Strategies to integrate technology into campus outcome management
Most well designed technology enhanced solutions require a substantial investment from academic leaders and faculty on campus in order to yield more turn-key reporting and analytics going forward. The level of effort depends on the maturity of the campus learning statement hierarchy and the comprehensiveness of course outcome to program goal to institutional mission statement mapping and articulation. If these components are well-established then populating a system should be a matter of formatting the data for import into the software.
A good implementation plan begins with a discovery and needs assessment phase to determine the current climate on campus and to obtain both short and long-term goals from academic leadership. Implementation specialists should then tailor the software to integrate with the situation at the institution while also challenging project participants to incorporate best practice assessment strategies when current practice is following a less than optimal process.
Faculty resistance to any technological solution is often ameliorated if the presentation of the solution is couched in terms of improved student learning and/or improved instructional effectiveness. In this case, a technology solution for learning outcomes management does that, and faculty developers can leverage that attribute by emphasizing that a focus on learning outcomes improvement in higher education preceded accreditation calls for outcomes-based assessment. In that regard, managing and improving student achievement of outcomes is merely an aspect of the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the technology solution becomes a tool to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of helping students succeed instead of yet another time consuming addition to faculty workload.
Inevitably, institutions find gaps in their outcome assessment strategy when they decide to embark on a technology enhanced solution. This is completely natural and part of the process of continuous improvement. A major point of advice for those in charge of implementing an outcome management solution is to start small so pain points can be identified and process improvements can be made before it becomes a huge task to update the process for an institution-wide adoption. Assessment experts from accreditation agencies also advise institutions to capture only the amount of data they can digest and to feel empowered to take a break from the data collection process if they need time to process information before gathering more data. The worse situation is a case where an institution is consumed by assessment without actually learning anything.
Adult students and new technologies?
Do we need to incorporate new technologies (such as Web 2.0 tools) for adult students?
For those of us who primarily teach adult, non-traditional students, we might not think we need to pay attention to things like social networking or other Web 2.0 technologies. I was recently presenting on new technologies to a school that primarily serves adult non-traditional learners, and they asked how this related to them, and why their students would care.
We tend to think that many of these tools are already being used by younger students, and so that means we don’t need to teach about them. However, Will Richardson has the following thoughts about why it is still important to teach young students how to appropriately use these technologies (from the article “Footprints in the Digital Age”): “This may be the first large technological shift in history that's being driven by children. Picture a bus. Your students are standing in the front; most teachers (maybe even you) are in the back, hanging on to the seat straps as the bus careens down the road under the guidance of kids who have never been taught to steer and who are figuring it out as they go. In short, for a host of reasons, we're failing to empower kids to use one of the most important technologies for learning that we've ever had.”
If it is important to provide guidance for younger students who are already engaged with these technologies, then why wouldn’t it be important for adult students who might not otherwise use these tools? Today’s younger students will grow up to become tomorrow’s higher education students… whether they enter at a traditional timeframe or non-traditional timeframe.
These tools are powerful. We need to teach about them not just because students are playing with them, but because they will shape our world in the future. Are we doing our adult students a disservice if we don’t also teach them to use some of “the most important technologies for learning that we’ve ever had?”
– Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D. –
Senior Academic Trainer & Consultant, Pearson eCollege
Talking points to encourage face to face faculty to adopt an online course component
More campuses with predominantly on-ground faculty are looking to an LMS component to solve issues including environmental impact, changing student expectations in a 24/7 world, faculty disappearance in the middle of the term, and accreditation documentation. The adoption of an online component (course space with tools that facilitate classroom communication, organization, and assignment submission) that complements what the instructor does is a tidy way to take care of these needs. Some instructors are initially resistant to what they perceive to be an addition to their workload. Here are some talking points to help them understand how the online course space can be a time saving boon rather than spelling doom!
- The eCompanion helps to maximize in class time:
- Vocab and memorization drill can be done online-- use as “entry ticket” for in-class activities
- Use of online Announcements reinforce/reintroduce material and instructions given in the last part of class where they’ve “zoned out,” helping students to be prepared for the next class session.
- Provides opportunity to extend in class discussion as extra credit activity so that conversations can reach a completion point.
- The eCompanion helps to prepare students for workplace
- Instructor can assign an online discussion as a Homework assignment to give students practice at asynchronous online communication (essential preparation for workplace)
- Groupwork done online is fully “trackable,” so instructors can identify loafers in the group.
- The eCompanion provides a secure paperless environment:
- secure submission and storage ensure that no one’s dog, including the instructor’s, can eat this homework and student/instructor interaction is always available for review.
- What used to be a nice to have is now a student expectation—24/7 access and ability to track progress
- The communication that takes place online between instructor and student is often more personal and the students can refer to it repeatedly as they progress through the course.
Vicki Galloway Harsh
Sr. Academic Trainer and Consultant, Pearson eCollege
