General Education, Assessment and the Learning Students Need
Call for Proposals
The proposal deadline was August 1. Late submissions will not be accepted.
This conference will help campuses align General Education vision and action, including action to assess and strengthen students’ cumulative learning. AAC&U’s Network for Academic Renewal invites proposals for conference sessions that will address one or more “big questions” related to philosophical and practical challenges facing campuses today and an expectation of evidence—the ability to show “what’s working” and why.
Proposals might focus on student learning—essential areas of knowledge, skills, capacities, and integration—that reaffirm the directions institutions are taking with general education. They might provide strategies for helping campuses both develop sustainable leadership for general education and find ways of rewarding those who make their programs work.
Since getting assessment “right” is a pivotal challenge for every college and university, proposals might provide approaches to assessment that focus and deepen learning, especially designs that are anchored in the curriculum. They can create an opportunity for participants to explore what we are learning from assessment initiatives across the country, including AAC&U’s own pioneering effort to develop national guidelines for e-portfolios.
Please review the entire proposal submission process outlined below to help you decide if this is something that you would like to do. We look forward to your proposal and participation.
Conference Themes
Writing a Strong Proposal
Session Formats
How to Submit a Proposal
Resources for Attendees of Your Session
Final Reminders
Dates to Remember
Online Proposal Form -- no longer available
Important: After deciding to submit a proposal, please follow each step of the instructions and contact us if you have questions. Once you begin the submission form, you will not be able to save the proposal for submission at another time.
Conference Themes
Themes: The conference is organized around four major themes related to framing general education in the context of powerful goals for student learning and using assessment to show what is working and why. The bullets that follow each heading are just a few examples of ways a proposal might explore one of these four themes
Philosophy: What are the Purposes of General Education Today? Is There an Artificial Distinction between Essential Goals for ‘General Education’ and Essential Goals for ‘the Major’?
This track invites proposals that explore fundamental questions that undergird general education and college learning as a whole. American models of general education are sparking interest around the globe, yet some campuses in the U.S. have done away with general education entirely.
- What are the purposes of general education today? Which aims and outcomes require new emphasis?
- Should general education provide students with a survey of the disciplines, introduce them to disciplinary methods and modes of inquiry, help them integrate disparate areas of knowledge? Should it help students develop essential capabilities? Apply their learning to real-world problems? What are the implications of different goals and emphases for curriculum design?
- Should general education consist of lower division courses only or upper division courses as well?
- What is the relationship between general education and the major in the context of today’s cross-cutting and integrative goals for student learning? What changes might need to occur in the major in response to changes in general education?
- What are the relationships among diversity, civic, and global learning and general education? Should these kinds of learning be essential goals of general education?
- For many students, general education courses in science are “terminal” rather than “introductory.” How do we maximize the educational power of general education in science? In other STEM fields?
- Can general and specialized learning be fostered in ways that make curricular categories such as “general education,” “electives,” and “the major” outmoded or obsolete?
- If general education is a location for signature programs and mission-specific outcomes, does ease of student transfer force institutions to give up their distinctive characteristics? Can student transfer ever be truly “seamless”?
Design: Can the Menu Be Saved? How Well Do Thematic Designs Really Work?
- Can distribution models amount to more than just “courses a la carte” that lack connection and coherence and if so, how?
- How much does student demand for freedom, flexibility, and choice drive our general education designs?
- Is a common core any better? Are mixed/integrative models, such as those designed around “big questions,” a better approach?
- If diversity, civic, and global learning are campus-wide goals, what special role can general education play in achieving them? Is one required course enough to foster such learning?
- How do campuses provide programs that deepen student learning while also balancing issues of cost, time, and staffing?
- How have active learning practices, such as service learning, undergraduate research, and learning communities, influenced general education design?
- How can institutions enhance horizontal integration (e.g., across general education, the major, and electives; across the curriculum and co-curriculum) and vertical integration (cumulative learning from first to final year)?
- How can campuses maintain their “stamp” on general education yet make it easier for “swirling” students to take classes at different institutions or in different formats?
Roles, Rewards and Leadership: How Do We Support What We Say Is Important?
This track invites proposals to address the leadership structures and processes that help faculty, staff and students step outside of their comfort zones regarding cross-cutting general education outcomes and assessment.
- How can faculty, as disciplinary specialists, help students achieve learning outcomes? In the discipline? Across disciplines?
- How do we encourage faculty, staff, and students to wrestle with difficult or charged topics?
- What is the educational responsibility that we all have for fostering a positive climate for learning for all students? How is this kind of work rewarded by the institution?
- How do we build cultures for teaching and learning where faculty, staff, and students want to engage with new or unfamiliar topics or methods? How do institutions sustain this kind of excitement and interest over time?
- How do we successfully organize both administrative and intellectual leadership for general education and its assessment?
Assessment: Are We Fostering the Kinds of Learning We Espouse for Students?
This track invites proposals that grapple with issues of assessment—how to bring assessment “in from the cold” to the center of institutional functioning, how to identify or develop assessments that foster and improve learning, and how to share and use findings to enhance teaching and learning.
- What forms of assessment do justice to the kinds of learning colleges and universities want students to develop?
- What special role can milestone and culminating assessments play in general education?
- How can campuses more effectively support—and reward—the work involved in assessing learning and in learning from the results?
- How can external pressures spur positive action?
- How do we respond to the continuing pressure to use “comparable measures?”
- How can assessment become routine – improving learning, generating useful data, and not over-burdening faculty?
- What broad lessons from successful general education reform can be applied to efforts to build assessment on campus?
- Many states have improved the ease of course transfer significantly, including providing students with web-based platforms that allow comparison of courses at different institutions. But how does one assess what it is that students are actually learning and how that learning fulfills comparable course objectives and students educational goals across institutions? How can assessment be used to measure student competencies and how those competencies transfer across institutions to advance student achievement of specific outcomes?
Writing a Strong Proposal
The proposal consists of three parts: a short session title, a brief session description (150 words), and a longer abstract. Your proposal should be clear and concise and your session title should accurately reflect your session content. Experts in the field and AAC&U staff will review all proposals. Reviewers will look favorably upon proposals that (1) offer theories, research findings, practical models, and/or strategies that reflect one of the conference themes and have proven effective, (2) are innovative and interactive, and (3) identify the intended audience and goals for the session (including what attendees will gain from going to the session).
Tips
- Consider how your work might be useful to individuals at different types of institutions and/or those serving different student populations.
- Indicate if your session will: (1) combine the work of more than one institution, (2) illustrate perspectives of different organizational roles (e.g., faculty, department chairs, student affairs educators, academic advisors, librarians, students), or (3) focus on a specific audience. We particularly welcome student perspectives on your work and models of collaboration.
- Include facilitators who bring diverse perspectives and life experiences to the topic or issue your proposal addresses. AAC&U is committed to presenting conferences where sessions and participants reflect the pluralism of our campus communities.
- Show how your session will be interactive. In AAC&U Network meetings, participants are actively engaged in discussion and activities during sessions. Please do not plan to read a paper.
- Provide a clear sense of how your session will unfold and be prepared to discuss what worked, what did not, and how you addressed challenges along the way.
- Avoid “show and tell” submissions that have little or no applicability to other institutions.
- Present work that has proven effective and is well beyond the planning stages.
Below is a sample session title and description that clearly states the issue to be explored, provides supporting evidence, and discusses what participants should expect from their attendance. Your abstract should provide greater detail about these aspects of the session.
Searching for Faculty of Color and Sustaining their Presence on Campus
Recent studies have shown that institutional context affects not only searches for faculty of color but also the socialization processes through which these faculty members negotiate their own cultural backgrounds alongside newly forged identities within the academy. In this session, the facilitators will: (a) highlight emerging practices at institutions that successfully recruit and sustain faculty of color; (b) recommend strategies for institutions to increase the presence of faculty of color; and (c) share a set of socialization experiences of linguistic-minority women faculty. Participants will explore implications for creating a “multi-contextual” campus culture that validates the importance of different ways of thinking and learning, and they will share their own institutional experiences and promising strategies related to the recruitment and success of faculty of color.
Session Formats
There are four session formats from which to choose: (1) workshop, (2) basic and applied research information/model/discussion, (3) poster/demonstration, and (4) roundtable discussion. Please select the format that will best facilitate participants’ understanding and potential use of your work. One way to effectively engage participants across the different formats is to have them explore ways to apply your information and resources to their own institutional and professional settings.
Workshop (90 minutes; two or three facilitators; room set in roundtables to support active learning)
Workshops provide participants an opportunity to engage the facilitator and each other in learning about the session topic and applying it to their unique situations. Workshops should begin with a brief framing of an issue, theory, model, or process and include data, benchmarks and challenges, practical examples, and evidence that you and the participants can then use to examine and discuss the topic. If you are sharing a campus-based project, provide an opportunity for workshop participants to apply the concepts to their own situations. For example, if your work takes place at a research university, please facilitate discussion among participants as to how community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and comprehensive institutions might adapt your work to account for institutional differences. You might organize the participants into discussion groups by institution type or stage in the process (novice, intermediate, advanced) of work being addressed. If your work is better suited to a particular type of institution or level of engagement, please make that clear.
Proposals should:
- state clearly the problem or issue that you will address and to which theme it relates
- indicate how your work has effectively addressed that problem or issue
- indicate the outcomes participants should expect from your session and examples of how you will facilitate achievement of those outcomes
- describe the strategies you will use to engage participants in discussing, analyzing, synthesizing, and applying the information you will share
- describe how your work might be applied to a particular or multiple sectors of higher education, i.e. large universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges; describe the level to which your session is geared (novice, intermediate, advanced)
- include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (electronic copies of materials can be provided later)
- include time for participants to discuss how the work might be used to achieve the stated goals or outcomes
Seminar (Research information/model/discussion sessions) (75 minutes; two or three facilitators; room set in roundtables)
This session should allow 20 minutes to provide research findings or overview of a model, 35 minutes to discuss practical applications; and 20 minutes for participant discussion. Research information or models of institutional reform or assessment can stimulate creative problem-solving discussions. Research session proposals should state the underlying research hypothesis, a brief explanation of the methodology, and a summary of the findings. Practical applications should provide concrete steps for using the research to affect change. Data, findings, and applications should be presented in ways that are accessible to participants and allow them to engage in a discussion about the implications of your findings. Models might be presented visually as well as verbally and include strategies for implementation.
Proposals should:
- state the hypothesis/problem your research addresses or describe the model
- identify the theme that you will address
- describe briefly the methodology and the parameters of the study
- provide visual means of presenting findings and applications (e.g. handouts)
- include time throughout the session for participants to discuss the implications of the findings and applications
Poster/Demonstration Sessions (60 minutes; one or two facilitators; 6 X 3 foot skirted table; electrical connections and other supports provided as available upon request)
Poster/demonstration sessions lend themselves well to combining visual displays of key information with written and verbal presentations and small group interaction to create a more individualized learning experience. These sessions provide an opportunity for you to share your work with the full conference audience and they are a valuable way to initiate conversations with those of similar interest. These sessions can include 3’x 4’ boards to display visual charts, diagrams, pictures, graphs, etc. that demonstrate key findings. They might also present the information through technological means or other types of visual displays that can be set-up on the 6’x3’ table provided.
Proposals should:
- clearly state the problem or issue that your display will address and to which theme it relates
- indicate how your work has effectively addressed that issue
- describe the visual data, display, etc. that you will provide including any special requests for technical assistance
- indicate how the data or information will be useful to a particular or multiple sectors of higher education
- include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (copies of materials can be provided later)
- include students or student perspectives in your presentation where relevant
NOTE: Our ability to provide technical assistance is limited, but if you have a project for which you need such assistance, we are happy to explore the options with you. Poster boards are provided upon request.
Roundtable Discussions (60 minutes; one or two facilitators; roundtable of 10 during continental breakfast; no audio visual)
Roundtables are facilitated discussions among colleagues with a common interest. They provide a valuable forum to network and reflect upon important topics in an informal setting. Roundtable discussions may take one of the following approaches:
- Topic discussion/theoretical construct: The facilitator briefly presents a topic of general interest and uses this opportunity to explore issues relevant among colleagues from a variety of positions and institutions to uncover new ways of thinking about shared interests.
- Case study/practice/strategy: The facilitator prefaces the discussion with a brief overview of her/his work and a handout that includes a longer description, theory, data, models, bibliography, or other resources. She/he may pose or invite a question to stimulate and/or focus the conversation so that others can share their own experience with the issue
Proposals should:
- describe clearly the topic, theory, or practice that you will present for discussion, why it is compelling for those in higher education to address this issue, and to which theme it relates
- indicate your experience in addressing the issue including the benchmarks of success, challenges, and outcomes of your work
- indicate the outcomes participants should expect from the discussion and examples of how you will prompt and sustain conversation to achieve those outcomes
- include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (electronic copies of materials can be provided later)
- include students or student perspectives where relevant
How to Submit a Proposal
Electronic Submission
Please submit your proposal online by filling in each field of the submission form as directed. If you cannot submit the proposal electronically or encounter technical difficulties, please contact Siah Annand at Annand@aacu.org or 202.387.3760 ext. 802.
Deadline
Please submit your proposal by Midnight Pacific Time, Friday, August 1, 2008.
Notification
You should receive an automatic message indicating receipt of your proposal when submitted. If you do not receive this message, we may not have received your proposal. Please send an e-mail to Siah Annand at Annand@aacu.org if you would like to confirm receipt of proposal.
Acceptance
You will receive notification about the status of your proposal by Friday, August 22, 2008.
Registration Fees
All session facilitators at the conference are responsible for the appropriate conference registration fees, travel, and hotel expenses. Please be sure all individuals in your proposal have this information and can be available to present at any time throughout the event. Presentation times range from Thursday, February 26, 2009 beginning at 8:30 p.m. through Saturday, February 28, at 12:00 noon.
Resources for Attendees of Your Session
Conference participants like to have resource materials to help them implement and/or share new ideas when they return to campus. In an effort to conserve natural resources, and increase the potential for active participation in your session, we strongly encourage facilitators to provide us with online resources one month in advance of the conference.
If your proposal pertains to a project, program, course, or other feature for which there is (or will be) descriptive materials available on the Web or electronically, please provide the URL address or e-document with your proposal, (or when they become available before the conference). AAC&U’s Web site will include these links when we post the program. After the conference, all presenters will be asked to provide additional electronic resources to make available to conference participants.
Final Reminders
Please complete all fields including information pertaining to all additional facilitators.
- Please include links to supplemental materials, if available.
- Please remember that by submitting a proposal, you agree to:
- Register and pay conference fees if the proposal is accepted
- Inform your co-facilitators about the proposal’s status and the need for all facilitators to pay the conference registration fees and be available throughout the event to present your work as scheduled.
Dates to Remember
- Friday, August 1 , 2008: Proposals due to AAC&U
- Friday, August 22, 2008: Proposal acceptance notification
|
