Teaching and Learning Tip #26: May the Force Be With Us!
Tip #26: May the Force Be With Us!
Contributed by Andy Stubblefield, Chair of WASC Self-Study Committee, Professor of Hydrology and Watershed Management
Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you’re well aware that WASC Review is coming soon to a campus near you! As we gear up for our WSCUC (WASC Senior College & University Commission) visit this week, you might be wondering, how can I help support the reaffirmation of our accreditation? Well, you probably already are, through the amazing work you’re doing now in your classroom. Our WASC self-study highlighted things like Klamath Connection and the redesign of Chemistry 109, but there are so many more examples of our faculty implementing high impact practices to support student learning and success.
Here are a few examples to celebrate:
- Mari Sanchez, Psychology, has focused on efforts to make class material meaningful to students in their everyday lives and encourages them to actively make connections of their own to their own lives and knowledge. These practices serve as a helpful way to study and encouraged with extra credit incentives where points are awarded if they share the connections they have made with the class in a Canvas discussion forum. These practices are research based and are found to help student understanding and retention of class material.
- Suzanne Pasztor, History, has redesigned History 312 (World History for those aspiring to teach) to include a series of smaller assessments both low and high stakes formats to get at what these future teachers really need to know and practice. In addition, including guided discussions in class and online provides students analytical writing practice with opportunity for re-grades on their work. She has also redesigned History 328 (Women and Gender in Latin America) to include Student Panels where students “teach” a scholarly article to a peer group giving opportunity for analytical thinking and oral presentation skills.
- Eileen Cashman, Environmental Resource Engineering, and Micaela Szykman Gunther, Wildlife, have led a collaboration of faculty and the Academic and Career Advising Center in submitting a $1.5 million proposal to NSF this spring to provide professional development and paid summer internships for 60 students in order to promote retention and graduation in STEM fields.
- Loren Collins, Political Science/Academic and Career Advising Center, has Political Science 482 students participate in a “major mapping” activity where they write in an unordered fashion, all the courses, projects, theories, authors, books, activities, etc. that they can remember through their time within their major. This is followed by looking for knowledge, skills, and common themes from their maps to make meaning through rich discussion on what they have gained from their majors. In mock interviews, students pull from this activity as they practice how they would summarize their education and experience outside of HSU and in their future careers.
- Over 85 faculty have been participating in a 12-hour training on the theme: Creating Change for Equity. The purpose of these Student Success Summits is to create a community of practice focused on developing a culture of shared norms and values that establish an inclusive learning environment, one that prohibits anyone from being disadvantaged or unjustly treated because of social identity or status.
- Sarah Jaquette Ray, Environmental Studies, has incorporated career planning and as a result, students have much greater investment in the campus and community, better performance in coursework, and better relationships with faculty. She feels their sense of agency and purpose is greatly increased, decreasing their anxiety. She wonders “is it our job to create good, disciplined ecological subjects, managers of resources? Or something else? How can Environmental Studies students operate within existing systems while being deeply critical of them? (M. Foucault, Timothy W. Luke, etc).”
When we think about accreditation and what it means to our students, I encourage you to think about the successes in your classrooms and your students’ engagement and learning. What comes to mind? These are the stories that we need to celebrate as a campus community. If you get stopped on the quad by a member of the WSCUC Review Team, tell them about what you celebrate in your own teaching. Your voice in this process is incredibly important. Thank you for all that you do!