Greg Wegner, Director of Program Development, GLCA; Co-Director, GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching & Learning
PART FIVE: Quantitative Literacy: Signature Assignment Dialogue
This week we present the last in our five-part series of Core Liberal Arts Goals: Quantitative Literacy.
In the spring of 2017, the GLCA convened a meeting of faculty members and others from its member colleges to discuss the relationship between course design and methods/rubrics used to gauge student learning.
Prior to this event, several GLCA member colleges had participated in the VALUE Rubrics Development project of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). One of the greatest benefits of that project had been the opportunity it provided for faculty members of a given campus to work together in exploring the relationship between learning goals, course design, and the methods for gauging student attainment of those learning goals. The GLCA Rubrics for Liberal Arts Learning Workshop provided an occasion for constructive thinking to occur among faculty on a broader consortial level as they worked in teams of up to five members from across the GLCA’s member colleges. (The GLCA project was supported by a grant from the AAC&U. Terrel Rhodes, Vice President of AAC&U, was the workshop’s keynote speaker.)
A planning group of faculty and others who had been involved in the earlier AAC&U project identified five key learning goals which would be developed in the GLCA workshop:
- Civic Engagement
- Global Learning
- Integrative Learning
- Intercultural Knowledge and Competence
- Quantitative Literacy/Reasoning
Each of these goals is core component of a liberal arts education, and none is the province of a single academic discipline. The workshop consisted of five faculty teams, each including faculty of several disciplines from different colleges, working together to explore elements of the respective learning goals.
Each working group was given a three-part assignment:
- Define the learning outcome being addressed. What are the shared understandings among the group members of the outcomes included in the broad category it has chosen?
- Design one or more assignments that seek to impart that learning skill or capacity in students.
- Describe possible methods of ascertaining students’ achievement of that learning goal.
Over the course of a weekend in March 2017, the five GLCA faculty teams worked intently to explore and articulate elements of the learning goals each had chosen for study. Each team presented key tenets of its thinking at the conclusion of the workshop, and in the weeks that followed, each team continued to collaborate in producing a written statement of a learning goal and its application within the framework given above.
Through the next several weeks, the Consortium for Teaching and Learning will feature one of these concluding narratives each week, ultimately covering all of the five learning goals. We have made no attempt to standardize the style or approach of the different working groups, allowing each instead to speak in its own voice in describing a particular learning goal and means of attainment.
This week’s essay on Quantitative Literacy is brought to you by:
- Barbara Andereck, bsandere@owu.edu , Physics and Astronomy, Ohio Wesleyan University
- Alice Deckert, adeckert@allegheny.edu, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Allegheny College
- Paul Djupe, djupe@denison.edu, Political Science, Denison University
- Jeremy Kirby, jkirby@albion.edu, Philosophy, Albion College
- Jan Tobochnik, Jan.Tobochnik@kzoo.edu, Physics, Kalamazoo College
- WilliamTurner, turnerw@wabash.edu, Mathematics & Computer Science, Wabash College
We encourage you to write to these workshop participants (you’ll find their names and contact email addresses in each essay and below) with thoughts or questions about their. We would also encourage you to write a response to their essay for consideration in the GLCA-GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning, please send your text to Gregory Wegner (wegner@glca.org), or Steven Volk, (Steven.Volk@oberlin.edu), co-directors of the GLCA Consortium for Teaching and Learning.
WEEK I: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
- John Carlson, Economics and Management, Albion College, jmcarlson@albion.edu
- Andy Bloeser, Political Science, Allegheny College, abloeser@allegheny.edu
- Ryan White, Registrar/General Education, Hope College, white@hope.edu
- Jessie Mills, Theater, Wabash College, millsj@wabash.edu
- Kenneth Kirkpatrick, Registrar’s Office, DePauw University, kjkirk@depauw.edu
WEEK II: GLOBAL LEARNING (2 articles)
1. ASSIGNMENTS/ASSESSMENTS FOR GLOBAL LEARNING AT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES
- Steve Bouma-Prediger, boumapred@hope.edu, Religious Studies, Hope College
- Laura Reeck, lreeck@allegheny.edu , French, Allegheny College
- Ibra Sene, Isene@wooster.edu, History, The College of Wooster
- Rashana Smith, rpsmith@owu.edu, Theater and Dance, Ohio Wesleyan University
- Jan Solberg, Jan.Solberg@kzoo.edu, French, Kalamazoo College
- Rick Warner, warnerri@wabash.edu, History, Wabash College
2. WHEN GLOBAL LEARNING STARTS IN THE LOCAL,
- Laura Reeck.
WEEK III: INTEGRATIVE LEARNING
- Carrie Delapp-Culver, cculver@wooster.edu, Music, The College of Wooster
- Laura Furge, Laura.Furge@kzoo.edu, Chemistry, Kalamazoo College
- Dianne Guenin-Lelle, dgueninlelle@albion.edu, French, Albion College
- Steven Scogin, scogin@hope.edu, Biology and Education, Hope College
- Jon Wiebel, jwiebel@allegheny.edu, Communication Arts/Theatre and Director of Speech, Allegheny College
WEEK IV: INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE
- Michael Dixon, mdixon@albion.edu, Art; Art History, Albion College
- Patrik Hultberg, Patrik.Hultberg@kzoo.edu, Economics, Kalamazoo College
- Jeff Kurtz, kurtz@denison.edu, Communication; Director of Center for Learning and Teaching, Denison University
- Heather Moore, hmoore@allegheny.edu, Community and Justice Studies and Black Studies, Allegheny College
- Jeremy Rapport, jrapport@wooster.edu, Religious Studies, The College of Wooster
