help design and teach courses or parts of courses. At Brown University faculty members and students design new courses on contemporary issues and universal themes; the students then help the professor as teaching assistants. At the State University of New York at Cortland, beginning students in a general chemistry lab work in small groups to design lab procedures rather than repeat pre-structured exercises. At the University of Michigan's Residential College, teams of students work with faculty members on a long term original research project in the social sciences.
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Prompt Feedback
Knowing what you know and don't know sharpens learning. Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses. In getting started students need help in assessing existing knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. At various points during college, and at the end, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves.
Some examples: No feedback can occur without assessment. But assessment without timely feedback contributes little to learning. Colleges assess students as they enter in order to guide them in planning their studies. In addition to the feedback they receive from course instructors, students in many colleges and universities receive counseling periodically in their progress and future plans. Alverno College requires that students develop high levels of performance in eight general abilities such as analytic abilities and communication skills. Performance is assessed and then discussed with students at each level for each ability in a variety of ways and by a variety of assessors. In writing courses across the country, students are learning through detailed feedback from instructors and fellow students to revise and rewrite drafts. They learn, in the process, that feedback is central to learning and improving performance.
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Time on Task
Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis for high performance for all.
Some examples: Mastery learning, contract learning, and computer assisted instruction require that students spend adequate amounts of time on learning. Extended periods of preparation for college also give students more time on task. Matteo Ricci College guides high school students from the ninth grade to a B.A in six years through a curriculum taught jointly by faculty at Seattle Preparatory School and Seattle University. Providing students with opportunities to integrate their studies into the rest of their lives helps them use time well. Workshops, intensive residential programs, combinations of televised instruction, correspondence study, and learning centers are all being used in a variety of institutions, especially those with many part-time students. Weekend colleges and summer residential programs, courses offered at work sites and community centers, clusters of courses on related topics taught in the same time block, and double-credit courses make more time for learning. At Empire State College, for example, students design degree Programs organized in manageable time blocks; students may take courses in nearby institutions, pursue independent studies, or work with faculty and other students at Empire State learning centers.
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High Expectations
Expect more and you will get it High expectations are important for everyone, for the Poorly prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well motivated. Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high expectations of themselves and make extra efforts.
Some examples: In many colleges and universities, students with poor past records or test scores do extraordinary work. Sometimes they Outperform students with good preparation. The University of Wisconsin -Parkside communicates high expectations for underprepared high school students by bringing them to the university for workshops in academic subjects, study skills, testtaking and time - management In order to reinforce high expectations, the program involves parents and high school counselors. The University of California at Berkeley has an honors program in the sciences for underprepared minority students. Special programs like these help. But most important are the day-to-day, week-in and week-out expectations students and faculty hold for themselves and for each other in all their classes.
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Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college. Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio.
Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory.
Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learning in new ways that do not come so easily.
Some examples: It is important to recognize different talents and learning styles for all students. Individualized degree programs recognize different interests. Personalized systems of instruction and mastery learning let students work at their own pace. Contract learning helps students define their own objectives, determine the learning activities, define the criteria and methods of evaluation. At the College of Public and Community Service, a college for older working adults at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, incoming students take an orientation course that encourages them to reflect on their learning styles. At the University of California at Irvine, introductory physics students may choose between a lecture-and-textbook course, a computer-based version of the lecture-and-textbook course, or a computer-based course based on notes developed by the faculty which allow students to program the computer. In both computer-based courses, students work on their own and must pass mastery exams.
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Where To Go From Here . . .
For further information on the principles identified, the examples given and/or the references cited in this newsletter, contact the University Office for Learning Resources, Bryan Hall 215G, in Bloomington 335-9475.
Taken from TEACHING AND LEARNING at Indiana University published by the University Office for Learning Resources, April 1987.
