Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed

Global Change I

Fall Term 1996 Evaluation Team Report

Grant Time Line: First Semester

Report Date: May 1, 1997

Executive Summary

The Undergraduate Curriculum Development Testbed (UCDT) is a multi-year, multi-phased, initiative that was designed to develop the Global Change curriculum and to encourage reform of the undergraduate curriculum by introducing interdisciplinary templates and concepts. To improve the performance and document the collective experience of UCDT personnel, an evaluation plan was developed to provide continuous feedback. The UCDT evaluation team implemented a plan to surmise student attitudes, perceptions, and experiences associated with Global Change I; and to study faculty perceptions of the institutional environment regarding interdisciplinary instruction.

The evaluation team examined the extent to which students achieved the non-cognitive course objectives outlined by the UCDT curriculum development group for Global Change I. The methods used to collect information include the Early Student Feedback (designed by the Center for Research of Learning and Teaching), midterm and final assessment surveys, and classroom assessment techniques.

The results from the assessment instruments helped the evaluation team to identify curricular strengths and weaknesses. Students reported positive experiences with the Global Change web site. Most of the students reported that the Global Change web site made a significant contribution to their learning. Students also indicated that they learned a lot of factual material, were more interested in the subject matter, and were more confident in their ability to debate global change and environmental issues by the end of the course. During the fall 1996 semester students used a pre-release version of STELLA--a dynamical modeling software program--to complete many of their lab assignments. Several students reported the problems with the STELLA labs assignments. Technical glitches made working with STELLA difficult. New versions of the software and improved lab assignments should help students reach their learning potential.

The evaluation team also interviewed faculty who taught some portion of the Global Change I about interdisciplinary instruction at the University of Michigan. These professors were asked about their perceptions of previous and current interdisciplinary experiences; the influence of the institutional, disciplinary, and departmental context on interdisciplinary activity; the transferability of the UCDT experience to other programs at the University; and the resources and/or structural changes needed to support interdisciplinarity at the University of Michigan. All of the professors agreed that the most productive source of interdisciplinarity lay in the uncontrolled and unstructured interactions among professors. The professors identified several factors that impede interdisciplinarity, these include the curriculum approval process, untenured status, prep-time, new rules for counting student credit hours (Values Centered Management-- a new budgetary protocol), potentially competitive programs, and critical dependence on key personnel.

After considered the data, the evaluation team made several recommendations. To improve Global Change I, the curriculum development group should consider reconfiguring the labs, tying the labs and lectures more closely together, articulating an educational paradigm (i.e., case-study, anchored instruction, knowledge-building communities, etc.), and finally, refining the team teaching arrangement and course objectives.