Chapter 1 Creating Significant Learning Experiences The Key to Quality in Educational Programs

Summary “We won’t meet the needs for more and better higher education until profs become designers of learning experiences and not teachers.” Larry Spence (2001)  - pg 1 The main point of the chapter: ·                      Professors need to learn how to design courses more effectively for higher education to significantly improve the quality of its educational programs. ·                      Higher education needs to and is changing. Definition of Significant Learning Experience A SLE has both a process and an outcome dimension. The process includes the students being engaged in their learning and having high energy. The outcome includes significant and lasting changes in a student and having value in their life. By having value means enhancing their lives and preparing them for a future or being a contributor to the community. Faculty Changes Faculty members may want to change the way they teach, but they are not likely to make the decisions to change without support of their institutions. There are 4 forces driving institutional change. They include: 1.                  Information Technology 2.                  New Providers of Education 3.                  Globalization of Higher Ed 4.                  New Kind of Students Some of the new changes in the way people teach include: ·                      Role playing, simulation, debate, and case studies ·                      Writing to Learn ·                      Small Group Learning ·                      Assessment as Learners - feed back, ungraded is provided frequently so students can enhance the quality of learning and teachers can assess themselves ·                      Problem Base Learning - Students encounter open ended, ill defined problem. They do preliminary analysis, gather information /data, assess it and propose a solution. ·                      Service Learning - students enroll in a course on a given topic, and then during the course engage in some kind of related activity in the community. ·                      On-line Learning. The four components of Teaching 8.                  Knowledge of subject matter 9.                  Teacher student interactions 10.              Course management 11.              Design of instruction For the most part, the first 3 components are handled fairly well by profs. However, the 4th component is where most profs could use some improvements. For example: Getting students to prepare before class. Teachers frequently complain that they cannot get students to do their readings and other homework assignments before coming to class.. What profs should do: 1.                  Assign bigger penalties for not doing the readings beforehand. 2.                  Give students a pep talk. 3.                  Redesign the course to give students a reason to do the readings. Student Boredom Common problem with students. What profs should do: 4.                  Enhance the teacher’s lecturing skills. 5.                  Insert more material from cutting-edge research. 6.                  Redesign the course to replace lecturing with more active learning. Poor Retention of Knowledge Students learn the material for a test or exam, but they are not able to retain the knowledge and use it in life or in another course. What profs can do: 7.                  Make the test better (tougher). 8.                  Give students a refresher course during inter-session. 9.                  Redesign the course to give students more experience with using what they have learned. Jeni