Diversifying our approach to problem solving in higher education

"Our Projects, if we are wise, will be myriad and quiet, not a grand few visible to the whole world."

This is a passage from Bill McKibben's recent book, eaarth.  In this part of his book, McKibben is arguing that it's time to shift our global paradigm from growth to maintenance and, that with limited resources, it's too risky to bet on a few, large projects or initiatives.  If we are going to make life on our polluted, resource-depleted planet, we need to minimize risk by finding lots of small ways to improve conditions.  In essence, in the end we'll be better off making lots of small wagers rather than a small number of huge investments.  

There seems to be some wisdom for higher education here--try a lot of different things, minimize your risk, pay attention to what works, and then replicate it if you can.  In highly centralized organizations like universities, however, we don't do well with this sort of thing.  It's more likely that we invest huge amounts of resources in large-scale initiatives that are very public and that carry huge risk.  For example, I've mentioned on this blog before how my institution will be launching a freshman mentoring program this fall wherein every freshman student is provided with an upperclassmen mentor.  This has meant vast changes in the way students register for courses, the development of technological solutions involving hours and hours of development and testing, the creation of a new full-time administrative position, and a comprehensive course redesign for one of the largest freshman courses on campus, not to mention a huge allocation of funds to pay and train the peer mentors.  The objectives of the program are to balance resources across high-demand first year courses, connect students with an upperclassmen who can support them in their transition, and increase the likelihood that freshmen will use campus resources (e.g. advisement centers, teaching assistants, etc.)

I hope that the program is a success because I value mentoring and believe that it can make a tremendous difference for first-year students.  But, McKibben's ideas have me wondering whether a decentralized effort across a variety of departments may have been just as useful in improving the first-year experience for BYU students.  What could academic advisors do in their sphere to help?  Is there a low-cost social media campaign that the Office of First-Year Experience could have piloted?  What if Residence Life had experimented with American Heritage course review sessions taught in the halls?  If any one (or all) of those things fail, no one has lost much time or money and central administration doesn't have to worry about looking bad.  As it is, the message has been "Freshman Mentoring cannot fail" (that sounds eerily simialr to the "to big to fail" rhetoric we've heard surrounding the automotive and banking industries as of late) and the individuals responsible for making it work are faced with making the impossible possible.

I recognize the value of campus-wide, coordinated initiatives where a diverse group of stakeholders work together to address a campus issue.  I hope that is what our Freshman Mentoring initiative is and that it works.  If not, we will have spent a lot of time, money, and social capital on a disastrous failure.  

So, the question I'm really asking here is when large-scale, resource intense initiatives are the answer, and when we'd be better off encouraging small innovations across a number of departments and areas in hopes that they add up to some sort of aggregate success.  

What schools could learn from cab companies

I spent the first year of my professional career as a teacher.  At the risk of sounding arrogant, I thought I was pretty good--I had good rapport with students, I tried to align my teaching with learning objectives, and I believed that I applied good pedagogical practices in my classroom.  It's probably pretty easy to spot the problem in this assessment--they are all my own personal perceptions of my ability and performance, and very subject to bias and inaccuracy.  This has bothered me lately and I've wondered how good a teacher I really was during that year.  As I look back on those experiences, two really important things seem to have been missing:  feedback and focused effort to learn from mistakes.  

While I tried to regularly evaluate my own teaching, like most of us I probably overestimated my abilities and was likely unaware of many of the mistakes I was making.  On a few occasions (three, that I can remember) I was observed by another teacher and then given some basic feedback at the end of the class session.  It's fair to assume that both my own evaluations and those of others might have had some slight improvement on my teaching.  But, in retrospect, I don't think I was much better in June when the school year ended than I was on the first day of school in September.  In fact, I probably developed some bad habits, got too comfortable with the role, and stopped doing some of the little things that make a big difference in one's teaching ability.  In short, I may have even been worse.  

At the same time I was having these depressing thoughts, I was reading Traffic, by Tom Vanderbilt.  The book uses driving patterns and habits as a context for exploring human behavior.  He tells a fascinating story about how cab companies and limo services have helped improve their drivers' performance using a technology called DriveCam.  DriveCam installs cameras on the rearview mirrors of cars that continusously buffer images (like TiVo) of what is happening both inside and outside the car.  Sensors monitor various measurable forces and when a "trigger" is detected (sharp turn of the steering wheel, significant decrease/increase in speed, etc.), the camera records ten seconds of footage both before and after the trigger.  This footage is then sent to a database and may be reviewed with the driver in an attempt to correct mistakes and improve safety.  Although it probably ruffles some feathers of drivers who feel like their privacy is being invaded, the bottom line is that transportation companies have a lot to lose when their drivers don't drive well.  What's more, this is great learning.  Drivers can view actual footage of their driving, spot mistakes and fix them, and focus on small elements of the driving performance that seem to make a big difference in achieving good outcomes, namely safety (this isn't unlinke the way elite athletes use taped performances to improve).

This left me wondering why something similar couldn't happen in classrooms, particularly those classrooms led by novice teachers.  We spend millions of dollars to equip classrooms with new technologies that are touted to improve student learning and increase engagement.  And, while ipods and laptops can help, the core factor influencing student learning still seems to be the teacher.  It seems fair to ask why technology can't be used to imrove core teacher practices that would have far-reaching impact upon student learning.  There is some work being done in this area (see the work of Peter Rich and this pilot project at the University of Central Florida), but it  seems to be on the periphery.  

What would happen if there were cameras installed in classrooms that could capture real footage of teacher performance.  Are there "triggers" that we would want to focus on?  What would they be?  Something like this would seem to fill a gap in current teacher development practices.  Teachers would have the opportunity to really see themselves teaching (as opposed to their perception of their teaching or someone else's interpretation), use mistakes to improve, and focus on critical parts of their performance that have been shown to lead to significant improvements in student learning.  

Measuring what matters: How much should we really care about retention?

In his February 2010 TED talk, CEO and author Chip Conley tells a fascinating story about the nation of Bhutan and their transformation from an isolated, undeveloped nation to a modern, technologically rich nation that still manages to maintain the essence of their original culture and traditions.  Bhutan's story is one of striking the balance between progress and innovation, while stilll maintaining core elements of an identity (a rare feat for any country, organization, or school in today's rapid-paced world).  One of the most interesting parts of Conlee's telling of the story is his reason for Bhutan's ability to transorm in these ways.  Quite simply, he believes that it is because Bhutan has learned to "count" the right thing, gross national happiness.  Forty years ago, Bhutan's King coined the term rather off-handedly to describe his commitment to building an economy that would allow for growth, while staying true to Bhutan's Buddhist roots.  Bhutanese officials ran with the concept, developed sophisticated instruments to measure the concept, and used it as a model for the development plan that brought Bhutan into the 21st century.  This all stands in stark contrast to most nations' preoccupation with Gross Domestic Product and their belief that it stands as the supreme indicator of a nation's well-being.

There seems to be a lesson for higher education in all of this, particularly the first-year experience movement.  Like anyone else, we count what is easily countable.  So, in many ways "retention" has become our GDP.  We work hard to measure it, argue over how it should be measured, showcase (or hide) it in reports to our administrations, and tout it at conferences.  This isn't to say that we shouldn't care about retention--the reality is that enrolled students bring money to the institution and that money keeps us running.  But, there seems to be some danger in retention becoming what Conlee describes as a "misplaced metric," an easy to count measure that gives little indication as to the real health of an institution.

So, what should we be counting?  In many ways this question hinges on how we define success in the FYE movement and the factors that we believe contributes to a vibrant campus community.  What does a "successful" student look like at the end of their first year?  What skills, habits, and attitudes would they possess?  While the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has contributed greatly to institutions' ability to measure certain behaviors and attitudes of students,  we don't seem to do much on our individual campuses to measure the equivalent of the "gross national happiness" for our campuses.  

What would these "intangibles" on our campuses be?  While they will vary slightly across institutions, some possibilities might include

A personal reason for being at a particular institution.  Do students know why they decided to come to your school?  Their purpose and commitment to the educational ideals and objectives at your institution will make a huge difference in their engagement and persistence.  If they don't have a set of fairly good reasons for choosing a particular campus, there is likely to be trouble down the road.

Understanding of and investment in an institutional mission.  This seems strongly correlated with the idea above, but it seems important for institutions to not only orient students to their physical surroundings, but to help them understand the culture and ideals of the institution they have enrolled in so they might become a part of the community and fulfill their role in it.  So, if you are a faith-based institution that espouses character development, do students believe in that mission and pursue that growth?  For liberal arts institutions, do your students value a well-rounded education and recognize the importance of breadth in their learning?  

Passion for learning.   What students believe and feel about learning are important.  We want life-long learners that continue to grow and make contributions to society after they leave our institutions.  Can the first-year experience nurture this passion?  How would it be measured?

This is obviously not an all inclusive list.  But, these would seem to be key indicators of the success of a FYE program.  There are others including deep learning behaviors, formation of supportive mentoring relationships, and the development of grit and persistence.  We probably can't measure them all, but what for you are the key indicators on your campus?  What could we start measuring on our campuses that would be meaningful and give us real insight into the success of our FYE programs?  

Universities need leaders who know what to count.

  

The problem of control in education

I attended TTIX 2010 yesterday at the University of Utah.  TTIX (Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange) brings together instructional designers, technology specialists, and educators interested in the use of technology.  In her the keynote address, Nancy White explored the question "Should we use communities in learning?"  While there wasn't much argument that we should not, Nancy did present an interesting paradigm for thinking about the ways in which learning occurs.  She thought about it as an issue of "me, we, and the networks."  Or, more simply, we can learn individually, in small groups, or as part of a much broader network.  

We see individual and small-group learning at work every day in higher education.  But, real networked learning that extends outside of campus seems to be missing from most universities.  Of course, students often have their own personal learning networks, but these networks generally live outside of what they perceive as their school experience.  Students do one sort of learning in class, in the library, and with project groups.  They do another type of learning "outside of school," learning that is largely separated from their course work.  This seems problematic to me for at least two reasons.  First, formalized "school learning" should be authentic and connected to students' interests.  Second, if we really believe that higher education should produce life-long learners, campuses should help students begin to build and use a personal learning network that includes people, media, web resources, organizations, etc.  While some of those elements will be available on a college campus, it is either arrogant, naive, or both to think that a single college campus can connect students to all of the resources they will need for a rich learning network.  In short, there are times when we need to get students off-campus and encourage them to do their learning there.  And, this learning needs to have meaningful connections to what they are doing on campus as part of formal university programs.

Our problem in higher ed is that we want to exert control over students.  We want to tell them what they can learn and when they can learn it (the standard course model); we want to create closed learning management systems (e.g. Blackboard &Brain Honey) that allow us to monitor student learning and keep out "intruders;" and we tell them what their learning goals will be (graduation requirements).  Universities, by their very nature, will always have some level of structure and exert some level of control over students--I've come to accept that fact as unavoidable.  However, why couldn't our institutions help students identify their own learning goals, build their own personal learning networks, and then find ways to connect that learning to university coursework (or internships, captstone experiences, field studies, service learning, etc.)?  

We often wonder why students aren't motivated to do the sorts of deep learning that we would hope to see at the university level?  But, we can't be too surprised, given the fact that we removed most of a student's autonomy.  If students don't have some choice in structuring their learning (and selecting from a list of courses to take is a poor excuse for "choice"), they will rarely be motivated to learn deeply (see this TED talk by Dan Pink for more on this idea or this condensed version of his ideas; his newest book, Drive is also a good read) .

What we need in higher education is more boundaryless, fuzzy, relationship-based learning that doesn't begin and end at the semester.  The traditional course model might not ever go away, but why couldn't there be an overarching learning process that is overlaid on top of courses?  The type of learning that is motivating, inspiring, and that will likely last well beyond graduation?  

What are committees really good for?

If you work on a college campus (or in almost any large organization) you've probably had some experience with committees.  At BYU I sit on a handful, one of which is a new student orientation committee charged with developing and evaluating programming for new students.  Our most significant responsibility is to develop a multi-day orientation program that is held on the weekend just prior to the beginning of a new semester.  This means that, although we are a standing committee that theoretical operates all year long, most of our "real work" is done in the summer months leading up to September when a large class of freshmen arrives on campus.  What's more, the attitude of the committee chair has been that if there aren't pressing agenda items, we really won't benefit from an hour long meeting.  I'll confess that, up until quite recently, I liked things this way.  From where I sat, it meant fewer meetings, fewer assignments, and more time to work on other projects I have going.  I tended to look forward to the "meeting cancelled" email that arrives the morning of the scheduled meeting.  

Although our committee's sporadic meetings this summer have given me extra time, I think we've gotten into a bad habit, a habit that will hurt us in the long run.  I've seen evidence of this in the last few weeks as I've tried to work through a challenge with another committee member.  The details aren't important, but what I've realized is that because he and I have not been seeing one another each week and discussing our joint work, two things have happened.  First, we have not been exchanging simple information that would be useful to us in our work.  Second, and more importantly, our professional relationship has suffered.  We don't have the social capital that we need in order to discuss sensitive matters, tactfully raise opposing ideas, or work through problems that are arising in our orientation planning.  

This has all caused me to reconsider the purpose of committees, how they function, and how we build them.  So, if I were asked to create a new committee next week, these are some things I would keep in mind to help me in my design:

1.  Committee work isn't just about being productive or efficient, it is about establishing relationships among stakeholders.  While action items, key decisions, and reports on past assignments are all worthy items on a committee's meeting agenda, just being together and engaging in dialogue might be just as important.  And, these conversations don't always need to be focused on our work.  Although hearing about a colleague's vacation or how their son is doing on his study abroad in Europe probably won't have any real impact on your campus, having those conversations on a consistent basis will build social capital.  That capital will be important during those times when your committee faces difficult decisions, disagrees with one another, or has to address an unexpected problem or crisis that has emerged. 

2.  Meetings should include plenty of open dialogue and collaboration.  Too often meetings become nothing more than reporting sessions where last week's minutes are reviewed, information is disseminated, or decisions are announced.  As much as we complain about these sorts of things, I think that occasionally we like report-back meetings because they don't require anything of us.  Like a student sitting in an unengaging lecture, we can sit back and zone out, but still convince ourselves that we're doing our duty by being in attendance at the meeting.  But, this sort of meeting is a waste of everyone's time because technology has provided much more efficient ways of reporting and disseminating.  Committee meetings are about working collaboratively and that means dialogue, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and those things that can only happen when a group of people is together in the same room.  Again, this sort of meeting, one that requires engagement and thoughtful participation, can take some getting used to.  But, I would like to believe that it pays dividends in the end.

3.  Committees should facilitate useful connections where none existed before.  Good committee chairs use committees to establish relationships between stakeholders that (1) misunderstand one another or (2) don't even realize they have a stake in one another's work.  While committees should not cease to play a coordination, governance, and project management role, we need to reframe our thinking and view them as a tool for building social capital among stakeholders.  It seems odd to put two people on a committee who don't like each other or who haven't worked well together in the past.  But, under the right circumstances, useful bonds can be formed and future problems can be avoided.  This takes a skilled chair and an already well-functioning committee.  But, I've seen it lead to tremendous benefit when it is handled well.

Here's a radical thought in closing.  Books like Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone lament the  general decline of community and social capital we see almost everywhere.  Can good committees make a difference?  On a siloed, fragmented campus where departments don't get along and very little meaningful collaboration is happening, could something like what I've described make a difference?  

How much has technology really helped us in education?

I just finished reading Atul Gawande's latest book, Checklist Manifesto.  In a nutshell, Gawande argues that the right kind of checklist (it turns out that good checklists aren't easy or quick to produce) can lead to vast improvements in the way we do things, and for very little cost.  It's a great read and one of the most practically useful books I've read in a while.

Gawande is a physician and uses stories from medicine to illustrate the effectiveness of simple checklists (there are also some fascinating examples from building construction and finance).  One of the areas where checklists have made the most difference are in operation rooms.  It turns out that for even the most developed countries--those with great hospitals, state-of-the-art medical technologies, and highly-trained physicians--surgical complications are a fairly significant problem.  Gawande and his team have managed to develop simple checklists that, when used properly, have drastically reduced complication rates.  It is important to note that these have not been modest findings, the results have been startling and and hard to argue with.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that the vast majority of physicians and hospitals have refused to use the checklist.  Instead most have opted to invest in $1.7 million remote controlled surgical robots that have driven up costs massively, without producing any significant improvements.  Meanwhile, the low-tech, low-budget checklists are saving lives.

There seems to be a parallel here to education.  More and more, institutions are adopting technology with the hope that it will revolutionize learning.  In my graduate work I spend a fair amount of time with instructional technologists, some who tout technology as the saviour of schools.  I should also confess that I am sometimes a sucker for cool ed tech gadgets because they seem to make learning fun and engaging.  That's not to mention my reliance upon technology for some of the most basic functions of my job (just last night I made a presentation to a group of parents of incoming students and used the bells and whistles of a fully-mediated auditorium to "enhance" my remarks).

The nagging question I keep having, though, is whether the very expensive technology we use has really improved the learning experience for students.  It likely cost thousands of dollars to outfit the auditorium I spoke in last evening.  And, I would estimate that there are at least 100 other rooms of various sizes just like it across the rest of my campus.  In many ways this is nice.  It means that instructors can use PowerPoint slides, show media clips, play music, etc.  These things are entertaining for students and can deepen engagement.  But, how much more did the parents in my session learn because I used technology?  What if the computer had crashed mid-presentation?  Would I have been prepared enough to make the remaining 15 minutes useful?  Would a low-tech "technology" like a "minute paper" have been just as beneficial as a data slide?

I'm not arguing for the elimination of technology in higher education (or any setting for that matter).  But, I wonder how often we falsely assume that twitter, tech classrooms, and iClickers will simplify the educational process and prevent educational failures.  Could it be that simple pedagogical tools, processes, or philosophies could be just as impactful and at a much lower cost?  And, what sorts of new failures does technology introduce?  Gawande frames this question well:

"We have most readily turned to the computer as our aid.  Computers hold out the prospectof automation as our bulward against failure.  Indeed, they can take huge numbers of tasks off our hands, and thankfully already have--tasks of calculation, processing, storage, transmission.  Without question, technology can increase our capabilities.  But there is much that technology cannot do:  deal with the unpredictable, manage uncertainty, construct a soaring building, perform a lifesaving operation.  In many ways, technology has compicated these matters. It has added yet another element of complexity to the systems we depend on and given us entirely new kinds of failure to content with."

What are our "educational checklists?" (i.e. those simple and frugal things that can make signficant differences in learning).  And, what are the "surgical robots" in education that look cool, but deplete budgets without making any meaningful improvement to the educational landscape?  And, maybe most importantly, how do we know when we're dealing with an expensive failure or something that, while expensive, truly will revolutionize learning?

The forgotten part of the First-Year Experience

A recent discussion on the first year experience listserv has gotten me thinking about the way we allocate resources across the first-year experience.  If your campus is like mine you likely have a variety of programming for first year students with most of it being front loaded to the first semester or even the first two weeks of their time on your campus (it's always been interesting to me that we speak of our work in terms of the first year experience, when most of us do very little in the way of formal programming during the second half of that year).  

This practice of front-loading makes sense (and has been advocated for by, among others, John Gardner).  Among other things, it allows institutions to communicate expectations, help students feel connected to each other and to campus, and provides proactive support that positions students to be successful.  These are all good things and the last two decades have provided plenty of data suggesting that they make a difference.  The question raised on the listserv was about end of year rituals or ceremonies and that made me wonder if what we do at the end of the first year experience matters.  

For much of the formal learning we see in schools and elsewhere, beginnings and endings get a lot of attention.  Think about a typical college course.  In the beginning students receive a syllabus that outlines the learning objectives for the course, an anticipated timeline for when and how they can expect to be learning, and some information about how to get help along the way.  The syllabus (assuming it is a well-written one) becomes a guide for the semester.  Plenty of important things then happen in the middle of the course to facilitate learning.  Then, four months later there is an ending, an ending that in some cases is quite ceremonious and ritualistic.  There is the "last lecture" where the faculty member reminds students of what the course goals were, a "testimonial" of sorts where she might remind them of what she thinks is the kernel of the entire course, and some sort of final exam or project that helps students tie things together and demonstrate their learning.  We see this across the entire college experience as well (i.e. Orientation/Convocation followed by graduation/commencement four or five years later).  I even vaguely remember it happening when I was a student in Mrs. Palmer's pre-school class.  On the first day I remember meeting Mrs. Palmer, getting a tour of the classroom, and hearing about all of the fun things I was going to get to do that year.  Then at the end of the year we had a full-blown "pre-school graduation" (complete with homemade graduation caps) where we were honored by our parents and then given a chance to showcase the cutting, coloring, and singing talents we had worked hard to acquire that year.  I would like to think that these practices, ceremonious as they may be, also have pedagogical value.  

The question this raises for me is whether we could or should do something at the end of the first college year that would have value for students and campuses.  The tendency would be to plan an end of year celebration with music, eloquent speeches, and a banquet or refreshments.  That may not be a bad thing, but it is expensive and runs the risk of becoming a frilly show absent of any real value.  So, are there simple, cost-effective ways of capitalizing on the end of the first year that would be both celebratory and educationally useful?

There are a few things that would seem useful to consider when designing a "second book end" for the first-year experience

1.  Revisit the goals, learning objectives, etc. introduced at the beginning of the year.  We spend a fair amount of time and effort introducing institutional missions and aims, learning goals, and expectations.  It only makes sense that we would want to follow up at the end of the first year to remind students of these same things.

2.  Celebrate successes.  The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition sponsors a First Year Students Advocate program wherein they recognize faculty members and administrators who have done extraordinary work to improve the experience of first year students on their campuses.  There isn't any good reason why this couldn't happen on individual campuses (I know there are a few campuses that are already doing this).  Faculty members, staff, administrators, and student leaders who have done significant first-year work could be recognized.  Additionally, first year students who have demonstrated tremendous progress towards first-year objectives could be highlighted.  This would seem useful in at least two ways.  First, people like to be recognized and when they are, they tend to work even harder because they feel appreciated.  Second, it would give institutions the opportunity to recognize best practices and communicate a set of values to the rest of the campus community.

3.  Bridge the gap between the first-year and sophomore experiences.  I'll confess that I have not followed the SYE (sophomore year experience) movement very closely as of yet.  However, it seems to be commonly accepted that the transition from the first to the second year is challenging for many students.  If that is true then an end of year book end could be designed to address some of these issues (e.g. how to prepare for the sophomore year, resources to connect with prior to starting classes in the fall, etc.)

4.  Reflection on growth, challenges, and lessons learned.  The first college year and its experiences provide students with plenty of opportunities to learn and grow.  Asking them to reflect on those experiences, make meaning from them, and share their learning in public ways could be beneficial (if you use portfolios on your campus this could be a required artifact in that portfolio).

The challenge in all of this is finding the time, resources, and space for something like this to happen.  So, can it be done?  And, how would it look on a large campus with a large freshman class?  What challenges do small colleges face in considering the end of the first year?