Integrative Learning: Addressing the Complexities
Pre-Conference Workshops
Separate registration and fee required ($100 members, $125 non-members); seating will be limited, so register early.
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 1:30 – 5:00 P.M. (Workshop 1 only)
Workshop 1: Ensuring Liberally Educated Business Graduates
Why should academic administrators and faculty care about integrating liberal arts and business? How can the chasm that exists between liberal arts and business be bridged? This workshop will address these timely questions. Facilitators—representing provosts, deans, department heads, and the faculty—will share approaches that successfully blend not only liberal arts and business domains, but also liberal learning and business learning outcomes. Participants will work to develop concrete strategies for ensuring that business graduates are genuinely liberally educated.
Calvin Boardman, Professor of Finance, University of Utah; Peter Brown, Senior Vice Provost, Mercer University; Byron Chew, Monaghan Professor of Management, Birmingham-Southern College; Samuel Hines, Provost and Dean of the College, The Citadel; Cecilia McInnis-Bowers, Professor of International Business, Rollins College; and John Williams, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Morehouse College
Thursday, October 22, 2009, 2:00 – 5:00 P.M. (Workshops 2-5)
Workshop 2: Developing, Implementing, and Assessing Integrative Learning in First-Year Programs
Integrative learning is often thought of as a practice developed in the later years of college, yet the ability to synergize multiple areas of knowledge, values, and experience to solve problems in and out of the classroom should begin early in every student’s education. In this workshop, facilitators will demonstrate teaching and assessment practices from first-year programs that encourage students to make connections across disciplines and to develop skills to apply knowledge to real world challenges. Participants will develop ideas for campus plans to implement best practices that may include learning communities, service learning, integrative assignment development, reflection, and e-portfolios.
Judy P. Patton, Associate Dean, School of Fine and Performing Arts, and Professor, Theater Arts, Portland State University; and Rhonda Mandel, Interim Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, SUNY Oswego
Workshop 3: E-Portfolios: Enhancing Student Self-Authorship and Self Assessment
E-portfolios and carefully designed rubrics have significant potential to advance student learning, identity development, cultural understanding, and social responsibility. Participants in this workshop will learn about the different ways that portfolios and rubrics can be used throughout the undergraduate experience to enhance students’ knowledge, integrative learning, understanding of their place in the world, and self-authorship of the roles they will take in the workplace, community, and home.
J. Elizabeth Clark, Professor of English, LaGuardia Community College; and Anne Warner, Director of the Comprehensive Writing Program, Spelman College
SOLD OUT
Workshop 4: Preparing and Supporting Faculty for Integrative Teaching and Learning
When an institution pursues integrative learning as a curricular goal, the ability of the faculty to act on that goal will be the single most important determinant of success or failure. Faculty create the curriculum and teach the courses, yet they are seriously underprepared for both of these responsibilities. This workshop will identify and explore central issues of faculty development, culture, rewards, and organizational structure that can empower or inhibit faculty efforts to create integrative learning across the curriculum.
Dee Fink, Senior Associate, Dee Fink and Associates and Carolyn Haynes, Director, Honors and Scholars Program and Professor of English, Miami University
Workshop 5: Usable Knowledge: Assessing and Improving Integrative Learning
If “integrative learning” means “synthesizing learning from different domains of knowledge and applying learning to new situations,” then the assessment of integrative learning requires integrative learning. This workshop will introduce participants to an array of approaches to assess integrative learning, maintaining a focus on the practical application of assessment results for improving that learning. Participants will work on developing an assessable definition of integrative learning in the context of their own institutions; identify the ways assessment evidence might improve what their institutions are currently doing to foster integrative learning; consider a variety of existing instruments for gathering that evidence; and receive suggestions for developing campus-specific instruments.
Jo M. Beld, Director of Evaluation and Assessment, St. Olaf College
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