Integrative Learning: Addressing the Complexities

October 22-24, 2009
Atlanta, Georgia

Call for Proposals

Deadline for submission of proposals: March 11, 2009

Conference Themes
Session Formats
New! Become a LEAP Featured Session
Writing a Strong Proposal
How to Submit a Proposal
Dates to Remember

The Network for Academic Renewal invites proposals that highlight the new importance of integrative learning ten years in to the new century.

Integrative learning consists of more than simply learning one topic and then learning another.  It involves the ability to put multiple domains of knowledge in conversation with one another, to have these domains inform, complicate, illuminate, and challenge each other.  It also involves putting knowledge into action, teaching students how to connect academic and field-based experiences.  Integrative learning, in short, can make the difference between an education that merely satisfies requirements and one that equips students to act knowledgeably and responsibly in the world.

Five years ago, AAC&U and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching issued a joint  statement on integrative learning, which noted, “Many colleges and universities are creating opportunities for more integrative, connected learning through first-year seminars, learning communities, interdisciplinary studies programs, capstone experiences, individual portfolios, advising, student self-assessment, and other initiatives. Often, however, such innovations involve only small numbers of students or exist in isolation, disconnected from other parts of the curriculum and from other reform efforts.  But a variety of opportunities to develop the capacity for integrative learning should be available to all students throughout their college years, and should be a cornerstone of a twenty-first century education.”

We invite submissions of promising practices related to four conference themes that will help faculty, student affairs educators, administrators, and students make integrative learning part of a substantive vision for learning in the college years.

Conference Themes

Theme 1:  Purposes

What are the hallmarks of integrative learning?  How can integrating and applying their learning help students move past fragmentation and develop a sense of motivation and purpose in the world?

• How do colleges and universities define integrative learning?  What are the aims and purposes of integrative learning programs?
• What are the hallmarks of integrative learning?  What will a student be able to know, to think, or to do as a result of integrating their learning?
• How can integration be a mechanism for achieving deeper learning in outcome areas such as critical thinking, ethical reasoning and action, intercultural competency, and knowledge in one or more disciplines?
• What is the role of integrative learning in the development of capacities such as creativity, innovation, and social responsibility?  In spurring students’ intellectual and moral development?  
• Are there levels of integrative learning?  If so, what would a novice be able to do?  An advanced learner?
• How is integrative learning different than interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary learning?
• What is the relationship between integrative learning and integrated programs and activities?  What do campuses hope to accomplish through these integrated activities?

Theme 2:  Design

This track will highlight curricular, co-curricular, community-based, and pedagogical designs that foster integrative learning.

• How are campuses fostering integrative learning in different majors? Within general education? Across majors and general education?
• What kinds of experiences are helping students integrate and connect their curricular learning with co-curricular experiences and activities?
• What adaptable approaches can be found in business, engineering, education, and other professional programs to help students apply their knowledge in new settings or to novel situations?
• Are there classroom strategies that are particularly useful in fostering integration? What kinds of course assignments or prompts have been successful?
• In what ways are students applying their learning in “real-world” settings in order to reinforce, deepen, and complicate classroom-based learning?  How can internships, co-ops, and service-learning foster integration?
• What role do capstone courses or projects, undergraduate research, and diversity/global learning play in advancing integration?
• How do inquiry- and problem-based learning activities—which require connecting knowledge with skills in analysis, discovery, problem solving, and communication—foster integration?  How have faculty successfully redesigned courses to focus less on “covering the material” and more on problem-based approaches?  How have faculty integrated problem-based learning into large courses?
• What kinds of courses or activities help prepare first-year students for later integrative experiences?  What helps prepare transfer students or students who are planning to transfer for later integrative requirements?
• How can campuses utilize academic advising, career advising, leadership programs, and similar mechanisms to help students connect different parts of their educational experiences over time?
• Many colleges and universities are considering interdisciplinary, “big questions” approaches to curriculum reform, including general education reform.  Is this a route to integrative learning?  Why or why not?
• What role can technology play in helping students make connections across disparate areas of knowledge or disparate settings?  How can technology be used to spur reflection? 
• What techniques for integration can be drawn from experiential activities, such as inter-group dialogue, student government, or student cultural organizations? 

Theme 3:  Reality Check

This track will focus on the kinds of institutional supports and incentives that can help foster integrative learning as an essential outcome for students.  

• What kinds of faculty and staff development have been helpful in bringing more integrative learning opportunities into the curriculum and co-curriculum?  
• How have campuses worked to ensure that integrative learning happens at increasing levels of accomplishment over time?
• Can integrative learning happen within traditional administrative (e.g., rewards) structures? If not, what kinds of structures and processes facilitate the development of integrative learning opportunities?
• How are institutions reshaping faculty roles and rewards so that courses and pedagogies that cross boundaries (of disciplines, methods, or units) are valued?
• What kinds of incentives (e.g., mini-grants, course releases) help support innovation in integrative learning techniques?  What role can outside grants play in spurring innovation in this area?
• How are campus leaders working to institutionalize their most promising practices related to integrative learning? How are they scaling them up to reach more students?
• How can faculty and staff maintain a focus on integrative learning in times of scarce resources? How can they better negotiate resistance to these activities?
• What are some of the practical challenges associated with implementing integrative learning opportunities, and how have campuses addressed these issues?
• Who is participating in integrative learning opportunities?  How are campuses working to ensure that historically underserved students, liberal arts students, commuter students, and transfer students are participating?  How are campuses working to ensure that students are participating by design and not by chance?
• Which faculty and staff are involved in integrative learning activities?  Are a range of departments and units represented?  What steps have campuses taken to bring more people “to the table”?

Theme 4:  Assessment

This track will explore the ways in which campuses are assessing integrative learning across different learning experiences and over time.

• What does successful integrative learning look like?  What kinds of assessment tools exist to help campuses assess student learning in this arena?
• How are accrediting bodies stressing the need for more integrative learning experiences for students? What types of evidence of student learning are they calling for in this area?
• How well are e-portfolios—and other tools designed to document and deepen student learning over time—fostering integrative learning? What role can early, milestone, and capstone assessments play?
• How are faculty shaping course assignments to document students’ integrative learning?  How can tools such as rubrics assist with this?
• What national assessment instruments have been helpful in assessing integrative learning, directly or indirectly?
• How have campuses used qualitative methods, such as focus groups or structured interviews, to better understand student learning related to integration? How have these techniques complemented survey methods?
• How have campuses used assessment results to improve practice in and across courses, course sequences, the curriculum, and the co-curriculum?

Session Formats

There are four session formats from which to choose: (1) Hands-On Workshop, (2) Research/Project Dissemination & 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.

Format 1: Hands-On Workshop (90 min.; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
Workshops provide an opportunity for the facilitators to significantly engage participants in active learning about the session topic. Workshops should begin with a brief framing of the topic and an overview of intended activities and goals for the session. Facilitators should introduce one or more models or strategies employed in their own work and provide data/findings related to the topic, benchmarks for success, common challenges, and practical examples that enhance participants’ learning. Facilitators should specifically take participants through one or more relevant exercises or activities (including in small groups) that will help them to move their own efforts forward upon returning to campus. 

All sessions should include discussion of how participants might translate and adapt models and strategies to their institutional and professional settings. If the workshop is better suited to a particular type of institution (e.g., community college, research university) or level of expertise (novice, intermediate, advanced), please make that clear. 

Hands-On Workshop proposals should: 

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the problem or issue that your workshop addresses
3. indicate how models or strategies that you plan to share have effectively addressed the problem or issue
4. describe the intended activities and outcomes of your session, noting how the activities will help participants achieve the outcomes
5. describe the aspects of your work that can be applied to one or more sectors of higher education (i.e., large universities, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive institutions, community colleges)
6. describe the level to which your session is geared (novice, intermediate, advanced)
7. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
8. include time for participants to discuss how your models and strategies might translate to their own campus contexts and roles

Format 2: Research/Project Dissemination & Discussion (75 min.; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
This session should allow for (a) 15-20 minutes for facilitators to highlight their research findings or promising project, model, or other innovation; (b) 35-40 minutes to work through practical applications of this work (e.g., to other institutions or in scaling up to involve greater numbers of students); and (c) 15-20 minutes for general participant questions-and-answers. Research-focused proposals should state the research hypothesis, the methodology used, and the major findings, and offer concrete examples/steps related to using the findings 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 implications. Project/model/innovation-focused proposals should briefly describe the project, the parties involved (e.g., humanities and science faculty, residence life staff, first-year students, etc.), the impetus for the project, components, challenges encountered, strategies for implementation and plans for assessing its effectiveness.

All sessions should include discussion of how participants might translate and adapt the research or project/model/innovation to their institutional and professional settings. Facilitators are also welcome to solicit feedback that would inform their work. If the dissemination & discussion session is better suited to a particular type of institution (e.g., community college, research university) or level of expertise (novice, intermediate, advanced), please make that clear. 

Research-Focused Dissemination & Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the hypothesis/problem your research has addressed
3. describe briefly the methodology and the parameters of the study
4. provide visual means of presenting findings and applications (e.g., powerpoint presentation, handouts)
5. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
6. include time throughout the session for participants to discuss the implications of the findings and practical applications

Project/Model/Innovation-Focused Dissemination & Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. describe the project, model, or innovation to be featured
3. highlight the parties involved (e.g., humanities and science faculty, residence life staff, first-year students), the impetus for the project, components, challenges encountered, and strategies for implementation and assessment.
4. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
5. include time throughout the session for participants to discuss the implications of the findings and practical applications

Format 3: Poster Sessions (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; 6’x3’ skirted table; no internet access; electrical outlet and other supports as available, upon request)
Poster sessions lend themselves well to combining visual displays of key information with written materials 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 colleagues with similar interests. These sessions can include 3’x 4’ boards to display charts, diagrams, pictures, and/or graphs that depict program components, findings, samples of student work, participant testimony, and so on. You may also wish to present information through technological means or other types of visual displays that can be set-up on the 6’x3’ table provided. 

Poster Session proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the problem or issue that your display will address
3. indicate how your work has effectively addressed the issue
4. describe the visual data, display, etc. that you will provide
5. indicate how the data or information will be useful to a particular or multiple sectors of higher education
6. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
7. include students or student perspectives 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 options with you. Poster boards are provided upon request.  

Format 4: Roundtable Discussions (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; roundtable of 10 during continental breakfast; no audio-visual)
Roundtable discussions are facilitated among colleagues who share an interest in your topic. They provide a valuable opportunity to network and reflect upon ideas, challenges, and possible solutions in an informal setting. Roundtable discussions may take one of the following approaches:

• Topical discussion: The facilitator briefly presents on a topic related to one of the conference themes and uses the roundtable discussion to explore issues of concern to the group and to uncover new ways of thinking about the topic.
• Practice/strategy discussion: The facilitator prefaces the discussion with a brief overview of a particular practice or strategy she/he is using and provides a handout that includes a longer description as well as a bibliography or other resources.  She/he can then pose or invite a question to stimulate and focus the conversation so that others can share their own experiences using the particular practice or strategy.

Roundtable Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. describe the topic or practice/strategy that you will present for discussion and why it is important to address this issue
3. indicate your experience in the topic area or in using the practice/strategy (including relevant theory, goals or purpose of the topic or practice being discussed, benchmarks of success, challenges, and findings, where applicable)
4. indicate the outcomes participants should expect from the discussion and examples of how you will prompt and sustain conversation to achieve those outcomes
5. include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (electronic copies of materials can be provided later)
6. include students or student perspectives where relevant

New! Become a LEAP Featured Session in the Conference Program

This designation is intended to spotlight the innovative work of colleges and universities that are members of the LEAP Campus Action Network (CAN).  CAN brings together colleges, universities, and organizations committed to liberal education; helps them to improve their efforts to ensure that all students achieve essential outcomes; and highlights their effective practices.  If you would like your session to receive this designation, please review the eligibility section below.  You will be able to check this option in the online proposal submission form.

Eligibility 

• Any type of session—hands-on workshop, poster, or roundtable discussion—can be designated as a LEAP Featured Session in the conference program.
• Session presenters must be from CAN member institutions. (To find out if your campus is a member, or to find out about signing up for CAN, click here.) 
• Session proposals should explicitly address: (1) one or more of the LEAP essential learning outcomes and (2) one or more of the LEAP principles of excellence or high-impact practices identified as mechanisms for achieving the essential learning outcomes.
• Preference will be given to sessions that address how the campus practice/strategy engages a significant number of students or can be scaled to engage a significant number of students, particularly those students historically underserved by higher education. 

About LEAP: Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is AAC&U’s primary vehicle for advancing and communicating about the importance of undergraduate liberal education for all students.  LEAP seeks to engage the public with core questions about what really matters in college, to give students a compass to guide their learning, and to make a set of essential learning outcomes the preferred framework for educational excellence, assessment of learning, and new alignments between school and college.  For more information, click here.

Writing a Strong Proposal

The proposal should consist of a session title, a brief abstract, and a longer session description accompanied by presenter names, titles, and institutional/organizational affiliations. 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 practical models and/or innovative strategies that reflect one of the conference themes, (2) reflect sound theory or research, (3) include findings from evaluation and assessment, (4) identify the intended audience and active learning goals for the session (including what attendees will gain from going to the session), and (5) reflect a diversity of innovations, institutions, disciplines, programmatic areas, and individuals. Joint submissions from across campuses and campus-community partners are also encouraged, and we particularly welcome student perspectives on the featured models and strategies. 

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 personnel, academic advisors, librarians, students), or (3) focus on a specific audience.
• 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 the communities of participants reflect the diversity of our campuses.
• Show how your session will be interactive. AAC&U Network conferences strive to engage participants 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 abstract that clearly states the issue to be explored, provides supporting evidence, and discusses what participants should expect from their attendance. Your longer session description 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.

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, March 11 , 2009.

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 e-mail Siah Annand at Annand@aacu.org to confirm receipt of proposal.

Acceptance
You will receive notification about the status of your proposal by April 20, 2009.

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,October 22, 2009 beginning at 8:30 p.m. through Saturday, October 24, 2009 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

• Wednesday, March 11, 2009: Proposals due to AAC&U
• Monday, April 20: Proposal acceptance notification

LINKS

About the Conference:
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  About the CFP
 

Conference Features
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  Program (pdf)
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