Glossary
Assessment -- What do faculty who are experimenting with interactive learning strategies (see constructivism) mean by "assessment"? In the simplest terms, assessment is a process for gathering and using data about student learning and performance. The LT2 web site distinguishes the following two types of assessment:
- Formative assessments -- activities that simultaneously (1) provide instructors with feedback about how and what students are learning, which the instructors can then immediately use to adjust and improve their teaching efforts; and (2) foster student learning directly because the students in the process of performing such activities. (For more information, see the FLAG website, which features classroom assessment techniques that have been show to improve learning.)
- Summative assessments -- formal examinations or tests, the results of which faculty use to demonstrate in a way that is definitive and visible to people outside the course the degree to which students have accomplished the course's learning goals.
Tom Angelo (1995) defines assessment as an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves:
- making our expectations explicit and public;
- setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality;
- systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches these expectations and standards; and
- using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance.
When it is embedded effectively within larger institutional systems, assessment can help us focus our collective attention, examine our assumptions, and create a shared academic culture dedicated to assuring and improving the quality of higher education.
Bricoleur -- a French term for a person who is adept at finding, or simply recognizing in their environment, resources that can be used to build something she or he believes is important and then putting resources together in a combination to achieve her or his goals.
Constructivism -- According to Schwandt, constructivism is a "philosophical perspective interested in the ways in which human beings individually and collectively interpret or construct the social and psychological world in specific linguistic, social, and historical contexts" (1997, p.19). During the last 20 or so years, cognitive psychologists (James Wertsch, Barbara Rogoff, and Jean Lave, among many others) have found that constructivist theories of how people construct meaning are closely aligned with their observations of how people learn: knowledge is mediated by social interactions and many other features of cultural environments.
Learning activity -- As used in the LT2 case studies, learning activity refers to specific pursuits that faculty expect students to undertake in order to learn. Thus, "Computer-enabled hands-on experimentation is a useful way to get students to take responsibility for their own learning" is a statement of belief that a particular learning activity (experimentation) helps realize a particular teaching principle.
Learning environment -- According to Wilson, a learning environment is a place where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities (1995). This definition of learning environments is informed by constructivist theories of learning.
Microcomputer-Based Laboratories (MBL) -- A set of laboratories that involve the use of (1) electronic probes or other electronic input devices, such as video cameras, to gather data that students then feed into computers, which convert the data to digital format and which students analyze using graphical visualization software; and (2) a learning cycle process, which includes written prediction of the results of an experiment, small group discussions, observation of the physical event in real time with the MBL tools, and comparison of observations with predictions.
Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education -- These principles, published in "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" by Zelda Gamson and Arthur Chickering, were synthesized from their research on undergraduate education (1991). According to their findings, good practice entails:
- Encouraging student-faculty contact.
- Encouraging cooperation among students.
- Encouraging active learning.
- Giving prompt feedback.
- Emphasizing time on task.
- Communicating high expectations.
- Respecting diverse talents and ways of learning.
Teaching principles -- Teaching principles refer to a faculty member's more general beliefs about, or philosophy of, learning. For example, the idea that "students should take responsibility for their own learning" is a teaching principle. It is general and informed by a theory of learning. It does not refer to something specific that one might actually do in a course.
References
- Angelo, T.A. (1995). Assessing (and defining) assessment. The AAHE Bulletin (AAHE), 48 (3), 7.
- Birnbaum, R. (1988). How colleges work: The cybernetics of academic organization and leadership (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Chickering, A.W., and Gamson, Z.F. (1991). Applying the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. New Directions for Teaching and Learning (Wiley, 47, 63-69.
- Schwandt, Thomas A. (1997). Qualitative inquiry: A dictionary of terms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
- Weick, K.E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1-19.
- Wilson, B. G. (1995). Metaphors for instruction: Why we talk about learning environments. Educational Technology, 35(5), 25-30. Available at http://www.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/metaphor.html.
a. These data were gathered, analyzed, and provided by an evaluation team led by U of M professor of Education, Eric Dey and colleagues.
b. Students were asked to respond to statements by indicating one of the following choices: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree.
c. Of note, UC110 is cross-listed as AOSS 171, BIOL 110, GEO 171, NRE 110.
d. In addition to the GC-I, II, and III courses, the GC minor requires two electives, chosen from some 25 courses offered by Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, Biology, Geology (in the College of Literature Science and Arts) and the School of Natural Resources and Environment.
e. Tim Killeen, professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences: "Students get turned off to science forever by getting frustrated over some titration experiment that they can't handle, or getting thrown too much math. And those students then, for the rest of their lives, are phobic about science."
f.
Ben van der Pluijm, professor of Geology: "I am very concerned about what I see happening: the running away as fast as students can from science. And I've realized you don't fight it by just giving them more science; forcing more science on them is not going to work."
g.
George Kling, biology professor: "So, one of the things that I have noticed, especially with the freshmen and especially in this course that has no science prerequisites--no math, no chemistry, none of that--is that they are very afraid of science, and don't quite understand what it is all about...I try to tell them that science is just common sense and give them examples from their everyday lives but the problem is that they aren't familiar with the units science uses. So if we say that in the global carbon cycle we can't find 2 billion tons of carbon a year, is that a lot? Well, if we said that 2 billion people a year went missing, does that sound like a lot?"
h.
Dave Allan: "I think what was going on at that time was a tremendous increase in interest in global change of a climate nature around 1988, 1989. I think the individuals involved took a broad view of global change while they were particularly struck by the emerging concern that the climate was warming as a result of human intervention. There were population issues, environmental issues, and a recognition that there was a social as well as a scientific dimension to this. But I think the prime driver, as I looked back over it, was the emerging sense of change at the global level occurring in an unprecedented way and not being addressed in the academic community, either in research or in teaching. That's what I see as the genesis."
i.
Lisa Curran, professor in SNRE: "I thought students would be much more Web savvy. Many students don't know how to open an attachment. They've never done a library search here. I think there are many skills that we take for granted since there's been this media onslaught showing how technologically savvy these kids are. Maybe they're playing Nintendo, but it doesn't necessarily mean they know how to use this for a learning tool."
j. Patrick Livingood, graduate student instructor: "I try to draw out from the students why this is relevant to consider as people, even if they're not going to be scientists. I to try to make it relevant to society, even if they're not going to be scientists or use any of this directly. When they see a headline about climate change or spending on forestry, they'll have some sense of what that means and how it matters to them. And I see that as just critical."
k. George Kling, professor of Biology, College of LS&A: "I think this is an innovative way to teach science to people who otherwise run away from it, even though their life is going to be filled with science in this century. So my reason for getting involved is driven by wanting a chance to educate students in a very different way, and to make science relevant again, like it was in the sixties when we put a man on the moon."
l. Amy, Global Change student: "I think in the area of goals, mine and the faculty's are the same. And that is, it will be my generation's responsibility to deal with this. It's essentially a crisis of the way that humans interact with the environment because we haven't been really respectful of the environment. We think we have this control over it, and so the point of the class I think is not to just show you the past 50 years and how we just hurt the environment. It's about starting at the very beginning of time, which is what we did last semester. We started with Big Bang theories and are working through to understand how the environment works, how we've impacted it."
Beth, Global Change student: "They want to show us what we can do to change things when they become problems, what we shouldn't change, what problems are important, what problems are really a crisis, and what problems really aren't problems."
m. Tim Killeen, professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Science: "We think that this program might ultimately reach a point where it is a requirement for all students to take 'a human relationship with the planet' course, and that you shouldn't be able to get a degree from the University of Michigan unless you have an appreciation for the implications of this relationship. You should know what's going on. You should know what's happening with the water resources, with land use, with soil quality, the impacts of industrialization, of migration, with the role of conflict resolution, all those things that are happening. And ultimately we'd like to tie this into the humanities, ethics, and so on. That ought to be a foundation for a university degree, and I think that if Michigan could really pull that off, it would be very distinctive."
n. George Kling, biology professor: "One of the things that I want to get across to them is that they can be independent thinkers and use the tools of science in order to evaluate questions or problems. And it is not necessarily just with science, but I can use examples that come from all walks of life and ask them to apply scientific principles to anything that is happening in their lives. So I try to dispel that fear of science and tell them that science is just common sense, and give them examples of how in your everyday life, certain things make perfect sense. I ask them, 'How many people would agree with this?' Well, of course they would agree. And then, well, that's exactly the same way science works. It's just a matter of assembling some information that is common sense. All they have to learn is the weird numbers."
o. Tim Killeen: "Our vision is that students who go through such a course will have their eyes open, will have tools, won't be afraid of science. They won't use science as a club, but as a tool to support a problem-solving outlook on the world. And there are jobs in every walk of life that can be enriched by this perspective. That is the responsibility of a research university-to do that by infusing research elements into the course."
p. Dave Allan: "I see the technology as being all sort of linked with the learning gains. I don't see the technology as an end in itself, but it is a terrific enabler of what we want to do."
q. Patrick Livingood, GSI: "I'm glad the technology gives them a chance to tinker with the idea they've been given, and play with the data they've been given, and get some confidence. They can begin coming to conclusions on their own, especially this semester with ArcView. I mean, they're using essentially the same software and the same data that any professional social scientist would use. And so hopefully they would just get a sense that they can examine this material on their own. There shouldn't be any barrier for them."
r. Laura, Global Change student: "One of the goals of the course is to make students more independent. The first lab they show you a picture of what you have to do, they give you step-by-step instructions, and as it gets further and further on in the term, they'll start to tell you, 'Design a model for this purpose,' but they won't tell you any of the specifics. Or they'd tell you to 'Use a combination of statistical methods or data from our database to show the relationship between these two things.' And then you'll have to do it on your own."
s. Ben van der Pluijm, Professor of Geology, College of LS&A: "Many of these students will go on to be lawyers, politicians, or whatever they want to be, and they will make major decisions that affect our lives. To do this right, they will not only need to read and write, but also think about the material that is given to them. That's what we want them to do in Global Change, teach them to be critical thinkers about the world around them."
t. A learning environment is a place where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their pursuits of learning goals and problem-solving activities (Wilson, 1995).
u. "Bricoleur" is a French term meaning, roughly, "handyman." A bricoleur is adept at finding, or simply recognizing in their environment, resources that can be used to build something they believe is important and then combining these resources in a way that achieves their goals.
v. David Halsing, GSI: "It works partly through establishing myself as not an authority figure, but as sort of a guide through the territory. Where they have to walk and carry their own bag, but I can point out some interesting things along the way and make them think about them. For me, it's making them critical thinkers and not handing them anything on a platter. Even when we're doing computer work, I don't want to just say, 'click this,' and watch the student. I want them to begin thinking, forming goals. 'What am I trying to get to next? What do I know? What do I need to do to get there?' And this is especially important when we're doing a content part where they have to analyze the data they're looking at, not just handing it to them, but guiding them through, and getting them to think responsibly to come up with an interpretation of what they're looking at. That's what I try to do."
w. Lisa Curran, professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment: "I see some students that say, 'I'm going to work on community development,' and others who say, 'I want to go into international policy.' I have had students from either Global Change or my undergraduate class that say, 'I'm going to be in the London School of Economics.' Minorities are now in public policy-African American males-who you normally don't see in science courses."
x. The Global Change curricula incorporate the programs STELLA and ArcView 3.0 GIS into the pedagogy. STELLA is a software package designed to help students graphically build and control dynamic models. The STELLA program interface lets the user set up model elements (stocks and flows) to specify the relations between the elements, and then project how these elements will react over time. The program serves as a useful and flexible introduction to how computers may be used to model real-world problems and situations. STELLA is an important tool for understanding global change, modeling is the only way to predict the impact of global change. Currently, all predictions which scientists use for estimating the impact of environmental change on the Earth's future are based on dynamic models, like STELLA. (Quote taken from " Evaluation Plan for Development, Deployment, and Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed" A project funded by the National Science Foundation program on Institution-Wide Reform of Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology.
y. ArcView is a powerful program used in the real world. ArcView 3.0 GIS a computer mapping system designed by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ERSI), Inc. This geographic information system is designed to help the user to analyze data in a spatial context. GIS technology integrates common database operations such as query and statistical analysis with unique visualization and geographic analysis. ArcView is most often used as a tool by GIS specialist to analyze street networks (traffic planning and maintenance), natural resources (natural resource management, habitat assessment), land parceling (zoning), and facilities management (utility planning and maintenance). ArcView's powerful visual and analytical capabilities have also been used to as a pedagogical tool. (Quote taken from "Evaluation Plan for Development, Deployment, and Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed" A project funded by the National Science Foundation program on Institution-Wide Reform of Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology.
z. Taken from U of M proposal to the Hewlett Foundation.
aa. George Kling, professor of Biology: "This is just a computer-based laboratory to see what happens. We can't change the CO2 concentration in the world in an experiment. We can only do it with models and that, I think, is a step forward in information technology. I think that is probably the most important research tool that we have."
bb. Students access this data from a CD-ROM (which is copied onto a server) provided by the World Resources Institute. They are also increasingly accessing data from the Internet.
cc. Sally, Global Change student: "But the lecture wasn't like a normal course, it was really relaxed. And you didn't necessarily have to ask the GSI a question because everybody else in lecture would give you their viewpoint or what they thought a better explanation would be. There's always someone in the discussion or the lab who could explain. And you could understand it once you got a whole bunch of people's explanations, you'd always find one that made more sense to you than what the professor or GSI said."
dd. Amy, Global Change student: "I would say that the people in my lab were a pretty good representation of all the majors here at school. There were people from almost every school, if not every school, mostly from Literature, Science and Arts, but that's the biggest part of the University. There are many students from Engineering. There are many students in pre-dentistry or pre-med. I'm in the School of Music and also LS&A. We have to work in groups for the projects and very few people say, 'Well, I'm a poli sci major and you're a poli sci major, so let's work together on this.' We're all from these different backgrounds, but because the course is interdisciplinary, the students interested in taking it are. And I think that contributes to the class, because you get a lot of different viewpoints, or people come from different backgrounds and share different views on this."
ee. Beth, Global Change student: "When we work in the computer labs, what tends to happen sometimes is students will group together and say, 'Okay, one person handles all the Web development, the other person handles research,' which is discouraged. The GSIs are trying to work with students and trying to get people to collaborate so everybody learns as much about the web development as they do about research."
Sally, Global Change student: "After a little while you learn who's more likely to know what, so you turn to them for different things."
ff. The following two sentences excerpted from the Global Change website include hyperlinks that encourage students to explore issues more deeply. "The world's population is quickly becoming urbanized as people migrate from rural to urban areas, in search of a better life and better future for their children. In 1950, less than 30% of the world's population lived in cities; by 2025 that figure is expected to exceed 60%."
gg. Eric Dey: "Faculty use the exact same material in the lecture that shows up on the web page which gives students two ways of getting the information. So, increasingly it's become a much more smoothly run course in the sense of having good, nicely formatted content."
Jean-Pierre (interviewer): "But is 'more smoothly run' equivalent to more passive?"
Eric: "I don't think so in this case. I think it's just really more a matter of organization. I think at one level students really appreciate the use of new technologies in the class."
hh. Sam, Global Change student: "The material that they went through in an hour lecture tended to be really dense. And there's a lot of material. And so on the Web they would have lecture notes. And without that I wouldn't have been able to get as much out of it. I don't think we really had a book. So it was all based on lecture, and personally, I don't think I could have written as detailed notes as they gave me."
ii. Amy, Global Change student: "They update the web page every day so if some new discovery comes out, you have that information. It's like the most possibly up-to-date textbook you can have. So, that information can be presented without the computer, but it's nice to have it. And on the website they have links to other science-related websites that you can go to. It's just so much more interactive. You can find what you want, and keep going. You have one question which leads you to another question."
jj. Amy: "When we are asked the question, 'Why would cutting down the rainforests be harmful to us?' The answer seems to be, 'because of the oxygen we would lose.'"
Beth: "And you would think, because there are so many tropical rainforests, that if you cut them all down, you would lose a large percentage of the oxygen [supply]."
Amy: "That's what we're told. That's the media representation."
Beth: "But when we actually calculated it, it was such a small percentage."
Amy: "We thought we did it wrong."
Beth: "People were emailing their GSIs, 'What am I doing wrong? What's going on here? This isn't right.' When I did it, I was confused. We thought, 'No. This is just so wrong.' I thought well, 'we're plugging in the right numbers,' and [the instructor] said, 'Well, when you did it and the number showed you, why would you think you're wrong?'"
Amy: "And then in the next class, he said, 'See? It's really not important. It's important, but not because we're going to lose the oxygen.' I didn't understand that it was chemistry- and science-based, and I thought, 'I don't get these formulas.' I didn't know what a mole was. I didn't take chemistry in high school. So I was like, 'Whatever.'"
Beth: "I felt like I had returned to sophomore year, and I thought, 'I don't know what this stuff means anymore. How am I supposed to use it?'"
Amy: "Exactly. So I wrote a paragraph [on the assignment], and I said, 'Well, I don't know, but these numbers seem pretty small... So I think that [the loss of the rainforests] wouldn't be a big deal... I think we should be more concerned about loss of species and possible medical [effects].' I received almost full credit because that was the point-to see that the numbers that you hear are [meaningless] unless you have something else to compare them to."
kk. Angelo, T. A. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
ll. Tim: "I got really excited, when I could see the course getting better through the evaluation process. We looked at the student ratings at all the large enrollment interdisciplinary courses in science on campus for the last couple of years, and when you take biology, geology, atmospheric science, electrical engineering-the large enrollment, greater than a hundred students, introductory 100-level classes-we outscore them all in terms of the student interest. We get an 'A,' the next highest rating is astronomy, 'A-.' This is not stuff I talk about normally because it's sort of a, 'we're better than you,' but for us involved it's concrete evidence that students regard this course very highly. We've seen that in the enrollment, and we think it's because it's relevant to their lives.
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Dave: "There are several measures of whether we are reaching the students and whether this interdisciplinary approach is worthwhile. The student enrollments are increasing, the feedback that we get from the students in simple questionnaires is very positive. They continue on in the Global Change sequence, they've shown enough interest to help us develop a minor in the college. So there are lots of very standard assessment measures and instruments that show that we are on the right track."
mm. Quote taken from "Evaluation Plan for Development, Deployment, and Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed" (UCDT) a project funded by the National Science Foundation program on Institution-Wide Reform of Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology.
nn. Central administrator: "I think it is fair to say that the Global Change Poject has been a rising concern, a grassroots concern-grassroots in the sense of the level of the faculty. We're concerned both about the quality of students in the classroom, the level of preparation, and how well the university is acquitting this fundamental part of its mission, its academic mission of teaching undergraduates. So this is a way in which this has been a percolation upward, which is a good, the best way to have an institution respond."
oo. Dan Mazmanian, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE): "All of the instructors contribute to the program, but Tim Killeen turns out to be just one of these unusual people who makes things happen. Leadership matters. The older I get, the longer I'm around, the more I appreciate in a hundred little ways that leadership matters. Someone else could step in, but right now Tim's that leader." [Researchers' note: Professor Ben van der Pluijm assumed this leadership role as of spring 2000, when Professor Killeen left the U of M to become the director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (NCAR), CO.]
pp. As of fall 2000, Dan Mazmanian has been the C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper dean and professor of the University of Southern California's new School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
qq. George: "I think at almost all universities the faculty and student generated issues that come from the bottom up rarely get very much money. Where does the big money go? Oh, the President's Initiative on this or that. Or the Provost's Initiative. That's where the millions, hundreds of millions of dollars go. So we are fighting against that general structure that we have at universities. And we have fought it in part by going outside and getting external funds from NSF, for example. And if we hadn't been able to do that, no matter what the university says about how enthused they are about this approach, they are not going to support it to the level that it takes to actually do it. So I think that that's something that everyone has to fight."
rr. Dan Mazmanian, dean of School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE): "It's actually one of those situations where they have done extremely well on external grants. So there hasn't been a direct cost that's been very significant. They contribute a lot of their time. They're not taxing us."
Susan (interviewer): "It doesn't show up in your budget pages?"
Dan: "Barely a blip...As a dean, I support it financially and otherwise, but it takes a collection of us to do it, and we only do it because we see the value of what they're doing, rather than doing it just to support an ongoing institutional structure. And whether it becomes institutionalized will, I'm sure, be a question in the next several years. Given the sorting, repositioning and the reorganization, I can't predict where an entity like this ends up residing. If we had a fixed system and I knew all the pieces were fixed for the next five years, I'd say, 'The logical thing to do is this.' But, with so many things up in the air, it's not clear what the 'logical' thing to do is. So, I think it's going to ride on the momentum, the enthusiasm of the faculty and students for the next several years."
ss. Tim: "Our thesis is that we were going to take an interdisciplinary approach before we do a disciplinary approach, and we've been turned down multiple times by NSF because reviewers say you cannot do interdisciplinary before you do disciplinary. You've got to get the grounding in the disciplines before you can do interdisciplinary. [Institutional funding works the same way.] We proposed a concentration, or minor, two years ago, and we knew then, on the basis of the student evaluations, that there was a need for that, and that the logical next step would be to put a minor together. We proposed it to the university course committee, and what happened is it didn't have the signature from a particular school or college, so we asked a couple of departments whether they would sponsor it for us and they said, 'no.' So, Bob Owen has played a critical role because he opened the door, and in fact, this time when it did get approval, it still did not come with a departmental sponsor, which is the general rule. So, once again, we were breaking new ground."
tt. Central administrator: "Global Change has received enormous support, you know, as far as GSI positions that have been given. I say this without looking at the budget itself. There has been an enormous release of individual time to cross the borders to participate in this very connective course that brings together Engineering, School of Natural Resources and Environment, and LS&A, especially. The provost has a commitment to the course's success. But first, she wants to see that it's a valuable contribution, it's made a difference, and it should go forward. If the deans say that this is a priority for us, and it's providing a very useful model for other faculty to re-envision their teaching, then it will be supported."
uu. Lisa Curran, professor of the School of Natural Resources and Environment: "You really get to know other people from different disciplines, and you're involved in activities across the university that you wouldn't otherwise seek out. You're exposed to a range of students that is really challenging at first, but you realize that this is a different audience. For example, I'm an ecologist, a tropical ecologist by training, so I find that I have to change how I'm presenting the material. And I have insights into my own work as I give talks for different groups. I think what's really satisfying is the students who come up and say, 'This is probably the best course I've ever had,' or 'This has really changed the way I thought about things.' You know, it's just this 'Wow! Okay, I got ten of them out there. I just multiplied myself.'"
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Patrick Livingood, GSI: "I'm an archeologist so some of this material is new. So I'm learning things. I'm certainly learning a lot about these interdisciplinary courses and administrative discussions than I would never have guessed I would have been privy to. And I'm getting to teach different kinds of material, so I'm learning stuff that way. But I'm also getting some networking value to what I'm doing that may or may not be helpful in the future. There's a lot about this course that I can take away and say, 'These are things that can be improved on, or these are things not to do.'"
vv. Dave Allan, professor of the School of Natural Resources and Environment: "I saw Global Change as an opportunity in a collaborative way to do something experimental and different in teaching at a level that appealed to me, that entry level in education, like freshmen and sophomores. To me, they're fun students, these really eager empty vessels who are easy to sell on the things I'm enthusiastic about."
ww. George Kling, biology professor: "I teach in a number of other courses because I really like teaching in them and I find it extremely difficult to walk away from them. I enjoy the experience and I don't find it easy to turn my back on any of them. So, I think I teach more than I need to."
xx. This reformation, according to Dave Allan, would require a societal as well as institutional change.
yy. A central administrator claimed that teaching efforts are, indeed, factored into the rewards structure. He said, "From the point of view of research, when a faculty member comes up for tenure, the person has to put together a dossier that contains their writing and published work. There is a collection of materials that we put together for teaching. These are basically the raw materials that go before the tenure committee, and there's a great deal of importance placed on the evaluation of the quality of the research, especially from external letter writers from outside the University. Where does this person's research stand among the peers? Is this person going to make an original important contribution to advancing the field that she or he is in? Now in addition to this, what is the contribution of this individual to supporting the teaching mission of this unit? What are the contributions, not only inside the classroom but also how do you see this person reformulating the kinds of teaching? For instance, the Department of Chemistry has, in recent years, undertaken a very serious examination of what they expect an undergraduate major in Chemistry to be."
zz. Tim Killeen: "I think there is perhaps a naïve perception on the part of many faculty that technology equals making things instantly easier, and that's definitely not the case. There's a considerable effort that needs to go into how to incorporate it, what it should be, and to fine-tuning it. And once you're over that, then indeed you begin to see the benefits of it. But I think some people who are not using computers and things like that a lot in their research effort think of it as, 'Boy, this is going to solve a lot of my problems,' and maybe ultimately it will. It would definitely improve the course, but it's not going to be something that's going to take over from day one. You have to really put a lot of effort into it in the beginning in order to realize the benefits down the road. And I think the faculty in this particular course have already done that. They've spent quite a bit of time."
ab. Patrick Livingood: "I was actually a computer science major as an undergraduate. Last semester we used a simulation software, and I wasn't familiar with that package, but I had familiarity with other types of simulation software. This semester we're using GIS, and I use that in my own research quite a bit. I didn't have any specific experience teaching with software, but I've worked as a computer consultant, and things like that. So I have experience teaching people to use software."
Jean-Pierre (interviewer): "How about you, Dave?"
Dave Halsing: "Something of the same actually. I hadn't worked with the modeling program we used last semester, but for three years I worked for a big medical device company training hospital staff on how to use the CAT-scan and MRI machines that they had just bought. And those are computers, so really what you're doing is teaching software. So, I had gotten pretty good at helping people figure out how to work a computer, how to understand what the interface meant, and what they were doing when they were setting things up a certain way. So, that part of it was very easy. And as far as this semester, in my previous job at the Geological Survey, I used a really, really intricate GIS. It's more technical than ArcView, which is sort of a lot more user friendly, a lot easier to learn."
ac. These data were collected by an evaluation team led by Professor Eric Dey (Higher Education, University of Michigan) as part of the School of Education's Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed (UCDT).