Assessment resistance: using Kubler-Ross to understand and respond

Purpose Faculty participation in the assurance of learning (AoL) is requisite both for the effective operation of the system and for accreditation compliance, but faculty often resist engaging in AoL tasks. The purpose of this paper is to provide specific recommendations to address faculty concerns and to guide AoL systems toward maturity. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a comprehensive model of faculty resistance perspectives aligned to AoL maturity, provides specific responses to faculty resistance and introduces success markers of progress toward maturity. Findings Specifically, a three-stage model of AoL system maturity is presented and aligned with five faculty perspectives. For each faculty perspective, responses targeting causal factors are proposed and signs of progress toward the next level of faculty engagement are highlighted. Practical implications Faculty and AoL leaders will be able to identify their current stage of AoL system maturity and implement practical solutions to move to the next stage of system maturity. Social implications Understanding the motivations for faculty resistance will facilitate more meaningful and effective internal interactions as a school seeks to improve its AoL system. In turn, a more effective AoL system will promote better learning experiences for students; and better learning allows students to become productive in their chosen careers more quickly, thus improving society as a whole. Originality/value To the knowledge, no prior paper has organized faculty resistance along a maturity continuum, provided targeted responses based on the level of maturity or included signs that indicate growth toward the next level of maturity.

COVID-19 and necessity-based online entrepreneurship education at US community colleges

PurposeThis paper explores community college entrepreneurship education's near-instantaneous transition to online course delivery following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data were obtained from 92 community college entrepreneurship faculty via online survey in late March of 2020, right at the time faculty were required to transition their courses to an online mode of delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in partnership with the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurship Education Project.FindingsWhile the majority of community college entrepreneurship educators have taught online previously, many were not familiar with exemplar education technology tools and applications, demonstrating an opportunity for continued professional development. To deliver courses online, educators primarily relied on pre-recorded lectures and using Zoom as the technology platform of choice. Last, there were significant faculty concerns about their ability to effectively create an “experiential” classroom virtually for students to learn and practice entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThis is the first paper investigating how community college entrepreneurship educators responded to one of the most disruptive events to ever impact entrepreneurship education (viz. the COVID-19 pandemic). More broadly, this is also one of very few studies exploring both (1) community college entrepreneurship education and (2) how unexpected crises (e.g. natural disasters, pandemics) impact educational environments.

Faculty Perspectives on Using High School Data in an Era of Placement Testing Reform

Objective: Community colleges across the country are making dramatic shifts away from traditional reliance on placement testing for developmental education and toward using high school measures to assess college-readiness. Yet the views of faculty dealing with these changes, including their perspectives on the quality and usefulness of high school data, are not well-understood. We explore faculty views of high school transcript and placement testing data, attributions made with the data, and beliefs about the extent to which these data are useful for instruction. Methods: We conducted a survey and semi-structured interviews with math faculty in one community college math department ( n = 21). We used real high school records to develop a Personalized Student Profile of student math backgrounds to engage faculty in sensemaking about high school and placement testing data. Results: Faculty did not appear to readily trust high school data, tending only to do so when it fit their existing understandings of student ability as measured by placement tests. Although faculty described opportunities to use the data to inform instruction, they noted the challenges of actually doing so. Conclusions: The findings reveal significant faculty concerns about high school measures and point toward shifts in faculty attitudes and beliefs that may need to be addressed in order for reforms that upend traditional approaches to remediation and instruction to be successful. We discuss critical future research directions for this new paradigm of developmental education in community colleges.

Fostering Effective Learning Community in the Online Classroom

Online learning communities are an important aspect of successful virtual learning experiences. They bring opportunities for peer collaboration and sharing of ideas in a globally based classroom unrestricted by time and space. At the same time, online learning community participants may face some challenges of effective communication and collaboration as compared to traditional face-to-face learning environments. The author discusses issues, concerns, and potential solutions with regard to online learning communities in the areas of discussion participation, group work on assignments, faculty concerns, and miscellaneous issues such as technology access. Maximizing the potential of online learning communities will facilitate higher-order learning in the technologically mediated twenty-first century classroom.

Fostering Effective Learning in the Online Classroom

Online learning communities are an important aspect of successful virtual learning experiences. They bring opportunities for peer collaboration and sharing of ideas in a globally based classroom unrestricted by time and space. At the same time, online learning community participants may face some challenges of effective communication and collaboration as compared to traditional face-to-face learning environments. The author discusses issues, concerns, and potential solutions with regard to online learning communities in the areas of discussion participation, group work on assignments, faculty concerns, and miscellaneous issues such as technology access. Strategies for leveraging social media and live chat sessions in fostering online learning community interaction are also shared. Maximizing the potential of online learning communities will facilitate higher-order learning in the technologically-mediated 21st century classroom.

Interaction of Proctoring and Student Major on Online Test Performance

Traditional and online university courses share expectations for quality content and rigor. Student and faculty concerns about compromised academic integrity and actual instances of academic dishonesty in assessments, especially with online testing, are increasingly troublesome. Recent research suggests that in the absence of proctoring, the time taken to complete an exam increases significantly and online test results are inflated. This study uses a randomized design in seven sections of an online course to examine test scores from 97 students and time taken to complete online tests with and without proctoring software, controlling for exam difficulty, course design, instructor effects, and student majors. Results from fixed effects estimated from a fitted statistical model showed a significant advantage in quiz performance (7-9 points on a 100 point quiz) when students were not proctored, with all other variables statistically accounted for. Larger grade disparities and longer testing times were observed on the most difficult quizzes, and with factors that reflected the perception of high stakes of the quiz grades. Overall, use of proctoring software resulted in lower quiz scores, shorter quiz taking times, and less variation in quiz performance across exams, implying greater compliance with academic integrity compared with when quizzes were taken without proctoring software.

Optimizing student learning at the Regional Medical Campus

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION: Both benefits and challenges are associated with training medical students in a community-based setting at a Regional Medical Campus (RMC). At the RMC, close relationships between learner and teaching faculty can truly be fostered. However, those volunteer teaching faculty are frequently conflicted due to time-constraints and practice productivity requirements that may run counter to maximizing learner involvement. Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) have been studied and promoted as clinical clerkship structures that, through taking full advantage of the on-going relationship between learner, teacher, patients, and practices, optimize the learning environment for medical students on clinical rotations. In our resource-limited environment, we wished to create longitudinal educational relationships for all UPRC students with preceptors, practices and patients that would achieve the educational benefits of a true LIC yet not overwhelm the limited resources of this small community. METHODS: We created an amalgamative LIC clerkship model that provided a year-long Family Medicine experience integrated within OB-GYN, Surgery and Pediatrics ½-year longitudinal clerkships and three 1-week inpatient adult medicine mini-immersions spaced over the course of ½-year. Neurology, Psychiatry and Underserved/Rural Medicine (4-weeks each) and subspecialty/elective rotations (2-weeks each) remained in traditional self-contained blocks interspersed within longitudinal experiences. At 6 and 12 months, we administered a 5-point Likert-type survey to both medical students and teaching faculty asking their perceptions of the educational value and resource requirements for our clinical rotation structure. Descriptive averages of the ordinal values were reported. RESULTS: There were 11/12 students (92.7%) and 11/21 faculty (52.4%) who responded to the survey. Both students and faculty believed that some of the longitudinal benefits of the amalgamative structure were achieved. The students especially noted that attending feedback was beneficial due to the longer interaction and that they had a greater ability to interact with patients. All told, the faculty teachers found the Amalgamative LIC to be slightly less satisfying than the students. CONCLUSIONS: While logistical limitations necessitated our unique rotation design, some optimization of education was achieved. Faculty concerns toward adopting this new structure should be considered for other programs structuring LICs in a similar sparsely resourced environment such as a Regional Medical Campus.

Extending the Apprenticeship Model of Music Instruction in Higher Education With Facebook Groups

Although faculty may not believe that they are legitimately “teaching” while engaging with students via Facebook, results of interviews and publicly available Facebook data clearly document intentional music faculty activities that fit the description of teaching through enculturation. This situates the phenomenon of Facebook groups firmly within the larger apprenticeship model in use in music departments; the process of enculturation through Facebook is used to teach new apprentices how to become functional members of their musical communities. Recommendations generated from the research and discussed in this chapter include addressing faculty concerns about personal and professional risk, departmental development of guidelines for Facebook group use and management that is based in enculturation theory, and training for music faculty in the use of social media channels as opportunities for teaching and learning.

Fostering Effective Learning Community in the Online Classroom

Online learning communities are an important aspect of successful virtual learning experiences. They bring opportunities for peer collaboration and sharing of ideas in a globally based classroom unrestricted by time and space. At the same time, online learning community participants may face some challenges of effective communication and collaboration as compared to traditional face-to-face learning environments. The author discusses issues, concerns, and potential solutions with regard to online learning communities in the areas of discussion participation, group work on assignments, faculty concerns, and miscellaneous issues such as technology access. Maximizing the potential of online learning communities will facilitate higher-order learning in the technologically mediated twenty-first century classroom.