RSA #2 When Faculty Assess Integrated Learning: Faculty Inquiry to Improve Learning Community Practice.

RSA #2 When Faculty Assess Integrated Learning: Faculty Inquiry to Improve Learning Community Practice. By: Emily Lardner and Gillies Mallnarich. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, v41 n5 p29-35 Sep-Oct 2009.

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            One of the major themes in the readings this week was focusing on how to know what the students are accomplishing.  I was completely intrigued by the different protocols used to assess student learning.  The Harvard’s Project Zero Protocol seemed to be most interesting to me.  I liked the six steps were logical and built on each other.  The six steps are as follows:

1.      Team members examine evidence of student learning and/or examples of student work in silence and take notes on their observations.

2.      The team leader asks, “What did you see?” Members are asked to make factual, nonevaluative statements.

3.      The team leader asks, “What questions does this evidence of student learning raise for you?” Members are asked to speculate about the thought process of students and gaps in their understanding.

4.      Members discuss implications for their teaching.

5.      Members establish action plans to act on their learning

6.      Members share their reactions to and assessment of the meeting.

(DuFour, Dufour, Eaker and Many, 2010, p 188-189)

The problem I came across was that I could not apply this protocol to anything I have done in the past.

            In searching I came across the article that shows how the faculty at Alverno University functions as a PLC and then goes through the protocol to look at integrated learning. Alverno University sets their students up into learning communities.  Lardner and Mallnarch define learning communities as “a cohort of students enrolled in two or more classes in which they experience at least one explicitly designed opportunity for integrative learning (2009, p 30).”  The faculty focusses the discussion in their  PLC on assessing integrated learning.

            The article then expanded on each of the six steps spelled out in Practice by Doing (DuFour, Dufour, Eaker and Many, 2010 p 188-189).  Lardner and Mallnarich divided the six steps into three categories: Getting Aquainted, Zooming in, and Stepping Back (2009, 31-32).  The getting to know you phase asked the professors to look at student work and discuss what they see.  This is the same as steps one and two in Practice by Doing (DuFour, Dufour, Eaker and Many, 2010 p 188-189).  Zooming in  asked the professors to assess the work based on their core principals.  This correlated with steps three and four in Practice by Doing  (DuFour, Dufour, Eaker and Many, 2010 p 188-189). Finally the Zooming out category asked the professors to look at how this will shape their coursework.  This goes right in line with steps 5 and 6 in Practice by Doing (DuFour, Dufour, Eaker and Many, 2010 p 188-189).  

            For me this was a great article for me because it showed a concrete example of how to use the Harvard Project Zero Protocol. 

References

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: a handbook for professional learning communities at work (Second ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree.

Lardner, E., & Malnarich, G. (2009). When Faculty Assess Integrative Learning: Faculty Inquiry to Improve Learning Community Practice. Change: The Magazine Of Higher Learning, 41(5), 29-35.