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Friday, February 11, 2011

Faculty Focus: Service-Learning: Tips for Aligning Pedagogies with Learning Outcomes


By Magna Publications

While it is easy to see how service-learning meshes with courses in the social sciences, public health and education, can it work equally well in other areas, such as the hard sciences and the humanities?
Yes! While service-learning is not appropriate for every course, it can and does work well in every discipline. No matter the discipline, research has shown that service-learning helps students identify and examine the “big questions” and the social context in which the disciplines are situated.

Service-learning also asks students to consider a discipline’s knowledge base and how it is used in real practice, and consider the larger questions that lie outside the boundaries of many traditional courses. With service-learning, students see the interdisciplinary nature of problems and solutions. They see the complexity of the social fabric.
Students love seeing the relevance of course content to real-world issues. Can you work service-learning into your curriculum so there’s time for both? Don’t think of it as “working in” service-learning, but as designing or redesigning the course. If you add a service-learning element to an existing course, remove another element. If you’re adding an assignment (service), reduce the volume of assignments accordingly.

Service-learning course design
When looking at course design, the first question to ask is, “What pedagogies will align with desired learning outcomes?”

You know that learning outcomes are hot topics for discussion today. They’re required by all the regional accrediting associations at the course major and college levels. Learning outcomes need to be stated in concrete, measurable terms. And, they also need to make it clear to students what they can expect to gain from the course.

And there are other concerns you should address, too. For example:
•What do you want students to know as a result of taking the course?
•What learning outcomes are best achieved through service-learning? Why?
•What new awarenesses do you want them to gain?

As faculty members, we understand what it means to select and use a text in a course to enhance student learning. With service-learning, a good guideline is to look at it as the equivalent to text. While it is not literally a text, it serves an equivalent function. Service can be equal to written work in terms of learning potential.

When it comes to using a text, we can make it required or optional. The same applies to “service-as-text.” We determine how much of the texts students will be required to read and we can determine how much, or how many hours of service students will do. We know how to provide structures for reading, analyzing, discussing, and evaluating a text.
This means the service experience and the course materials are equivalent to course content. Second, like text, you must decide which service experiences are appropriate for the course, and whether they’ll be optional or required. Third, it means structures need to be provided so students can thoroughly read, analyze, and discuss the “text.”

Finally, it is necessary to evaluate how well students have learned. The service-learning-text analogy suggests that evaluation should be based on what students learned from their experience.

Let’s look more closely at creating a course design. Here’s an example of a course description, the service-learning outcome and how it was achieved.

Introduction to Chemistry course:
The students in this course take and analyze water samples from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. At the same time, they’re studying the periodic table. That interaction brings the table alive as they study the chemicals that cause the pollution. The results are reported to an organization that uses the information to improve the ecological health of the Bay.

Desired learning outcome: Identify the causes of pollution in Chesapeake Bay.

How it was achieved: Students worked with a conservation organization and took water samples from the Bay, analyzed them, and added them to the organization’s database. That organization then used that information to help them lobby for additional funding to preserve the Bay.
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Dillard University News February 2011


DILLARD UNIVERSITY NAMED TO ACE’S CREATING GLOBAL CITIZENS: EXPLORING INTERNATIONALIZATION AT HBCUS PROJECT

(New Orleans) The American Council on Education (ACE) today named Dillard University as one of the seven institutions nationwide to participate in a new project, Creating Global Citizens: Exploring Internationalization at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), partially supported by the U.S. Department of Education. As part of the project, Dillard University will develop a strategic plan to advance its internationalization efforts.

At Dillard University, President Marvalene Hughes, Ph.D., and Dr. David Taylor, provost and senior vice president, lead this effort.

“Internationalization is key to the continued success of HBCUs,” said Dr. Hughes. “The Creating Global Citizens program will help Dillard students to broaden their worldview, while also helping them to compete in today’s global economy. In concert with our expanding study abroad program and our ongoing membership in the international Melton Foundation, the Creating Global Citizens program will further establish Dillard as a leading university for cross-cultural, experiential learning.”

“Except for our Melton Foundation membership, we had been doing what other universities traditionally do in their approach to internationalization through exchange programs and study abroad opportunities,” Hughes said. She noted that the Global Citizens program would offer from a different approach in which all students will benefit through interdisciplinary curriculum and activities.

“In the 21st century, if we do not prepare our graduates to join the global workforce, our economy and country will fall behind. That is why the Department of Education’s support for this effort and the work of these institutions is so critical,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad. “I congratulate these seven colleges and universities, which were selected after a very rigorous application process.”

“This grant is one of several efforts we are undertaking to give HBCUs, Minority Serving Institutions, and other schools the tools they need to educate students for success in our global society,” said Eduardo Ochoa, assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education. “We look forward to the outcomes of ACE’s work
and hope the results will serve as a model for other HBCUs and schools that serve students who are under-represented in international education.”

Dillard University and the six other institutions were chosen after rounds of written applications and a competitive review process. In the next month, Dillard University staff will attend an opening meeting with ACE project staff and the other selected HBCUs to discuss beginning steps.

Other institutions named to the project include: Howard University, Lincoln University of Missouri, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Savannah State University, Tuskegee University and Virginia State University.

The project is overseen by an advisory group of representatives from the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), National Association for Equal Opportunity in Education (NAFEO), the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), UNCF-Special Programs, and leaders from within the HBCU community.

Creating Global Citizens is funded by a U.S. Department of Education, International Studies and Research Grant award ($357,976) with an ACE match of 35 percent ($191,479).

Dillard University, founded in 1869, is a private four-year liberal arts institution in New Orleans, Louisiana, which has consistently ranked among the top Historically Black Universities in the country. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
Founded in 1918, ACE is the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents, and more than 200 related associations, nationwide. It seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives.

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Dillard Student Tess Williams recipient of the Jack H. Sanders Memorial Award for Public Relations

(New Orleans) A Dillard University student has become the first recipient from a historically black college of the $1,000 Jack H. Sanders Award, the Baton Rouge Chapter of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana (PRAL) announced.

Tess Williams, a junior mass communication major from New Orleans, will receive the 2011 award at a banquet Tuesday, Jan. 25, at Juban’s restaurant in Baton Rouge for demonstrating proficiency, excellence and dedication to the pursuit of a career in journalism or public relations.

The 29-year-old Jack H. Sanders Memorial Award is named in honor of the first president of PRAL, who was considered a visionary in the public relations profession. Thirteen of the previous recipients, or 45 percent, have been LSU students. Five have been from New Orleans area schools – three from Loyola, one from Tulane and now one from Dillard.

Other recipients have attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (formerly Southwestern), Nicholls State, Northeast Louisiana University, Louisiana College and Louisiana Tech University.

Dr. Cleo Joffrion Allen, chair of Mass Communication at Dillard who recommended Williams, said, “We are thrilled to have one of our students make the list of winners, and we hope to have many more in the future.”

Founded in 1972, PRAL is an affiliate of the Southern Public Relations Federation and has more than 200 members with chapters in Alexandria and Baton Rouge.

F A C T S H E E T
Winners of the Jack H. Sanders Memorial Award include:
2011 Tess Williams, Dillard University
2010 Kelly Glymph, Louisiana State University
2009 Luke J. Coussan Jr., Louisiana State University
2008 Megan Broussard, University of Louisiana Lafayette
2007 Elliot Anthony Hutchinson, Louisiana State University
2006 Nicole O’Malley, Louisiana State University
2005 Katie Spears, Louisiana State University
2004 Fleur Ferrara, Louisiana State University
2003 Jacob Landry, Louisiana State University
2002 Elizabeth Barrow Tadie, Louisiana State University
2001 Charlotte Hornstein, Louisiana State University
2000 Denise Belleville, Loyola University
1999 Katherine Bourgeois, Louisiana State University
1998 Cory E. Melancon, Nicholls State University
1997 Valerie G. Keller, University of Southwest Louisiana
1996 Cathy Caldiera, Loyola University
1995 Gretchen Hirschey, Louisiana State University
1994 Amy Hipp, Louisiana State University
1993 Timothy P. Ardillo, Northeast Louisiana University
1992 R. LeeAnne Bamburg, Northeast Louisiana University
1991 Susan McCann, Louisiana College
1990 Dana A. Lopez, Nicholls State University
1989 Allison Harvey, Tulane University
1988 Elisa L. Knapp, Louisiana Tech University
1987 Carlen Elise Pool, Louisiana State University
1986 Jennifer Lea Bearden, Northeast Louisiana University
1985 Patricia Stevens, Northeast Louisiana University
1984 Michelle Thionville, Loyola University
1983 Sibley Jefferson, Northeast Louisiana University
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Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Jossey-Bass Department Chair Insider


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Distance Education Report: How to Orient New Instructors to an Online Course FAST!


Date: Thursday, 04/14/11
Time: 1:00-2:15 PM CDT
Cost: $279 ($304 after 04/07/11)

Featured Higher Education Presenter: Jennifer Berghage

Help new online instructors avoid “deer in the headlights” moments
(And cut down on the calls to the Help Desk!)

Even in a bricks-and-mortar classroom, new instructors can struggle to find their footing. When you throw in the technological and other challenges of an online classroom, those struggles are magnified. Instructors can get overwhelmed; student satisfaction can plummet as a result, and with it, the reputation of your program.

You can help instructors adapt smoothly to a new online environment by building a strong orientation program for them. And you can get a wealth of strategies to help you do so in a new online seminar coming April 14.

In How to Orient New Instructors to an Online Course FAST!, Jennifer Berghage, instructional designer at Penn State’s World Campus, will share three highly effective orientation tools:

Instructor tip sheets
•What they are
•How to use them
•The right way to create them

Rubrics and answer keys
•How they can help instructors
•What they should look like
•Which to use for assignments and which for exams
•How to gain faculty buy-in for answer keys

Web site walk-throughs
•Which technologies to use
•How long to make them
•How they’ll help your instructors

You can use the ideas you’ll gather in this information-packed, 75-minute audio presentation to help you:
•Build instructors’ confidence and competence.
•Maintain a high level of institutional quality for students.
•Reduce calls to the Help Desk.
Ask questions and share your thoughts

This live, interactive seminar includes a dedicated Q&A session. You can fine-tune your understanding of the material, get help with the challenges you face on your campus, and share your ideas with colleagues from campuses nationwide. It’s a great opportunity to collaborate!

Convenient and affordable

With Magna Online Seminars, you don’t have to deal with the hassles of off-campus travel. You don’t have to deal with the expense, either … no lodging, no meals, no transportation and no high site fees. The cost of this seminar is a modest $279; what’s more, it applies per site, not per person. Others from your campus can attend at no extra charge; just sign on from a facility large enough to accommodate everyone.

Who should attend?
•Distance ed administrators
•Instructional designers
•Administrators and managers of online education
Help make sure your new instructors are prepared, not panic-stricken.
Register today!
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Faculty Focus Special Report 10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching_Best Practices in Distance Education


One of the things that draws people to online learning is also one of its biggest challenges. Without the familiar time and space parameters of a traditional class, it’s sometimes hard for students and faculty to know exactly what’s expected of them. As a result, each side gets frustrated and the teaching and learning experience suffers.

This special report explains the “rules of the road” for online teaching and learning and features a series of articles by Larry Ragan, director of faculty development for Penn State’s World Campus.
10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education will help you establish online instructor best practices and expectations, including explaining core behaviors related to:
•instructional design
•time management
•course management
•online security
•quality assurance

Achieve the performance expectations required by today’s top institutions with 10 Principles of Effective Online Teaching: Best Practices in Distance Education.
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tomorrows-professor Digest, Vol 52, Issue 4: Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning


Are We Teaching What to Look For?

My most striking impression was of the great difficulty some, ALTHOUGH CERTAINLY NOT ALL, Indian, Korean, and other Asian engineers have in learning how to ?climb? a ladder of abstraction and hierarchies. For example, I asked one such Indian student to stop describing what had gone wrong in the case, and start looking at who was responsible, who might have to be moved from his job, how , in systems terms, you might set up procedures to prevent a similar occurrence. He simply froze! Without criticizing him, or trying to embarrass him, I could not get him to see the company as a whole, with its various levels, and the kind of organizational chart you might look for to spot the weak link. In my last two trips to China, I heard similar stories about Chinese-trained engineers who would not tell you when something was wrong.

I?ve had this experience in Grenoble, in Munich, in Singapore, in Mexico City so it?s not restricted either to Asians, engineers, or any particular sub-group. What seems to be missing is a consciousness on the part of young professionals to look for a chain of responsibility, a chain of commission and omission that explains ?the problem.? With some French students, they have been asking me for my ? methodology? to grasp issues in a case study, to which I explain that if such a thing existed apart from the human brain, the Japanese would have perfected a gadget for it, and none of the French would have a job.

Take the EXXON Valdez case as an exemplar of what I mean. There was a collision between a laden tanker with a reef in Alaska in 1989. The captain was not on the bridge; he was drunk in his bed. the Third Mate was illegally in command ( you have to be a First Mate to qualify.) Neither the U.S. Coast Guard, Alyeska Pipeline Company or EXXON had emergency equipment available to deal with the resulting spillage of 11 million gallons of crude oil. There was no instant communication available to anyone who might have prevented the ship from sailing, had all the facts been known. My question as the instructor was, so what should have happened before the accident, why didn?t it, and who is responsible? What strikes me today, 20 years later, is how eerily the BP Macondo oil well explosion parallels the EXXON experience, how little seems to have been learned ( at almost any level) within the industry. Jay Forrester wrote abut Systems Theory back in the 1960?s?have we forgotten ? T
ony Hayward, CEO of BP assumed that each of the levels responsible for safety, drilling, inspection, and quality control of equipment was doing their job?without the verification that trust demands.

There is a story that Mexican potters always build a defect into their pots deliberately because only God can make a perfect pot.

What has all of this got to do with how we teach, not just in business or engineering schools, but in any human endeavor where elements of risk exist. How do we teach that professionals at any level be able to identify the responsible level, even the individual who can be asked point blank: are you sure? I know that corporations with tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of employees jealously guard their inner telephone book and organization chart. When I worked for AT&T, only 5th level and above were privy to the actual office and home telephone numbers for any person at their level and above. Apart from privacy concerns, a good question is whether this ?concealment? of who is responsible at such august levels is effective in an unusual situation. If the job title were identified, but not the name, would that be enough? Or does a culture that inhibits a lower level employee from actually contacting a ?higher-up? lead to ignorance on the latter?s part of what is act ually happening on the ground. Arjay Miller, former president of Ford Motor, and later dean of the Business School at Stanford said in a Wall Street Journal article that Corporate Directors are inundated monthly with tales of shenanigans, failures, irresponsibility, etc., rather than remaining blissful ignorant. The problem for them lies in how to triage all this information.

According to the Commissions which President Obama appointed to look into the BP disaster, into the Financial near-meltdown, into the Housing foreclosure crisis of 2006-2010 in every case there was knowledge in the system that some things were wrong. Neel Kashkari, the Assistant Secretary to Henry Paulson, stated publicly that already in the fall of 2006 signs were accumulating in the U.S. Treasury that some banks were in big trouble rolling over some of their problem loans. In the case of the BP disaster, the Frontline video spells out in horrific detail, personal knowledge of sloppy construction, equipment that should only have lasted 20 years being run for 37 years, budget cuts that seriously affected preventive maintenance, assurances from supervisors that, oh yeah, it will all be all right. etc. Selling mortgages to families without a financial cushion, with ?no money down? is asking for a bubble that inevitably gets pricked?are we to believe that no one knew?

I?m not trying to reform Corporate behavior; all I am asking for is that when we train business majors, engineers, scientists, managers of any description, we insist that they learn about hierarchies, about organizational charts, about delegation of authority so that when something is wrong they can follow the trail, just like a blood hound. That means not sticking to software programs that tell you how ?it?s supposed to work?; not imbuing students with ?tools? for financial or stress analysis at the omission of how such decisions are mediated inside large organizations. Teaching , especially outside North American and Northern Europe tends to rote learning of formulae, of established procedures without ever considering what to do if it doesn?t work right, and the trickiest aspect, how to tell ?the boss? that (s)he?s got a serious problem. As the Director?Strategic Planning for NY Telephone and later AT&T, I made my share of bloopers in trying to warn my boss when things went
wrong. Much as he cared for me, he was furious for embarrassing him in front of his peers. Nor did he ( or for that matter any boss) appreciate being told of problems for which I had no solution because they were systemic, beyond my remit, or laden with problematic consequences.

The saying goes that if you ask the right question, you have more than half the right answer. Nowhere is this more true than in asking ? what do you do when something is wrong?? Back in the 1990?s I taught a case about Eli Lilly which had developed an NSAID anti-arthritic drug that seemed especially effective. But over the two years the drug was sold in the UK increasing rumors suggested that it was dangerous. Finally in July 1981, an article in The Lancet blamed it for 62 deaths. My question to the students was what if you worked at Lilly and knew it was dangerous and no one was listening? In a two hour class of adults I heard every side of this question. Then I handed out the Arjay Miller article and suggested that every big company has something like this waiting to explode, but that even Directors may actually know about it.

If we were to make a serious efforts in universities, especially in graduate schools, of imbuing students with a sense, not just of responsibility to call a spade a spade, but giving them the perspective of the entire organization, the levers of power and accountability and the negotiating skills of speaking ?truth to power?, we might elevate the quality of their education (as distinct from training) as well as the functioning of our modal organizational entities.
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Academic Impressions Higher Ed Impact: Weekly News & Key Takeaways


February 4 - 10, 2011
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LSU Higher Education Program Open House


HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM OPEN HOUSE
FEBRUARY 22, 2011
5:00 PM
LSU UNION INTERNATIONAL ROOM
BATON ROUGE, LA

Please join us for a chance to learn more about the
Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy programs in Higher Education at Louisiana State University. We will cover topics from the admissions process to coursework to graduation. We will discuss the comprehensive exam versus thesis option for master’s students, and demystify the dissertation process for doctoral students. Following these discussions, you will have an opportunity to sit in on a portion of a Higher Education course.

If you have any questions about the Open House or the Higher Education Program, please contact:
Dr. Brian Bourke (bbourke@lsu.edu) or Dr. Roland Mitchell (rwmitch@lsu.edu)
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Online Clasroom: Five Ways to Improve Interaction in Your Online Courses


Date: Wednesday, 04/06/11
Time: 12:00-1:00 PM CDT
Cost: $259 ($284 after 03/30/11)

Featured Higher Education Presenter: Jill Schiefelbein

Online courses are more popular than ever. If you haven’t been asked to teach one, it could happen soon.
But whether you’re new to online teaching, have taught a couple of online courses or many, teaching online poses a unique challenge. With the present economic and financial realities of today’s higher education world, teachers and trainers are often thrown into online teaching with minimal, if any, training, and very little guidance for improvement.

Many workshops and seminars about online classes focus on higher-level technologies or activities that instructors can use to engage students.

But Five Ways to Improve Interaction in Your Online Courses, a new Magna Online Seminar, offers a practical, well-rounded approach that will work no matter how little or how much online experience you possess. It takes a “small step” approach that any participant can use so they know exactly what’s needed to improve their mastery of online teaching and move forward.

Your instructor, Jill Schiefelbein, is an accomplished online course manager at Arizona State University. Her combination of experience, skill, and enthusiasm will help you make the most of what you learn. She’ll answer questions “live” during the seminar.

What the Seminar Covers:

•The variety of communication channels available in an online environment
•The pros and cons of each channel–video conferencing, audio conference, webinars, Skype, and more
•Customized tools to help strengthen communication with each channel
•Understanding media richness theory and how it affects online engagement and interaction
•You’ll take away at least one concrete goal for injecting personality, increasing student engagement, and enhancing interaction in an online class.
Connect many for the price of one

If your campus has more than one person who will benefit from this seminar, you’ll be pleased to know that you can fill a room with participants and only pay one low fee of $259 per single sign-on location.

Bonus: Free Facilitator’s Guide

Participants can put into practice what they discover at the seminar with the free Discussion Guide for Facilitators. It contains all the tools they'll need to help better apply what they learned during the seminar. It’s available with both the online seminar and the CD.
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