I’ve just returned from the annual assessment conference, held by Texas A&M University.  One of the themes that was repeated by many speakers was strategies to deal with faculty resistant to assessing general education competencies.  Another was the difficult task of assessing critical thinking skills.  A third was the challenge of acquiring and interpreting useful information.

I have encountered faculty resistance to assessment on my own campus, and I still have difficulty understanding its basis.  Our peers in the health sciences and other professional programs routinely carry out assessments as an intrinsic part of their program review.  Is it simply resentment of an additional burden on our time?   At the assessment conference, I heard several speakers state that including faculty in the development of assessment processes helped reduce resentment, as did clarifying the meaning of “academic freedom.”  I have heard some of my peers express doubt that the assessment results have any purpose to the “powers that be,” but the value of assessment to me is that it helps me determine what changes I can make to improve student outcomes. I truly believe that we can use assessment for our own purposes, and at the same time satisfy the requirements of any regulatory bodies.

One of the most challenging assessment tasks is to determine if our teaching of critical thinking is effective.  The state of Texas has charged institutions of higher education to teach critical thinking, but left it up to us to determine what that means and how to accomplish it.  In A&P, we have a holistic understanding of critical thinking and can instantly tell if our students have it, or not – but how do we break that down into teachable skills, and how do we assess it?  This is something we are still working on, and the efforts of educational researchers at the conference are still in progress, too. I think our colleagues in the health science programs have a longer track record of teaching critical thinking, and I look forward to learning more from them in the near future.

Some of the sessions I attended were reports of attempts to find significant links between student demographic information and success and retention in college and in professional careers.  I have zero background in research in social sciences, but my past history in more concrete research makes it hard to accept some of the data presented as reliable or indicative of what the researchers claimed. Can students’ self-interpretation of knowledge and ability be used as a proxy for student learning? Are sample sizes large enough and random enough to generate reliable data? Should institutional decisions be made based on data that is acknowledged to be imperfect and incomplete?  For this last question, the answer of at least some administrators is a qualified “yes,” if for no other reason than that this is all they have on which to base decisions.

So from all this, I have come away with a sense of commitment, if not urgency, to contribute to the collection of useful information.  To me, this means I am measuring what I think I am measuring, that I am collecting reliable data, and that I am interpreting it correctly, with a goal to improve student mastery of the course outcomes.  I know you all have the same values in your professional positions, and I hope we can all work toward the common goal of providing the best A&P courses we can for our students.  I look forward to a lively exchange of ideas at HAPS – San Antonio!

It’s the season for local athletes to sign letters to commit to teams at the next level, and I find it heartwarming when these young people acknowledge the impact of their coaches and other mentors.  They realize that their opportunity came about not only because of their own talent and drive, but also because they were trained in skills and habits that helped them succeed.  I think that part of the reason these student athletes are so successful is that they accept the need for training and understand the time demands involved in becoming the best they can be.  They realize that their skills and abilities improve over time.

If my A&P students had the mind-set of student athletes, I think they could all make it to the pros.  They would drill on their weaknesses and get personal coaching to correct problems, knowing that they would be accumulating additional knowledge and skills.  They would attend every practice session and review videos of their performance – okay, well maybe not that last, but they would watch the videos I post for them and complete homework assignments, anyway. They would know at the outset the commitment they needed to make, and they would fit the rest of their lives – temporarily at least – around the demands of mastering the curriculum that forms the foundation of their chosen profession.

Some of my students seem really detached from the course requirements – they don’t appreciate why, for example, we assign adaptive reading modules. As a consequence, they circumvent the deep learning that is supposed to occur, and they “phone in” their performance.  If an athlete demonstrated that same mind-set at practice, I think the coach would very effectively communicate his/her displeasure!  The invisibility of their poor preparation allows them to dodge, deny, or at least defer, the consequences of a poor performance.

So, it seems to me that one of my roles is to help coach my students to up their game.  I can make sure they know what they’ve signed up for, time-wise, and help them develop personal schedules that include enough prep time.  I can suggest they see themselves as professionals-in-training, rather than the passive students many of them were in high school.  I can do more than convey content; I can help them develop basic academic skills, adopt habits of mind, and embrace a set of ethics and values that will serve them in both school and work.  And maybe, they will all make it to the pros at some level, and when they do, some of them will remember the coaching staff that helped them find their way.

Okay, it’s that time in the semester when I have to force myself to focus on the positive – not on the desperate pleas for just half a point, or the snarky comments that I don’t know how to teach.

So, here is my list of New Semester Resolutions. I hope to actually keep these resolutions (unlike the ones I’ll make on Dec. 31).

1. I will make my course policies crystal clear. This will mean reading, and re-reading how I have the policies stated so they can’t be misinterpreted. Who knew that calling an assignment “practice” and including a message that “this is not for a grade” does not clearly state that completing the assignment is not mandatory? Seriously, it’s important to know that students don’t always read sentences the way we meant them to, and it’s just as important to write course policies clearly as it is to word-smith our test questions.

2. I will provide more small-stakes practice assignments. I will, of course, make sure that if they are mandatory, I will be quite explicit about that fact. My plan, only partially formed, is to have daily assignments (online, auto-graded) that are available only for 24 hours, to encourage students to check in online every day and recharge their content familiarity. I’ll drop enough of them to not penalize students who can’t get online every day (and to reduce complaints that I have to respond to). I’ll make them comprehensive, to help students review and rehearse the quickly-accumulating load of anatomical terms and physiological concepts.

3. I will post more short videos. Students apparently like to know that I am out here, telling them what they have to know, and apparently, sending emails and posting text announcements isn’t as effective as posting videos, according to course-end feedback. Teaching is a particularly human endeavor, so anything I can do to enhance that human contact will add intrinsic value to my online course communications, even for my face-to-face courses.

4. I will provide more choices in what students can complete for a grade. According to my course-end survey, the most valuable and popular course assignment is the discussion. Except that in the same survey, discussion is the least effective and least valuable assignment. Ditto for every other course assignment category. So, providing choices and allowing students to choose the type of assignment that resonates with them will be more likely to meet their needs. I’ve read recently that allowing student choice in assignment type increases engagement and satisfaction and can improve student outcomes.

5. I will provide feedback on student mastery. According to some of my students, my standards are unrealistically high and I expect too much out of them. This, from students who don’t answer the simple, direct questions I ask, and skip the easy and/or optional assignments. But, I can at least let them know whether the work they turn in meets standard expectations of college-level work. This is an opportunity to use the HAPS Outcomes, so students know it’s not just me that expects them to know this stuff.

6. I will try to remember that my course is not my students’ highest priority. This one is tough, so all I can resolve is to try. Students come to us with a mixed set of skills, and an assortment of competing claims on their time. I know that my course, while important to them, is not the most important priority for them, and I shouldn’t penalize them for not loving A&P the way I do.

I look forward to hearing your suggestions for other resolutions. What have you gleaned from your students this semester that motivates you to make changes for your spring courses?