Learning Outcomes Assessment &
General Education
Learning outcomes assessment is an
important part the evolution of higher education. In the EES
program this effort relates to the University of Maine's
General Education Requirements.
One specific General Education requirement is for a course in the
area of "population and the environment." Many of these
courses are taught by faculty in EES.
Assessment is the process of
determining whether courses or whole academic program are
accomplishing their goals. As an example of how this process
works, see a recent
staff paper on its
application in one particular course, EES 100 -- Human Population
and the Global Environment.
The next step in the process is the
look at the outcomes of multiple courses. That is the focus of
a collaborative of faculty from seven different academic units that
is currently underway. Data are now collected for this from
courses taught in the last couple of academic years. The proposal for this collaborative
is entitled
"Measuring Impacts of Population and
the Environment General Education Requirement Offerings on
Attitudinal Change of UMaine Students."
This project will use a standardized instrument,
The New Ecological
Paradigm, to determine whether it is useful in measuring
attitudinal changes in response to a specific set of courses
designed to meet this general education requirement. The
results of this research are forthcoming as journal articles.
A
poster on this research
was presented at
2006 National Summer Conference Integrating Science
and Mathematics Education Research into Teaching June 25-28, 2006
summarized some of this research.
The first research
on this topic was recently published. See:
Mark W. Anderson,
Mario Teisl, et al. “Attitudinal Changes of Undergraduate Students
in General Education Courses.” Journal of General Education.
Vol. 56. No. 2. 149-168.
For a more general
discussion of some of the faculty issues surrounding attitudinal
assessment see:
Mark W. Anderson.
“Should Improving Student Thinking Include Altering Student Values?
The Role of General Education” In Assessment Matters section of
About Campus. Vol. 12. No. 2 (July/August 2007) pp. 23-25.
This also led to development of a
course-specific attitudinal assessment
instrument for EES 100 that was tested first in
the fall semester 2006 and again in the
fall 2008, reported on here.
Further assessment work resulted in a
presentation at the International Symposium on Society and Resource
Management in Burlington, Vermont, June 12, 2008:
Attitudinal Change in Higher Education Courses
on the Environment: What Questions Should We Be Asking?
These assessment efforts are supported
by
UMaine's Center for Teaching Excellence.
For
more information on Assessment, see the
New England Educational Assessment Network
and the
New England Association of Schools and
Colleges.
Of course, in the summer, Maine gives
us all plenty of opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of this
state. This is looking North on the West Branch of the
Penobscot River on a beautiful July day.
