FEBRUARY 23, 2017

FROM SEMINAR TO LARGE-LECTURE FORMATTransforming a Foundations Experience in General EducationSuzanne Blum Malley, Senior Associate ProvostNeil Pagano, Associate Provost for Accreditation and Assessment

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COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO

Context: Arts, Media, and Communications in Liberal Arts Context

Challenge: Retention• “First-Year Seminar” 1997-2004 – critical thinking focus• Title III Grant (2004)

– Faculty Advising– Developmental Education– First Year Seminar

• Revised First-Year Seminar 2005: New Millennium Studies

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FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: NEW MILLENNIUM STUDIES

Intended Focus: Ignite Intellectual Curiosity / Shared Experience

Curriculum Development / Teaching Academy / Many Full-time Faculty• Shared Curriculum• Shared Texts• Shared Units

– Self– Community– Manifesting a Vision

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FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: NEW MILLENNIUM STUDIES

Actual Execution: Lack of Comprehensive Support from Institution*

Uneven Delivery of Student Experience / Few Full-time Faculty • Rejection of Shared Curriculum• Consistently Negative Student Perceptions

– Poor Student Evaluations– Negative Impact on Retention

• No Consistent Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes

*Despite excellent intentions and work by small cohort of dedicated faculty and staff

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

“I LEARNED A GREAT DEAL IN THIS COURSE” 2007-2011

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

COURSE EVALUATION QUESTIONS 2012-2014

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

ANALYSIS OF FALL 2014 STUDENT COMMENTS

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SAMPLE FALL 14 NEGATIVE COURSE COMMENTS• Very unclear what the point of this course is. I understand working on

communication skills and learning about yourself but the class seemed like a waste of time.

• I would have rather taken any other class where I could have learned something instead of spending my money and putting myself in debt for a pointless class. I do not feel like I learned anything from this class, I had no self discovery, and if an incoming freshman asked me what first year seminar is about, I would not have a clue on what to tell them.

• This class felt very much like a high school course I did not learn anything useful I hardly learned at all. It seems like it is made only to keep freshmen busy with useless busy work.

• First Year Seminar is an unnecessary class, and a waste of credit hours. The projects were unreasonably presented and didn't have any grounds in the real world. This class is a dumbed-down Introduction to Visual Culture.

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

“BIG CHICAGO”

Challenge to Faculty: • What is the most engaging,

intellectually rich, large-scale course you could create for our first-semester students to help them connect to the city of Chicago as a site of inquiry?

First-Semester Experience

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“BIG CHICAGO” SHARED LEARNING OUTCOMESStudents will:

• Gain an understanding of the city of Chicago as a site of questioning and exploration.

• Identify frameworks for new and/or deeper ways of thinking for understanding the urban context and communities that surround Columbia College Chicago.

• Participate actively in different learning environments, such as large-scale presentations, team learning activities (face-to-face and online), and instructor and peer-mentor interactions.

• Experience aspects of the city of Chicago firsthand and reflect on those experiences with a cohort of student peers.

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SAMPLE “BIG CHICAGO” COURSE OFFERINGS

• Curiosity in the City: Monsters, Marvels, and Museums

• Chicago: The Global Metropolis• 50 Years of Civil Rights in Chicago• Heard in the Hood: Social Media

Storytelling from Chicago’s Neighborhoods

• Big Chicago: Dance, Sex and Popular Culture

• Chicago: Creating a Cinematic Diary• Did You Just Flip Me Off?: Deaf People

and Linguistic Diversity in Chicago• Death and Desire in Chicago • Music & Media in Chicago

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CURIOSITY IN THE CITY: MONSTERS, MARVELS, AND MUSEUMS

• Freak shows, serial killers, medical oddities, and flesh-eating beetles, are all part of the Chicago experience. This course is an interdisciplinary study of curiosity and wonder, incorporating philosophy, science, and history to investigate the threshold between shadow (the unfamiliar) and light (the known). Celebrating the marvelous and the macabre is part of a long history of collecting, reaching back to the wonder-cabinets of the late Renaissance. Chicago museums were leaders in the post-Darwinian transformation from sideshow to legitimate science. In this course we will explore three categories of strange Chicago (monsters, marvels, and museology) as case studies to understand the nature of curiosity. Themes will include the nature of knowledge (e.g., credulity, skepticism, collecting and constructing nature, etc.), the borders of human and inhuman (natural and moral “monsters”), and the hidden oddities of urban natural history.

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BIG CHICAGO COURSE ELEMENTS

Engaging Students in Large-Lecture Format

Classes of 75-250 students – scheduled in 2-hour blocks with 1 hour Friday• Use of LMS, Social Media• Graduate Teaching Assistants• Student Response System – GoSoapBox

– (Test it our now: app.goasoapbox.com event code: aacubc )• Student teams out of the classroom• Fall 15 Friday “New Student Commons” partnership with Student Affairs

– (Modified for Fall 16 to in-class brief presentations; no Friday) • Resource implications/benefits

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ASSESSING BIG CHICAGO

Multiple Approaches• Touchpoints for Student Response During the Semester

– Surveys: Week 3 and End of Semester• Focus Groups• Final Grade Analysis• Panel Assessment of Student Work

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

WEEK 3: I CHOSE THIS COURSE BECAUSE I WAS INTERESTED IN THE TOPIC.

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

WEEK 3: EVEN THOUGH IT IS EARLY IN THE SEMESTER, MY EXPERIENCE IN THIS CLASS HAS BEEN POSITIVE.

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

END OF SEMESTER: THE TOPIC AND CONTENT WERE INTERESTING.

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

END OF SEMESTER: I UNDERSTAND THE URBAN CONTEXT OF CHICAGO AS RICH RESOURCE FOR QUESTIONING, EXPLORING, AND INQUIRY.

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

END OF SEMESTER: I LEARNED ABOUT THE CITY OF CHICAGO (E.G. CULTURE, COMMUNITIES, CONTEXT, HISTORY) THAT I DID NOT KNOW BEFORE I TOOK THIS CLASS.

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SAMPLE FALL 15 POSITIVE COURSE COMMENTS• This course gives me lots of chances to visit different places of Chicago, and I learnt a lot

during this whole semester. I know Chicago better now. • He's an amazing professor. So passionate about what he teaches, and talks about. Highly

recommend. I liked learning about the links journalism and music have to each other and to Chicago; it is something that many of us didn't think about until we took the class.

• Although we didn't always agree I loved the teacher and learned more than I thought about Chicago as a southerner.

• Very cool way to get out and explore areas other than the south loop of Chicago.• I really enjoyed this course, it was really a great way to learn about Chicago and it really got

me engaged with the city. I love Chicago even more and I'm glad that I got to meet some cool, new people.

• I just chose this one because the name seemed cool. I wasn't prepared to be this excited and interested for the class. There are so many interesting conversations and small debates we have in our classes and a lot of different view points I've never explored before.

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SAMPLE FALL 15 NEGATIVE COURSE COMMENTS• This class has felt like the typical college lecture and I'm glad I took it

because I doubt I will have many more classes of this size and style in the future.

• When selecting this course, we were advised to take a class unrelated to our major. I thought (major topic) would be cool, but the class is SOOOO (major) oriented that I was completely disinterested.

• Working with others was extremely difficult and infuriating. • Would be better if smaller.

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STUDENT FOCUS GROUPS: THEMES• Learning about many different things

– Chicago– A discipline– “New” things they did not know before

• Large classes have positive and negatives– Instructor approach and GTA interaction varied and made a difference

• What students liked most– the faculty – the topics

• What students liked least– New Student Commons Fridays– Group work dynamics

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STUDENT EVALUATIONS BIG CHICAGO VS FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR

BigChicago FYS

Thecoursestimulatedmyintellectualorartisticcuriosity. 3.21 3.06

Itookawayusefultools,conceptsorinsightsfromthiscourse. 3.16 3.00

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26.2%

39.6%

24.0%

22.2%

11.7%

8.0%

FINAL GRADE ANALYSISFall 15

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PANEL ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT WORK

• “Institutional Portfolio” Approach• Faculty Select Student Artifact• Range of Student Work:

– Essays– Multi-Media (Films, Podcasts)– Social Media Postings– Group Blog (Dance)

• Panel of Graduate Teaching Assistant Reviewers

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ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

To what extent is/does the work: 1. Illustrate an understanding of the city of Chicago as a site of questioning

and exploration?2. Identify frameworks for new and/or deeper ways of thinking for

understanding the urban context and communities that surround Columbia College Chicago?

3. Demonstrate the student has experienced aspects of the City of Chicago firsthand and reflected on those experiences?

4. Demonstrate analytical thinking?5. Executed at college level (i.e., well-written, organized, presented)?

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“BIG CHICAGO” SHARED LEARNING OUTCOMESStudents will:

• Gain an understanding of the city of Chicago as a site of questioning and exploration.

• Identify frameworks for new and/or deeper ways of thinking for understanding the urban context and communities that surround Columbia College Chicago.

• Participate actively in different learning environments, such as large-scale presentations, team learning activities (face-to-face and online), and instructor and peer-mentor interactions.

• Experience aspects of the city of Chicago firsthand and reflect on those experiences with a cohort of student peers.

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RESULTS (INDIVIDUAL WORK)

Demonstrate Disciplinary

Content

Individual Assignments

Experience the City of Chicago

Reflected on the

Experience Analytical Thinking

Work at College Level N

Instructor 1 72 3.39 2.76 3.03 2.01 2.49 Instructor 2 62 3.00 2.65 2.74 2.00 2.52 Instructor 3 55 N/A N/A 3.18 2.62 2.91 Instructor 4 130 N/A N/A 2.91 2.52 2.69 Instructor 5 137 N/A N/A 2.93 2.56 2.57 Instructor 6 62 2.95 2.44 3.05 2.02 2.68 Instructor 7 48 N/A N/A 2.85 2.13 2.02 Instructor 8 48 N/A N/A 3.00 2.50 2.23 Instructor 9 101 N/A N/A 3.00 2.50 2.28 Averages 3.21 2.71 2.96 2.41 2.49

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RESULTS (GROUP WORK)

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LESSONS LEARNED FROM FALL 15 ASSESSMENT

Some Approaches Worked Better than Others

In and Out of the Classroom• Engage students in meaningful group work in and out of classroom but

require some key individual assignments;• Connect in a meaningful way to the city of Chicago – don’t just show the city;

get students out in the city;• Create meaningful connections between GTAs and students;• Use some type of student response system: social media, SRS, or LMS• Student Affairs New Student Commons Friday meet-ups did not work

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PANEL ASSESSMENT RESULTS FALL 15 VS FALL 16

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