Highlights from the Presentation

On Monday, March 26th, 2012 ALTA presented to the Princeton Council of the Princeton University Community.

ALTA Presenting at the March 26 CPUC Meeting. Photo courtesy of The Daily Princetonian.

Here is the presentation (build-by-build):

Below are the suggestions presented:

Suggestion	Benefits
Beginning of the Semester
Registrar and Committee on Course of Study permit faculty to publish additional information about classes on Course Offerings nearer to the start of the semester, and professors to make syllabi available to students on Blackboard before the semester begins.	Faculty can more easily reach interested students, and students gain access to more reliable and more complete information about classes and professors. Decreases need to shop classes (which is disruptive for students and faculty).
Registrar make official course evaluations more accessible by adding direct search functionality (search by course number and by professor).	Better meet student needs so they do not rely on less reliable, unofficial resources outside of the University’s purview.
Dean of the College establish and facilitate a university-wide common deadline for selective classes’ applications.	Reduce confusion among students about application deadlines for selective classes.  Create potential for efficiency.
Professors of 3-hour seminars coordinate a universal 10-minute break time of 2:50 p.m. during shopping period.	Give students shopping courses an appropriate opportunity to come or go from lengthy seminars without disrupting.
During the Semester
Professors giving exams limit new material covered immediately before the exam, and professors not giving exams limit assignments, if possible, during the common “midterm exam” period in week 6.	Reduce factors that lead to “cramming.”  Give students time to take advantage of review resources (e.g. office hours) and re-engage with past material.
Professors give students specific goals for reading and control the amount of assigned reading to maximize completion.	Goals or guidance that give a purpose for reading help students focus and engage with the material.  More students will be prepared for class and precept.  Reduces “cramming” of unread material later.
Departments take corrective and proactive measures to reduce variability in precepts of the same course.	Create a more equitable experience across precepts, which improves student satisfaction.
Instructors design precepts to focus on current materials more than on learning new material.	Students indicate that they prefer this use of precept time, so adjusting the focus can help increase student engagement and satisfaction.
Professors allow collaboration on assignments where possible.	Increase student engagement with material by teaching to or learning from peers. Expand opportunities for students to discuss material outside classes or precepts.
Professors make collaboration policies explicit (e.g. on syllabus).	Avoid confusion which may lead to violations of professors’ expectations or students not making use of peer resources.
McGraw facilitate pairing of students into study groups.	So students do not need to have friends in the course to take advantage of the benefits of collaborative learning.
Departments provide more preparation for students conducting research for independent work.	Students indicated in the survey that they wanted more help learning how to conduct research while conducting independent work, so this will meet a demonstrated student need.
Departments help students select their advisers for independent work.	Students indicated in the survey that they wanted more help learning about professors to select an adviser for independent work, so this will meet a demonstrated student need.
McGraw, Writing Center, and Residential College Tutoring use our data to improve and add services to meet student needs.	Meet student needs that were revealed or explained by this project.
End of the Semester
USG create web application to relay student feedback to professors and instructors early in the semester.	Formally connect students and faculty during the semester so instructors have better information about their students.
Registrar and Dean of the College expand the parameters evaluated by the official course evaluations.	Discourage students from using outside resources the University does not control. Make official course evaluations more helpful for students who rely on it to select courses.  Improve response rate.
Registrar prominently inform students how course evaluations will be used.	Let students better tailor their reviews to the intended audiences.  Improve response rate.
Faculty design curriculum to distribute evaluation (e.g. exams, papers) more evenly throughout semester and decrease weight of final exams.	Less incentive for students to “cram” for midterm and final exams or papers, meaning more student engagement throughout the semester.  Improve student learning and retention.
Dean of the College revise final exam overcrowding policy so students with multiple exams in 24 hours are also eligible to reschedule.	Reduce the problem of overcrowded exam schedules by making use of existing mechanisms.
Faculty and Dean of College change Pass/D/Fail policy so students can see their final grades and choose to rescind the P/D/F status to keep grades they earned.	Give students more feedback on P/D/F classes.  Provide more incentive to earn top marks in classes students P/D/F.  Increase student engagement in classes.
Faculty provide feedback to students without citing grading policies as justification for grades given.	Provide more helpful feedback so students can improve in the future. Avoid stoking anxiety about the grading policy among students.

Gearing up for our March 26 Presentation

The ALTA group is locked and loaded for our presentation the Monday after spring break.  Please join us at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, March 26th in Friend 101 for the presentation.  We are excited to share our suggestions and hear the community’s feedback.

Ironically, if some of our suggestions seem obvious to students, we’ve done our job of representing student interests.  We care more about being rigorous in supporting our suggestions than being original for its own sake.  Our goal is to make suggestions backed by data and vetted by faculty and administrators that have a good chance of happening and bearing positive results for all stakeholders.

In addition, we will establish student opinion and behavior on a variety of topics that have not previously or recently been explored.  How much reading do students actually do?  What matters most to students when selecting classes?  Why do students select the pass/d/fail option?  This is information that can lead to better-informed decisions by students, faculty, and administrators.

This presentation will be an abridged overview of our findings, but we hope it will jump-start the campus conversation about academics.  We are committed to an iterative process whereby we tailor our suggestions to the feedback we receive from the campus community.  Therefore, we will incorporate the feedback prompted by this presentation into our written report, which we will publish about  3 weeks after the presentation.  In the presentation, we will also discuss how these suggestions will be seen through to fruition.

Here are a few teaser slides from the presentation:

 

 

 

Profiles Complete, Survey Underway

It’s been a long time since the last post, but we’ve been working steadily over the last semester to complete the profiles section. This section is now complete.

We profiled 9 students.  These “profilees” represent five classes, graduates from the class of 2011 through freshman in the class of 2015.  The profilees are/were involved in many different academic and extracurricular pursuits on campus.  It is impossible to claim to represent the full breadth of students on campus with just 9 students, but we hope these students will complement the anonymous data we are about to collect.  It’s difficult to relate to anonymous data, and it’s impossible to draw conclusions from anecdotes.  Together, the profiles and the survey data (see below) should make the final ALTA report relatable and actionable.

The students wrote the profiles themselves using general guidelines we provided.  Each profile underwent weeks or even months of revision, with ALTA members and profilees exchanging drafts.  In the profiles, they described their academic experience, including issues such as how they made major decisions and how they balance their demanding schedules. For example, one profilee explained how she chose intentionally to fall behind in her reading so she could spend more time making friends in her first semester on campus.  Another profilee explains how living in Forbes made missing lecture sometimes unavoidable.  Yet another profilee explains how she breaks up her to-do list into items that take only 15 minutes each so she can make the best use of little gaps in her schedule.

A snapshot of one of the profiles

Beyond the written profiles, each student provided for us a minute-by-minute record of their activities for a week, including everything from when they worked on assignments to when they slept.  This information is graphically represented on a calendar, giving the reader a chance to understand how each profilee spends his or her time.

An example calendar from the profiles section

Now that the profiles document is completed, the survey is moving forward in full force.  It will be launching on Friday or Saturday this week after we have a small test group take the survey and give us feedback.