INSTRUCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
_______________________________________________________________________
INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTATION
INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES
INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Instructional Development is a service organization supporting the instructional
mission of the campus. Its activities directly address the major goal in the campus’ formal
Academic Planning Statement, “Insure Excellence in Both Undergraduate and Graduate
Instruction.”
The mission of Instructional Development is to foster a climate for excellence in
instruction, which parallels the climate for excellence in research, within the context of a
Carnegie Doctoral/Research institution.
The mission is addressed by following a model (see the section on the
Instructional Improvement Program) which has evolved over the past two decades. The
organizational structure and functioning of Instructional Development reflects the model.
The organization has reached a stage in its own development where it is having a
substantial impact on the quality of instruction offered at UCSB. It is able to address
comprehensively and effectively the needs of a faculty which teaches a tremendous range
of subject matter, using a wide range of teaching philosophies, methods, styles, and
technologies.
The key elements required to address effectively this diversity of faculty needs
include: instructional consulting and evaluation; technical media production support; and
technical media display support. All are provided by Instructional Development.
In the late 1960s instructional support units at UCSB occupied a restroom in the
Art Department, a closet in Chemistry, and a basement in Buchanan Hall (and a few other
sites as well). This fragmentation was broadly representative of general practice in higher
education at the time, and is still the norm on many campuses. In the early 1970s,
planning was begun for a building (Kerr Hall) to house the scattered media production
and display units, then collectively called Learning Resources. At the same time, thenGovernor Reagan and the Legislature appropriated $1 million to the University to support
improvements in undergraduate education. These funds, together with matching
University funding, supported the beginnings of an Instructional Improvement Program of
grants and consultation services to faculty. In the mid-1970s, Kerr Hall was opened, and
shortly thereafter the consulting services and media services were combined into an
organization called Instructional Development, headed by a newly created Dean position.
In 1989, Instructional Development was restructured: the Dean position was eliminated,
the Directors of Instructional Consultation and Instructional (formerly Learning)
Resources were given responsibility for line operations, and both units reported to the
newly created Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs. It was decided,
however, that the name and identity of Instructional Development should be kept intact,
because the close working relationships between units had such a demonstrably positive
effect on the quality of service to faculty clients.
This document contains much detail about the organization, staffing, operations,
goals, and achievements of the many units which make up Instructional Development. It
should be emphasized that a major reason the organization is so effective is the high
quality and professionalism of its staff. They are highly skilled, well trained, and typically
very experienced, and they have a “can do” attitude which is essential. The extreme
cooperation and horizontal communication within Instructional Development makes it
work well despite what may be a strange looking organization chart.
The bottom line is that Instructional Development is working, and working well,
as it carries out its mission. The remainder of this document describes in detail the many
ways in which this is so.
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/
INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTATION
OVERVIEW OF INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTATION
The Office of Instructional Consultation (OIC) is a service organization
supporting the instructional mission of the campus. Its primary objectives are:


to provide consulting on issues of instruction and its evaluation to faculty,
academic departments, and other academic and administrative units, and
to coordinate a comprehensive variety of activities and programs aimed at
ensuring that the instruction offered at UCSB is of the highest possible
quality.
Instructional Consultation coordinates the campuswide Instructional Improvement
Program, which offers several kinds of grants to faculty, TAs and undergraduate students,
as well as consulting services which support the grants. In addition, the office runs both
the campus’ primary system for processing student ratings of the effectiveness of
instruction, and the campuswide program to support the effective training of Teaching
Assistants in their instructional roles.
In order to be effective, faculty development programs must reflect the fact the
there is nothing static about good teaching: changes in academic content and in the
techniques of communicating that content are essential to a vital and effective academic
curriculum.
UCSB’s Instructional Improvement Program supports the continuing need for
faculty development. It is effective in encouraging and assisting faculty in developing
their skills in constructing, delivering and managing effective instruction. Its services
contribute in important ways to the quality of instruction and to the quality of campus
approaches to significant educational issues. It is based on a model which is well proven,
and that model’s elements can serve other institutions in pursuit of the goal of quality
instruction.
Following are descriptions of OIC’s organizational structure and financial
summary. Subsequent sections of this report describe the current status of each of OIC’s
primary functions:
Academic Consulting
Instructional Improvement Program
Teaching Assistant Development
Evaluation Support
Following these sections is a discussion of issues and trends concerning OIC.
Additional information is available at OIC’s website:
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Instructional Consultation’s organizational structure, as presented in the
organizational chart, reflects the primary functions of the unit, but does not capture well
the broadly overlapping responsibilities of its professional staff.
The staff currently consists of four academic Instructional Consultants (three
academic appointments and one staff appointment with a doctorate) who provide
consulting services to faculty members, departments, and other campus entities, act as
coordinators for curricular improvement projects, and coordinate the campus TA
Development Program; a Computer Network Technologist who assists the academic
consultant with the greatest strengths in technology; a Computer Network Technologist
who maintains and operates the Evaluation System for Courses and Instruction (ESCI);
and casual student assistants who provide clerical support as well as graduate students
who act as video consultants and TADP Fellows for the TA Development program. The
unit uses nearly all of the services of an Administrative Assistant, who is located in the
office but formally reports to the Management Services Officer who heads the
Instructional Development administrative unit. Support functions such as personnel,
payroll, purchasing and inventory are provided by the Instructional Development
administrative support unit, the services of which are shared with Instructional Resources.
Advisory oversight of Instructional Development as a whole, with particular
attention to Instructional Consultation and the Instructional Improvement Program, is
provided by the Academic Senate. For about two decades this oversight was provided by
the Committee on Effective Teaching and Instructional Support. The Academic Senate is
in the process of a major reorganization, which is spreading the old Committee’s
responsibilities to five Councils, some of which will deal with matters of policy and
practice regarding instruction, and one of which will review proposals for Instructional
Improvement Grants, Faculty Sponsored Undergraduate Grants, and Teaching Assistant
Instructional Grants. All other proposals are reviewed by the Associate Vice Chancellor
for Academic Programs.
FINANCIAL SUMMARY
As an indicator of the overall budgetary status of OIC, the following is a summary
of OIC’s budget expenditures for the 2001-02 fiscal year. These figures do not necessarily
reconcile exactly with grant award totals, because the operation and expenditure of grants
frequently cross fiscal year boundaries, and because operations result in differences
between original allocations and actual expenditures.
Staff:
Academic (sub-0)
Two FTE OIC Academic Coordinators
One FTE TA Development Academic Coordinator
$226,527
Nonacademic (sub-1)
Two FTE OIC Computer Network Technicians
One FTE ESCI Computer Network Technician
$181,614
Subtotal
$408,141
Student Assistance (sub-2):
Student Assistance, OIC, all funds
Student Assistance, TADP, all funds
$750
$26,458
Subtotal
$27,208
Supplies & Expense (sub-3):
OIC, all funds
TADP, all funds
$43,878
$14,553
Subtotal
$58,431
Equipment (sub-4):
OIC, all funds
TADP, all funds
$18,943
$8,512
Subtotal
$27,455
ESCI (sub-7):
OIC, all funds
$30,720
Subtotal
$30,720
Budgetary Savings:
OIC, all funds
TADP, all funds
$25,934
$4,934
Subtotal
$30,868
Grant expenditures (approx):
OIC, all funds
TADP, all funds
$389,430
$52,612
Subtotal
Grand Total
$442,042
________
$1,024,865
ACADEMIC CONSULTING
It is the objective of Instructional Consultation to provide the best possible instructional
consulting to the campus, in each of three areas:
 to faculty and entire development teams working on projects funded by grants
from the Instructional Improvement Program
 to individual faculty seeking assistance with their teaching, and
 to academic administrators and agencies, Academic Senate bodies, academic
departments, and other decision-makers who need the best quality information
in order to make decisions.
In general, the instructional consultant plays the role of faculty advocate. The
faculty member is the client, and it is the consultant’s job to help her/him to accomplish
whatever s/he decides is the goal. In general, the process typically involves helping
identify the instructional need or problem in a precise way, making sure that a full range
of possible solutions is considered, letting the faculty member choose the solution s/he
wants to try (since a sense of faculty “ownership” is essential), helping to identify
resources that may be helpful, coordinating a team approach to the project, and arranging
for formative and summative evaluative feedback, with further work as needed.
The particular individuals who act as instructional consultants have rare
combinations of academic training, professional experience, and interpersonal skills.
They are a primary reason that Instructional Consultation is as effective as it is (see
section Instructional Improvement Program). The model under which the Instructional
Improvement Program operates, the support and cooperation of campus administrators
and faculty clients, and all the other necessary elements would not make the Program a
success without the unusual professionals who serve this campus.
1.
Consulting on Grant-funded Projects
One important factor in the success of the Instructional Improvement Program has
been the pairing of consulting with the application process for grant funding. Effective
consulting can have an impact on a project at the stage of initial conception and
refinement into a proposal, but it also can make a difference through the process of
designing and producing materials, “beta testing, ” and evaluating their impact when used
in the classroom.
It is probably fair to say that much of the impact of academic consulting has
occurred in the process of working with grant-funded projects. Some faculty are willing
to ask for advice about problems they are having with their teaching, but a great many
more are happy to ask one to help them get funding. Helping a faculty member to develop
a proposal, and then to work through the process of design, development, testing, and
refinement, provides a wonderful setting for the consulting process.
Faculty trust and confidence in the consultant and in the project team are essential
to successful outcomes. Thus it is very helpful for the senior consultants to have decades
of experience in this role on this campus; they have long histories with many senior
faculty. At the same time each client’s trust must be won anew during the initial contact,
particularly with newer faculty.
Also essential to success is the faculty sense of “ownership” of a project or of an
approach – it has long been a wry observation that the consultant has done the best job if
the faculty client walks away believing that everything was her/his own idea.
The success of this consulting process is suggested by the feedback from faculty
clients, the opinions of both students and faculty regarding the impact of projects, and the
faculty’s continued use of materials and procedures they have developed. (Data are
presented in the section on the Instructional Improvement Program.)
2.
“Clinical” Consulting with Individual Faculty
This type of consulting typically involves working with an individual faculty
client through a several-step process. The first step is to determine the sources of faculty
dissatisfaction with their teaching, often by attending several class meetings and/or
videotaping them for detailed analysis, and by arranging for better feedback from
students. The consultant then helps the client identify an array of possible changes, and
helps the client to try whichever alternative changes they choose to make, and to assess
how effective the changes are.
Demand for this type of consulting has been relatively high in recent years. As
mentioned earlier, many new clients tell us they were encouraged by their departments to
try these services, because evidence in their personnel files points to a possible problem
with the teaching aspects of their professional responsibilities.
Over the last five years we have consulted with more than 50 individual faculty
members from all ranks of the professorial ladder and both pre- and post-six year
Lecturers.
Twenty-three clients specifically mentioned being referred to our consulting
services by their colleagues. Several of these clients have mentioned that they have
referred other colleagues to our services, some of whom have not yet taken advantage of
the suggestion.
Classroom visits are one important tool in the consulting process. As indicators of
the level of workload involved in assisting these clients, about fifteen of the clients’
classrooms were visited five or fewer times; thirteen clients had their classes visited
between six and ten times, and fourteen had their classes visited more than ten times. The
time during which classroom visits were made ranged from one occasion to three full
quarters in which the great majority of the classroom sessions were observed by the
consultant.
Face-to-face meetings constitute the primary context in which consulting occurs.
Only about ten clients had fewer than five consultations. Outside-of-class consultations
with these clients ranged from one to fifteen or more consultations, each generally lasting
from one to two hours. Twenty five clients were primarily consulted regarding one
course; fifteen clients were consulted through more than one offering of a given course;
and fifteen clients have been consulted regarding multiple courses. (Note that these
categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive.)
For twenty clients systematic review of ESCI data was an important part of the
process. These reviews ranged from an analysis of one quarter’s data, to several years of
data for a given course, to reviews of all the courses taught by a client during the most
recent five years. The great majority of consultations using ESCI data have involved large
classes of sixty or more students, with the majority being in medium to large lecture halls.
Most have been Lower Division courses, but at least ten have been Upper Division
courses for majors. One involved a graduate level course, but that individual has had
subsequent consultations for an undergraduate course and accompanying laboratory
sections.
In the process of conducting these analyses we have developed an array of ESCI
data templates that enable us to track a given clients progress over a five year period on
the same course, with comparisons to one’s own history and/or to results for other faculty
who taught the same course. (The analyses involving the results of other faculty members
were always conducted in such a way as to keep confidential the identity of colleagues.)
The availability of these analytic tools has greatly increased our ability to serve our clients
with specific clinical consulting advice by documenting the extent of improvement over
time on a broad array of dimensions of instructional effectiveness. Clients have reported
high levels of satisfaction with having such detailed personal histories and points of
comparison to facilitate the improvement process, and to document that some troubling
negative results were, at least in part, a function of some set of unique characteristics.
The ESCI data were augmented for twenty five clients by specifically designed,
tailor-made formative evaluation data such as mid-course feedback surveys and/or
supplemental questionnaire items for the standard end-of-course ESCI surveys. Eleven of
the classes have been videotaped at least once and have included a follow-up consultation
regarding the taped lecture or lab.
Overall, the great majority of clients report noteworthy improvements in their
teaching, in their satisfaction with their teaching, and in the quality of learning by their
students. These improvements have been indicated by improved exam performance,
higher quality class projects and papers, and more positive measures of student
satisfaction, including ESCI data. Subsequent informal feedback from clients also
suggests that the improvements have continued for their future offerings of the course(s).
Most importantly, they report that what they have learned is generalizing to other courses
they teach, resulting in improvements in student learning and student ratings in those
other courses.
Given consulting clients’ overall satisfaction and their informal referrals of
potential clients, as well as multiple referrals from department chairs, it seems likely that
demand for clinical consulting services will continue at a similar or perhaps higher rate.
Given the typical large student enrollment in courses served, this activity has had and will
likely continue to have a growing and continued positive impact on the quality of
instruction students receive at UCSB, and to the level of satisfaction of faculty with their
teaching responsibilities
3.
Consulting with Faculty on the Training of TAs
Faculty mentors of TAs occasionally seek consultation on issues of TA
supervision, inquire about training materials on specific instructional topics, and request
specific training for individual TAs. In addition to those faculty who mentor the TAs
assigned to their courses, most academic departments appoint a faculty member to
coordinate departmental training. The coordinator of Instructional Consultation’s TA
Development Program consults with these faculty in designing TA training programs,
writing proposals for the TA Departmental Grant Program, and locating or creating
needed training materials. Often faculty express their satisfaction at having thought about
teaching in a new way or having tried new teaching strategies as a result of their
involvement with TA training.
4.
Consulting with Other Agencies
Senior consultants have from the beginning of Instructional Consultation served
on campus and Systemwide committees and Task Forces on instructional issues. A longstanding role has been to work closely with the Academic Senate committee charged with
oversight of educational resources and practices. Within the last year, organizational
clients have included:







The College of Engineering, and two if its academic departments, regarding
preparation for reaccreditation by ABET.
The Office of Information Technology regarding design of surveys of faculty
opinion.
The Library regarding the guiding vision for a major expansion.
The Music Library regarding delivery of music for courses via the Web.
The National Science Foundation-funded Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype
(ADEPT) project regarding evaluation design and pedagogical and technical
display issues for undergraduate demonstration courses.
Summer Sessions regarding student opinion of summer courses’ quality
compared to Fall-Winter-Spring courses (using ESCI data).
Student Health regarding assessment of outreach services.
Service goes beyond the campus. At the UC Systemwide level, OIC staff serve as
liaison to the Teaching, Learning and technology Center (TLtC) for grant programs which
support collaborative projects across UC campuses, and serve as well on the Advisory
Board for the Center. In addition, an OIC consultant served as administrative director and
narrator for a CD-ROM, UC at the Century, funded by the UC Office of the President and
the Hewlett Foundation. The CD contains hundreds of images of UC campus’ past and
present, and was produced largely by Instructional Resources staff.
In terms of service to the field of instructional development at large, OIC staff
have recently engaged in the following activities:








Served as external reviewer of UC Davis’ Teaching Resource Center.
Consulted with FIPSE-funded GYRUS Project at Santa Barbara City College,
an effort to develop software and training to guide faculty in creating effective
online instruction. Roles included development of content for the system, and
evaluation of its effectiveness.
Advised the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Education and
Human Resources about models for rewarding excellence in teaching.
Served as electronic reviewer of a major proposal to NSF’s Directorate for
Education and Human Resources.
Served as panel discussant for a UC Systemwide conference on the digital
future of publications and the ways in which the publications departments of
the UC campuses will be affected.
Served on the advisory board of the Digital Imprint Project of the UCLA
Institute of Archaeology to promote the digital publication of primary
archaeological data and interpretation for both dissemination and instruction.
Attended, made presentations and/or offered workshops at professional
meetings including the American Association of Higher Education, the
California Virtual Campus, the New Media Centers, the Boyer Legacy
Conference, EDUCAUSE, the American Anthropological Association, the
Academic Leadership Institute, TechED, the League for Innovation, the
Professional and Organizational Developers’ Network, the Society for
American Archaeology, and the American Educational Research Association.
Provided consulting services to the University of Santa Clara, Westmont
College, the University of Michigan, the University of California, UC Davis,
the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Santa Barbara City College, and
the National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human
Resources.
INSTRUCTIONAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
I.
Objectives
The objective of the Instructional Improvement Program is to support faculty in the
design, development, delivery and evaluation of instruction, so that the education
received by UCSB students is of the highest possible quality.
II.
A.
Model and Description of Operations
Model
The following is an edited version of a nominating document which resulted in
UCSB’s Instructional Improvement Program receiving a Certificate of Excellence from
the 1998 Theodore M. Hesburgh competition for exemplary faculty development
programs. It describes essential elements of the Program, including the model it follows.
UCSB’s Instructional Improvement Program directly
focuses on the undergraduate aspects of a major goal in the ca m pus’ formal
Academic Planning Statement, “Insure Excellence in Both Undergraduate and
Graduate Instruction.”
The Program is designed to improve instruction through faculty development. Its
underlying model employs a two-pronged approach: a centralized coordinating
agency and centralized support services (consulting and technical support); but a
decentralized model for the actual developmental work, wherein academic
departments or faculty carry the primary responsibility and the primary workload for
curriculum development projects. This approach is flexible: it encourages and
supports initiatives from faculty, capitalizing on their creativity and talent, while
simultaneously responding to administrative policy and leadership in addressing
issues of fundamental concern to the University’s educational program. It allows the
campus to address overarching concerns about education with concrete focused
activities, while remaining responsive to the environment of shared governance and
cooperative responsibility so central to the University’s culture.
The model directly encourages faculty to consider and then commit to active
involvement in significant instructional and curricular issues through the
implementation of several elements:
proposal mechanism to challenge faculty to address important
issues. This approach encourages applicants to think in terms of feasible
projects, with specific goals, time frames, resources, and outcomes. It also
generates faculty “ownership” of t
Consulting concerning instructional design, teaching strategies and
techniques, and evaluation.
Information, through workshops and demonstrations, about
effective techniques, tools, and strategies.
Technical support where needed in instructional design, media
production, computer and multimedia programming, evaluation, etc.
Funding to support student assistance and other production costs.
Faculty do not profit financially from grants other than occasional
nominal stipends.
effective. Counsel on traditional teaching methodologies is often crucial for
new faculty, fresh out of graduate school; whereas experienced faculty may
need advice on technological approaches in an attempt to interact
meaningfully with student populations that are more diverse in terms of
skills, interests, ambitions, and cultural expectations. In particular, new
instructional technologies employing digital information are proving
effective as tools for visualization, simulation, and communication.
Command of both traditional and new methods of teaching is desirable in
creating a balanced, rounded educational experience for students.
to the extent possible the subject matter experts (faculty and student
assistants) to learn to use the tools and to carry out the development. This
increases the skill level of faculty, and enables scarce technical support
personnel to serve more projects. It also provides a source of support for
graduate students, and gives these future-faculty-in-training experience in
developing curricular materials.
t which encourages continuing and increasing
involvement by faculty. One expression of this strategy is the “layered”
structure of grant programs. These start with core classroom support
services; step to Faculty Minigrants, which support pilot efforts and solve
small problems; then proceed to Instructional Improvement Grants, which
address major portions of courses or entire curricula; then encourage major
proposals for extramural support. Other opportunities for faculty
involvement include grants to improve the quality of training in instructional
roles that Teaching Assistants, the faculty of the future, receive from their
academic departments; and in faculty advisory roles for TA Instructional
Grants, in which TAs apply for their own grants to develop instructional
materials and procedures.
The model has evolved over 30 years. It works in part because of the structure of
the supporting organizations. One entity, Academic Programs, is the agency to
which key support units report: Instructional Consultation, which provides
consulting and evaluation; Instructional Resources, which provides media
production and display; and Instructional Computing, which provides student access
to computer-related instructional materials.
Both the quality of the instructional projects supported by this Program and the
quality of evaluative information about them are influenced strongly by the
consulting services which are available to all applicants, and which are almost
universally used. This consulting in advance helps to improve the instructional
designs and strategies used by projects, and to assure that quality formative and
summative information is available to instructors concerning the impact of their
projects. Individual clinical consulting on classroom process is also available from
senior academic consultants. Technical consulting is available not only from
Instructional Consultation staff, but also from technical and professional support
staff in Instructional Resources and Instructional Computing. The close coordination
and working relationships of these support agencies reflect the wisdom of the
campus’ decision to centralize their reporting to one academic organization.
The model results in the wise use of resources from several perspectives. The
project orientation includes academic review of every proposal, either by an
Academic Senate committee (for larger proposals) or a senior academic
administrator (for small proposals). Each project is required to include an evaluative
component and to report on its successes and difficulties. The accumulated
experience of both faculty and senior consultants has resulted in finely tuned
guidelines and operating practices.
The coordinating agency for the Program, Instructional Consultation, has been
integrated into the planning mechanisms of the campus through membership on and
advice to key administrative and Academic Senate committees. The degree of
integration is reflected in the frequency with which that office is consulted regarding
academic planning for the establishment of new courses, new majors, a new school,
and regarding instructionally-related extramural proposals.
It has been suggested (William Geoghegan, AAHE Bulletin, September 1994) that
a “chasm” divides early adopters of innovations (such as instructional technology)
from mainstream faculty, and that the kinds of institutional support which
appropriately evolve for early adopters tend not to match the
n e e d s
o f
m a i n s t r e a m
f a c u l t y .
The UCSB
model offers, we believe, a bridge that can span the chasm. This model has been
successful in supporting both early adopters and mainstream faculty in improving
the quality of their instruction. It encourages faculty to use whatever set of tools
(books, chalk, the Web) is likely to be most effective in achieving their instructional
goals, and it recognizes that a crucial factor in any change is a sense of “ownership”
and control on the part of the person changing. Consulting services foster
negotiations with faculty clients about the amount of risk they are willing to tolerate,
and can provide direct encouragement and support as well as link clients with others
who have successfully dealt with similar instructional issues. The Program has
become a recognized and expected source of support on this campus for all kinds
and levels of instructional issues, both “new” and traditional.
B.
Strong evidence of the Program’s ongoing effectiveness and sustained faculty
commitment lies in the continuing extraordinary faculty participation in its curricular
development programs (we believe that faculty simply would not participate if the
Program did not produce results). W e
examined
r e c o r d s of
Instructional Improvement Program grants awarded to faculty for the five most recent
complete years (1997-98 through 2001-2002). Of the total of 550 grants awarded, 504
went to faculty members (the remainder were awarded to 40 TAs and 6 undergraduates).
Fully 305 different individual faculty members received one or more grants. The
proportion of individual faculty members reached through these grants is extraordinarily
high in comparison to internal grant programs of other institutions.
Grants affected courses and curricula across the spectrum of disciplines.
Recipients were affiliated with 51 different academic departments and programs. The
profile of numbers of grants received by Colleges and Divisions was:
College or Division
College of Creative Studies
College of Engineering
L&S Division of Humanities & Fine Arts
L&S Division of Math, Life & Physical Sci
L&S Division of Social Sciences
Graduate School of Education
Total
Grants
7
19
229
139
153
3
550
The types of grants received were:
Grant Program
Alcohol & Other Drug Curr Infusion
Instructional Improvement Grants
Faculty Minigrants
OAP Funding of IIG Projects
Minigrant Retreats
TA Departmental Grants
TA Instructional Grants
Number
16
130
226
2
29
101
40
Percent
3%
24%
41%
<1%
5%
18%
7%
Undergraduate Grants
6
550
Total
1%
100%
The profile of grants awarded by faculty rank closely reflects the campuswide
profile of academic rank. The following table shows the numeric and percentage
distributions of grants awarded during the five year period, compared to the numeric and
percentage distribution of academic ranks with instructional responsibilities for the 200102 academic year (faculty counts courtesy of Academic Personnel).
Rank
Assistant Professor
Associate Professor
Professor
Lecturer
Lecturer PSOE
Lecturer SOE
Other Academic
Total
# IIPs
5 years
63
100
239
73
2
23
4
504
% IIPs
5 years
13%
20%
47%
14%
0%
5%
1%
#
%
at UCSB at UCSB
2001-02 2001-02
115
11%
163
15%
501
47%
263
25%
4
0%
21
2%
1067
Instructors with Lecturer appointments are taking less advantage of the grant
programs than their sheer numbers might suggest. Associate Professors are slightly more
active than their numbers might suggest. The remaining ranks are within a very few
percentage points of the participation that might be “expected.” This suggests that, with
the possible exception of Lecturers, academic rank is not a strong determiner of faculty
participation. Said another way, the IIP appears to be generally successful in securing
participation by all ranks of instructors.
Another measure of impact is the rate at which projects involved effective
pedagogical strategies and technologies. As an indirect measure, we examined records of
all funded Instructional Improvement Grants and Faculty Minigrants for 1997-98 through
2001-02, since these projects are most directly aimed at specific course and curricular
improvement. Of the 358 projects, 57% (204) involved digital technologies in the
“delivery” of instruction. This does not include such ubiquitous applications as word
processing or email, but rather counts projects in which newer digital technologies are
essential in generating and/or delivering content (or processes) to students. Fully 86%
(307) involved media, including still or motion images and/or sound, regardless of its
digital or analog origin or production. Fully 87% (311) involved visual information,
regardless of the media through which it was presented. That is, production of
illustrations for a printed workbook would count as “visual” but not as “digital,” but if the
same information were accessed by students through the Web, it would count as both
“visual” and “digital.”
It has long been a truism within OIC that the most educationally effective uses of
digital technology typically have involved either visualization, simulation, or
communication. A relatively direct indicator of the IIP’s impact on instruction would be
the extent to which projects involved these strategies and tools.
In examining the same 358 projects, we found that 28% (101) employed some
form of simulation as an explicit pedagogical strategy. In order to be counted in this
category, students had to be able not only to observe some representation of something
happening, but had to be able to control the simulation in some way, such as by varying
inputs to see how those might lead to differing outputs. Although the kinds and contexts
of simulations varied considerably, they had in common an articulated intent to affect the
quality of insight and learning by the students encountering them. As mentioned above,
87% (311) of projects involved visualization. Only 13% (46) of the 358 projects
involved communication, although we defined that category very strictly as involving the
development of a new tool or technique to support communication. In light of that
definition, we consider this percentage to be praiseworthy. In a more broad definition, of
course, communication is essential to nearly all the courses and learning which occur at
UCSB, but rating funded projects by the broad definition would result in 100%, which
adds no real information.
Two other indicators of pedagogical effectiveness are the proportion of projects
which are explicitly designed to involve “active learning” by students, and the proportion
of projects which explicitly involve “collaborative and/or group learning.” Active
learning in a general sense means that the student must actively transform the
information “taken in;” the process of actively engaging and transforming the information
can be essential to learning it, and the products of such transformations can be essential
indicators (to the learner and to the instructor) that the material has been learned. We
believe it is a very positive indicator that 54% (193) of the projects involved an explicit
pedagogical strategy or technique consistent with active learning. It is difficult to say just
what proportion of faculty members use active learning routinely, or would have used it in
projects without consultative intervention. We do believe that it is a positive sign for the
institution that such a large number of faculty are willing and able to articulate their
pedagogical preferences to include what generally is regarded as good and effective
practice.
Collaborative and group learning have been “hot topics” in higher education as
ways to help students achieve important kinds of educational outcomes. Fully 44%
(159) of the projects involve collaborative or group work as part of the instructional
context. Whether in the context of a laboratory, a lecture, a section, or out-of-class
projects, groupwork and teamwork are important aspects of a large proportion of course
and curriculum development projects.
Consistent with the emphases on active, collaborative and group learning, it is
noteworthy that 70% (251) of projects involve materials or activities that occur outside a
lecture context. Not surprisingly, 92% (329) of projects do involve lectures. (The
typical project that involves out-of-class materials also uses them in lecture to some
extent.)
Are the materials or procedures developed with grant support still being used?
To the best of the OIC staff’s knowledge, of the 358 projects, 92% (329) are still using
(or planning on using) what was developed. The largest single reason for discontinued
use is that the faculty member has left the institution, either through retirement or for
other reasons. It seems that faculty commitment to what they have produced, together
with its effectiveness, is sufficient to make the investment of developmental funds
continue to pay off.
Evidence of the quality of these projects comes from measures of faculty and
student satisfaction and of student learning within each project. These measure indicate
such student outcomes as increased student learning, increased student skills in written
communication, problem solving, and oral and visual communication, and achievement
of learning goals that are more comprehensive and involve more complexity than was
previously achieved. By far the preponderance of evidence from mandatory student
opinion surveys and of faculty opinion about funded projects indicates that positive
opinions are held about the instructional value of the interventions.
Additional evidence of the Program’s effectiveness lies in the level of faculty
participation in workshops, user’s groups, faculty forums (e.g. on Teaching Large
Classes), and a periodic major exposition, to be called Faculty Showcase: Teaching with
Technology in its next version in April 2003. At the last event in April 2001, (then called
Instructional Media Day) thirty four exhibits showcased over forty faculty projects to
hundreds of attendees by the teams of faculty members and student assistants who
developed them . Attendees were primarily UCSB faculty members, but strong interest
was also shown by graduate students, by faculty and administrators from colleges and
universities in the region, and by local K-12 schools. For detailed information about the
event, see:
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/IC/Services/TechTeach/MM01/
Another Faculty Forum on Teaching Large Classes is planned for April 2003. Previous
events have each attracted more than sixty faculty.
Yet another indicator of the Program’s impact is the record of successful
faculty proposals for extramural funding to further develop instructional projects
which were initially supported by grants from the Program. Following are
examples from the past three years:
 Professor William Prothero of Geology received substantial funding from the
National Science Foundation to build upon the extensive material in his CD-ROM
based "Our Dynamic Planet" to teach science process as well as science content.
Subsequent grants have supported research about using multimedia and online
environments to facilitate student understanding of the scientific method and of
scientific communication.
 Professors Michael Gerber and George Singer of Education received substantial
funding from the U. S. Department of Education to develop interactive
hypermedia Internet modules for training preservice educators in special
education.
 Professors Barbara Holdrege, William Powell, and Juan Campo of Religious
Studies received a grant from the Lilly Endowment to develop a geospatiallyreferenced, multimedia website for the study of sacred sites in Asia. They
subsequently received further support from the UCOP Teaching and Learning
technologies Center, and from the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
 Professor Duane Sears received grants from the Dreyfus Special Grant Program in
Chemical Sciences to continue development of his multimedia-intensive Webbased biochemistry curricular materials.
 Professor Bruce Lipshutz received grants from the Dreyfus Foundation to produce
Mechanisms in Motion, a CD-ROM-based detailed series of animations of
molecular chemical interactions and processes. It is currently a commercial
product.
 Professor Sanjit Mitra received a grant from the National Science Foundation to
produce instructional materials for Digital Signal Processing.
 Professor Dorothy Chun received publisher funds for CyberBuch, a CD-ROM
commercial product for second-year German reading.
 Professor Hsiao-jung Yu received publisher funds for CyberChinese, a CD-ROM
commercial product for teaching introductory Chinese grammar and
pronunciation.
 Professor John Bruch of Mechanical & Environmental Engineering received NSF
funding for HPC Diagnostics for Scientific Computing in the Undergraduate
Curriculum.
 Professor Tanya Atwater received one of six National Science Foundation
Director’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. The award includes
$300,000 in funding over four years. Prof. Atwater is establishing an Educational
Multimedia Visualization Center at UCSB, where faculty can work in residence to
produce computer animations and interactive courseware for teaching.
Following are examples of extramurally funded research projects with
instructional components, for which OIC has provided consultation about instructional
design and/or evaluation:
 Professor Ambuj Singh of Computer Science and colleagues received substantial
NSF support for Digital Campus: Scalable Information Services on a Campuswide Wireless Network.
 Professor Terry Smith and numerous colleagues received very substantial NSF
funding for the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT), which is building
and researching tools for accessing digital libraries of georeferenced information
resources. The nationwide consortium’s efforts include examining the use of such
resources for undergraduate instruction.
The impact of the IIP is also suggested by the visitors from a wide variety of
institutions worldwide. Visitors from outside the USA have come from Korea, Hong
Kong, Japan, Brazil, France, Australia, Argentina, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany,
Norway, Canada and Mexico. In addition, numerous short term visitors each year come
from major universities and colleges throughout the US.
C.
Financial Information for IIP Grants
The following table reports the number of grants and the total amount of funding
awarded for each grant program offered in each of the most recent five years. Attached
are copies of the current Calls for Proposals which describe in detail the purposes,
application procedures, review mechanism and criteria, and time constraints of each grant
program. This table includes information on grants awarded through the TA
Development Program, which is discussed in detail in a later section of this report. The
information is included here to emphasize the viewpoint that all of the grant programs and
all of the consulting and other services of Instructional Consultation are considered part of
the Instructional Improvement Program as it is represented to clients. Note also that the
total dollars reported for each type of grant include funding from all sources, including
contributions of agencies other than the Instructional Improvement Program. Retreats are
a subcategory of Minigrants, but the two are reported separately in this table for clarity.
The table reports amounts originally awarded for each project; actual amounts spent may
vary somewhat due to operational considerations.
Grant
Type*
AODA
IIG
OAP
MG
RT
TAD
TAIG
UG
Totals
* Key:
#
1997-98
$
1998-99
#
$
#
1999-00
$
18
166,275
32
249,584
33
226,881
49
5
21
11
3
107
40,734
3,224
42,786
15,167
1,638
269,824
42
8
22
7
37,976
5,334
45,021
10,968
111
348,883
36
5
18
6
2
100
28,755
3,179
39,369
8,564
2,124
308,872
2000-01
#
$
4
24
5,590
197,125
43
6
19
5
36,743
3,717
42,431
6,294
101
291,900
#
2001-02
$
12
23
2
56
5
21
11
1
131
17,358
222,832
12,984
52,038
3,669
45,107
17,399
500
371,887
Totals
#
16
130
2
226
29
101
40
6
550
$
22,948
1,062,697
12,984
196,245
19,133
214,715
58,329
4,263
1,591,377








AODA = Alcohol and Other Drug curriculum infusion projects funded by Student
Health Services
IIG = Instructional Improvement Grants
OAP = Projects funded by the Office of Academic Programs
MG = Faculty Minigrants
RT = Departmental Retreats
TAD = TA Departmental training programs
TAIG = TA Instructional Grants
UG = Faculty Sponsored Undergraduate Grants
Noteworthy factors in the table include:
The Faculty Sponsored Undergraduate Grants have been used scarcely at all, but
on advice from the Academic Senate Committee on Effective Teaching, which has
provided advisory oversight to the Program, the program has been retained as
originally announced.
The OAP-funded grants were supported as a one-time opportunity.
EVALUATION SUPPORT
EVALUATION SUPPORT SERVICES
I.
OBJECTIVES
The objective of OIC’s Evaluation Support Services is to provide academic
decision makers with high quality information. Decision makers include faculty members
considering the quality and improvement possibilities for their courses and curricula, the
academic personnel review process as it considers evidence of teaching quality, and
academic departments, programs and colleges as they assess the educational quality of
their offerings.
II.
DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT OPERATIONS
Evaluation support services are valued because they help decision makers obtain
higher quality information for making decisions about instruction. Instructional
Consultation provides two kinds of evaluation support services: the ESCI system for
obtaining student ratings of instruction, and consulting on issues of evaluation, as a subset
of its general consulting activities.
1.
Evaluation System for Courses and Instruction (ESCI)
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/IC/Services/ESCI/index.html
ESCI is a computerized system for scoring end-of-course student evaluation
surveys about the quality of instruction. These data are essential: they are, for better or
worse, a primary source of information about quality of teaching which is used in
evaluating faculty members for advancement. They are also a major source of
information for faculty about the quality of their teaching and about how it might be
improved.
The ESCI system, which was conceived and developed by OIC staff, provides
state-of-the-art flexibility to its clients, who can tailor-make surveys unique to every
course, or add items of special interest to a standard department-wide survey. The system
is completely flexible in handling different item response formats within a given survey.
To aid interpretation of results, the system reports normative (comparative) information
for the entire department during the current quarter, for the department over the past five
years, and for the entire campus over the past five years. The flexibility and power of this
system were unique when it was designed 25 years ago, and we are still not aware of any
major system in higher education which provides its combination of flexibility of item
format and multiple levels of comparative data.
The system serves a very large proportion of the campus. The total workload has
remained relatively stable over the past few years. For the last complete academic year,
2001-02, more than 200,000 survey sheets were filled out by students in more than 8,100
courses in nearly all departments and programs. In short, nearly every course is surveyed
nearly every quarter, and the vast majority use the ESCI system for processing the data.
In the 1990-91 academic year several agencies involved in the academic personnel
review process approved a new requirement that personnel cases include the results of
two specific items (about overall quality of the instructor’s teaching and overall quality of
the course) for each course taught by the faculty member, as a part of the evidence about
the quality of that person’s teaching. Since the ESCI system is a practical and (to
departments) no-cost way to gather this information, there is strong incentive for
individuals and departments to use the service. In addition, many departments use student
ratings of TAs as important evidence in hiring/rehiring decisions.
OIC assumed the task of processing ESCI data for Summer Sessions courses in
1995, and since that time its processing demands have increased by 86%, with a 47%
increase in Summer 2002 alone. We have been able to keep that processing going
smoothly, due in part to the additional assistance and hardware expenses enabled by a
reimbursement agreement with Summer Sessions. We have just invested in a new, much
faster scanner and new high speed network printer, which together are greatly decreasing
the processing time and will enable reports for all users to be returned more quickly. We
are in discussions with Extension to explore the possibility of processing end-of-course
ratings for extension courses.
OIC continues to supply PRP with summary data on campuswide items A and B
for departments undergoing review. These data include norms for the appropriate
divisions and for the campus. We also provide summary data to Summer Sessions to
allow comparisons between student ratings for Summer courses vs. Fall-Winter-Spring
courses.
Because the ESCI information is so important to individuals and to departments,
they have not hesitated to request custom reports, particularly reports which require
multiple normative bases for what is really one department. The system was developed in
a mainframe environment, but now runs in a networked desktop environment (4D clientserver database running on networked PowerMacs). It now is relatively efficient to
produce such reports. As described elsewhere under Academic Consulting, custom ESCI
reports also are important tools in tracking improvements made by individual faculty
clients as we work with them on various aspects of their teaching.
Anecdotal reports suggest that UCSB graduate students who have been TAs find
that ESCI documentation of their teaching skills is extremely valuable in securing
academic jobs. (The same feedback occurs regarding participation in the Summer
Teaching Institute for Associates and the Certificate in College and University Teaching.)
ESCI’s permanent staff consists of one full-time Computer and Network
Technologist (CNT), who operates and maintains the system. The casual staff are parttime students who do the bulk of the routine clerical and scanning tasks for the hundreds
of thousands of forms handled yearly. Overall, we feel the campus is getting an
extraordinary amount of information at a very modest cost.
2.
Consulting on Evaluation of Instruction
Several types of consulting regarding the evaluation of instruction are provided
by the academic Instructional Consultants as a part of their overall consulting duties (see
also the section on Academic Consulting).
A.
Formative Evaluation
For projects funded through the Instructional Improvement Program, there is an
emphasis on formative evaluation – that is, evaluation of early versions of the material,
or of pilot pieces of the materials, for the purpose of making sure it’s “heading in the
right direction.” This often takes the form of hiring students to work through early
versions of material and report in detail on their reactions and judgments. Once the new
material is used in a course, such techniques as mid-course surveys of students and focus
groups of students are used to obtain formative feedback.
B.
Evaluation Services for Extramurally Funded Projects
Instructional Consultation provides evaluation services for large extramural
projects which affect instruction on campus. A recent example is a five year grant of
$5,000,000 from the National Science Foundation for the Alexandria Digital Earth
Prototype (ADEPT), for which Instructional Consultation is providing formative
evaluation of curricular aspects of the project. As is typical for these projects, senior
consultant time is not charged, but all other costs are paid by the grant. See the section
on the Instructional Improvement Program for listing of other example grants.
TA DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
TEACHING ASSISTANT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
I.
OBJECTIVE
The objectives of the Teaching Assistant Development Program (TADP) are to
assist academic departments in:



II.
effectively preparing TAs for their teaching responsibilities,
assessing their effectiveness in that role, and
preparing TAs for the teaching aspects of their future professional careers.
DESCRIPTION OF CURRENT OPERATIONS
The Office of Instructional Consultation (OIC) coordinates the campuswide
Teaching Assistant Development Program (TADP) that continues to offer the following
traditional, long-standing services and programs:







Campuswide Orientation;
Online Training Materials and Handbooks;
Videotaping and Consultation Service;
TA Departmental Training Grants;
Lead TA Institute
TA Instructional Grants; and
International TA Training.
In addition, OIC collaborates with other campus agencies to provide two newer
programs that constitute more advanced training in the preparation of future faculty.
Offering and institutionalizing more advanced teacher training was a stated goal of TADP
in the last external review.


Summer Teaching Institute for Associates; and
Certificate in College and University Teaching
1.
TA Training Activities
A.
Campuswide Orientation
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/ta/ta_o.html
This daylong program consists of a two-hour general session, a luncheon buffet,
and three one-hour workshop time slots with between 20 and 30 workshop offerings.
Faculty, administrators, experienced TAs, and professional staff give short talks and offer
the workshop sessions. The URLs for TA handbooks and other TADP website
information are provided.
Orientation attendance has been increasing over the years: from 270 TAs in 1998
to 382 TA in the year 2002. The highest attendance during the previous five-year period
was 265 TAs. Attendance lists are provided to departments upon request. The last official
survey reported that 30 of the 37 academic departments and programs that use graduate
student TAs require new TAs to attend the campuswide orientation. Those not requiring
attendance use experienced TAs from other departments or have so few TAs that a oneon-one orientation is more appropriate.
B.
Videotaping and Consultation Service
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/ta/ta_vcvcs.html
TA Development’s Videotape and Consultation Service provides TAs (and
faculty) the opportunity to view videotapes of their classroom or laboratory teaching. This
service has had significant impact on the teaching effectiveness, affecting approximately
half of the 400 new TAs each year. Annual tapings have averaged 180-200 per year over
the past five years; however, the annual average of 186 is down from the 226 average of
the previous five year period. The difference is that we are now servicing approximately
21 departments instead of the 24 - 29 of previous years. Many departments (i.e., Spanish,
French, ESL, Computer Science, Math, and Physics) have been going through changes in
faculty coordinators of TA training and opting for faculty or Lead TAs classroom visits
rather than using our service. As of this year, both Math and Physics have indicated a
desire to reinstate videotaping.
A crucial aspect to the success of this program part has been the selection and
training of suitable graduate student TAs to serve as Video Consultants. The past five
years the campus has seen full employment for graduate students, making it difficult to
recruit top TAs for the Consultant positions. To increase the quality of Consultants,
Graduate Division agreed to provide the tuition, fees, and health insurance benefits for
two half-time Consultants who we now call TADP Fellows. TADP increased the hourly
pay level to match that of a TAship, and two excellent graduate students were recruited
for fall and winter quarters. With some financial and job duty reorganization, the TADP
Fellow program has worked out extremely well as indicated by the smoothly daily
operation of the program and by the TA comments on the quarterly survey.
C.
TA Departmental (TAD) Training Grants
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/ta/ta_dtg.html
In 1990, the TA Development Program was instrumental in the Graduate
Council’s request that departments update their 1980 TA Training Program Plans
identifying specific TA training activities. Departments were asked to outline their TA
training activities and expand their activities to include experienced TAs whenever
possible. Due to the recent recognition of the TA Union, the Graduate Division chose not
to raise the issue of Departmental TA Training updates in the year 2000. However,
because the TAD grant program requires departments to review, revise, and evaluate their
programs on a yearly basis, revised Program Plans no longer seem necessary.
The TA Training Departmental (TAD) Grant Program funds departmental efforts
to continue, strengthen, or improve TA training activities. Over the past five years,
between 19 and 22 departments have been funded annually for projects ranging from
$500 - $5,000. Total annual expenditures hover around $50,000. The largest funding
category is for Lead TAs who may receive up to $2,300; the second largest category
funds faculty stipends of between $500 and $1,000. Projects have included expanded
departmental orientations for new and experienced TAs, departmental TA orientation
manuals, development of quarter-long TA training seminars, reorganization of
departmental TA training program, TA advisory committees, symposia on teaching,
discipline-specific videotapes on instructional issues, and specific projects that aid new
or experienced TAs in developing skills needed as TAs and as future faculty members.
D.
Lead TA Institute
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/ta/ltai.html
The Lead TA Institute was established in the fall of 1996 through the TAD grant
program. It provides a stipend of $300 for Lead TAs to attend this three-day training
session led by the TA Development Coordinator. The purpose is to assist new Lead TAs
in understanding their training role; learning about the training activities and programs of
other departments; gaining knowledge about campus resources for TAs and their students;
and increasing their understanding about student learning styles, the scholarship of
teaching, and other aspects of teaching and learning. Each participant receives a large
resource notebook of handouts that can be used in departmental TA training. As evidence
of its value, many departments have incorporated sections of the notebook into their
departmental TA training handbooks.
E.
TA Instructional Grants
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/ic/ta/ta_ig.html
This grant program offers individual TAs the opportunity to design and develop
instructional materials and procedures to benefit undergraduate instruction in courses with
which they have experience. Simultaneously, the TAs develop skills in grant writing,
instruction, and evaluation. The program has produced many competent and effective
products, including interactive web pages, resources booklets for students, updated lab
manuals, TA training materials for courses with multiple TAs, an interactive virtual
museum of rare musical instruments, and an annotated, digital library for TA sections. In
the last few years, we have been receiving less than a dozen proposals wherein the past
nearly two-dozen were common. In an effort to attract more applications, the TA stipend
has been increased from $1200 to $1500 and the deadline for submission has been moved
to coincide with IIP faculty program deadline. Neither change has affected the number of
submissions. The critical factors may be full graduate student employment on campus; at
the current time, numerous departments have a difficult time finding enough graduate
student to fill their TAships. Additionally, there are many more Fellowships and Grants
being offered by Graduate Division. However, the Graduate Division has reported that the
number of UCSB graduate students is expected to be increasing.
F.
International TA Training
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/IC/TA/index.html
All International TAs (ITAs) must pass both a written and oral English language
proficiency test before given a classroom TAship. These tests are under the jurisdiction of
the Graduate Division. Depending on their test scores, ITAs may be required to attend an
ESL course in conjunction with their TAship or may be required to complete such a
course before serving as a TA. In the latter case, the TA may be asked to be a reader or
grader until his or her language skills meet the test criteria for being a TA. Since the
implementation of this policy, departments seem to have become more selective in
awarding TAships to non-native speakers and offer more TAships that do not involve lab
or discussion sections. On occasion, the TADP is asked to work individually with an ITA
or to provide advice about how to work with specific TAs to educate them about teaching
in the USA.
The Fall Quarter Orientation workshop provides a workshop designed to introduce
ITAs to the American classroom and UCSB students, specifically. ITAs are given copies
of the TADP publication, The International Teaching Assistant Handbook: An
Introduction to University and College Teaching in the United States, which also appears
online on the TADP website. This handbook is also used as a text in the Linguistics 7, a
course specifically for ITAs. This course is recommended to any ITA expressing a desire
for additional preparation for their TAship, to ITAs who do not pass the English language
oral exam, and to those who do poorly during their first quarter of TA-ing.
2.
Future Faculty Activities
A.
Summer Teaching Institute for Associates
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/IC/services/stia/index.html
At the time of the last review, OIC was working with Summer Sessions and the
Graduate Division to design and pilot test a professional development program for
graduate student Associates slated to teach during Summer Sessions. Since that time, OIC
has developed this program and offered it for six consecutive years with very positive
feedback from the perspective of the Associates who attended.
This 22 hour program begins with a day-long Saturday session focused on
clarifying course goals and designing syllabi. During a four-hour Saturday session at the
beginning of June, the main focus is on finalizing syllabi and designing classroom
activities. In the third session, Associates discuss first day of class issues and meet their
mentors with whom they will meet weekly throughout the summer.
This program fulfills the course requirement for UCSB’s Certificate in College
and University Teaching. Nearly a dozen Associates complete the program each year.
Despite efforts to increase numbers, attendance numbers have remained stable throughout
the programs existence.
B.
Certificate in College and University Teaching
http://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/academic/ccut/
In 1999, the TADP and Graduate Division collaborated to establish a campus
certificate in teaching to be awarded in conjunction with the doctoral and MFA degrees.
A Faculty Advisory Board was set up to design and award the certificate. Candidates
fulfill five requirements that include completion of (1) departmental and campuswide TA
training; (2) a course or special program on teaching; (3) a project, research paper, or
course on instructional technology; (4) the development and implementation of a course
as instructor of record; (5) a portfolio describing the professional development of the
applicant throughout the completion of the requirements.
In the year 2000 the first certificate was awarded. To date, eight Graduate students
in six difference departments have been awarded the certificate.
III.
Future Plans
The future focus of the TA Development Program will be to continue offering the
programs that affect mainly first-year TAs and to further develop the two newer future
faculty programs. No doubt that cost effectiveness will have to be a major consideration
in the coming years and programs will need to be examined in terms of this criterion.
Increasing the number of participants in TA Instructional Grant Program, STIA, and
CCUT is also of prime consideration. There may be a way to offer a modified STIA
program to Associates throughout the academic year, perhaps a one-day Associate
workshop each quarter.
ISSUES AND TRENDS
ISSUES AND TRENDS
1.
Assessment
Academic Programs has taken the lead in efforts to focus campus attention on the
benefits and challenges of “assessment.” In part this focus reflects the campus’
experience with its recent reaccreditation by WASC, particularly the reconception of the
role of the reaccrediting agency as both facilitating examination of things that are
priorities to the campus and strongly encouraging measures of student outcomes as part of
those examinations. The reconception of the WASC process is consistent with a national
trend to require student outcome measures as part of any assessment effort at a
programmatic level.
OIC is playing a major role in the effort to capture campus attention. Encouraging
and supporting current best practices in assessment is consistent with the Office’s
mission, and its consultants have the expertise to assist clients with conceptualization and
with measurement issues.
The following steps have been taken within the past year:



Establish a program of grants, using Summer Sessions funds, to support
assessment efforts which include examination of courses and curricula that
involve Summer Sessions courses. Emphasize that existing Instructional
Improvement Grant and Faculty Minigrant programs also can support assessment
efforts, particularly for projects that do not include Summer Sessions courses.
Hold events aimed at increasing awareness and motivation. A national expert,
Trudy Banta, spent a day in April 2002, in informal presentations and discussions
with Academic Senate committees, members and staff of PRP, academic
administrators, and representatives of academic departments. Issues explored
included a) the general approach of outcomes assessment, b) the benefits of the
approach in Research 1 higher education institutions, c) specific examples of
effective and less-than effective use of the approach in other institutions, and d) a
potpourri of specific tools, checklists, instruments, funding, and other resources
available to anyone (or any program) interested in pursuing the use of outcomes
assessment.
A second event, held in December 2002, featured “status reports” by three
projects which had received support from the first round of the grants programs.
One project was measuring higher-order cognitive outcomes and processes in an
upper division course featuring a mock environmental summit; the second project
involved assessment of writing courses which accompany Engineering courses;
and the third reported on the College of Engineering’s experience with assessment
for accreditation under new standards and processes that mandate measurement of
student outcomes. Attendees included representatives of academic departments as
well as other UC campuses.
These steps have been taken to provide information and motivation, as well as
resources, to generate exploration and examples of assessment at any level, from the
individual course to entire curricula or academic units. The strategy is to generate activity
and experience; if early efforts are successful (meaning useful and worth the effort), then
those who made them will be the most effective at generating interest among their
colleagues.
We believe that this effort is worthwhile, in that it can result in better quality
information about courses and programs being available to decision makers (which in a
practical sense includes every faculty member in a program). How can we best foster
campus understanding and use of outcomes assessment? Any guidance from
reviewers will be greatly appreciated.
2.
Evolution of Digital Technologies and Pedagogy
The continuing evolution of digital information technologies poses challenges and
opportunities to educators. On the one hand, new tools are available to foster
communication, visualization, simulation, access to content, and countless other
functions that can be educationally powerful. On the other hand, pedagogy must be
reexamined to take best advantage of the new tools.
A major portion of OIC’s overall efforts necessarily involves technology. Our
priority is to help faculty clients learn about pedagogical implications and possibilities;
the time when they seek funding or technical support is a wonderful opportunity to
reexamine what they’re trying to get students to understand, how they might do this, and
how they’ll know whether it’s working. Pedagogical and educational needs should drive
the choice and use of technologies, not the reverse.
One major trend in projects supported by IIP grants has been the shift to Web
delivery. Projects just four or five years ago usually were designed as stand-alone
exercises, simulations, visualization tools, etc., for delivery via CD-ROM, videotape, a
lab computer from its hard drive, videotape, or other media. Now those projects are
almost universally designed for Web delivery.
Technological tools frequently are involved in our consulting with faculty,
whether the context is “clinical” assistance or grant preparation. We also hold specific
events to raise awareness and skills. The series of (now biannual) major expositions in
the Corwin Pavilion (formerly Instructional Media Day, now Faculty Showcase:
Teaching with Technology) is probably the most widely known. Other events include
workshops on the pedagogy as well as the “how-tos” of particular software tools, and
demonstrations of technologies by vendors or faculty “early adopters.” During 2002-03 a
total of eight workshops will be offered by OIC, to complement the eleven workshop
topics scheduled by L&S Information Technology and thirteen workshops scheduled by
Instructional Computing. We currently are planning with LSIT and IC for a Summer
Institute: Teaching with Technology as a multi-day event to expose faculty participants to
both pedagogy and hands-on “how-tos.”
Ongoing issues are:
A.
How best to “spread the word” among faculty about the possibilities and
challenges of the educational use of technology. How can we help faculty acquire
the understanding and skills that enable them to do the best possible job of
teaching, whether it involves technology or not? Are the current methods
appropriate? Is the level of activity about right? Are there alternative or
additional approaches that should be considered?
B.
What would be the best role for OIC in a campuswide approach to meeting
faculty needs for support in instructional use of the Web. Many on campus
believe that faculty could benefit from more support in this aspect of instructional
technology (see results of the latest survey of faculty opinion by the Office of
Information Technology (OIT)). OIC is collaborating with Instructional Resources
(IR), Instructional Computing (IC), and L & S Information Technology (LSIT) in
offering a new program of Web Minigrants, which supply faculty members with
trained student assistants to create and post required instructional content to the
Web (and also train the faculty member in how to maintain it). This is an
experiment which at its present scope is not requiring additional budgetary
resources for the collaborating partners.
C.
A related issue is whether a “one size fits most” course management system
(CMS) such as WebCT or Blackboard might be a good investment for the campus.
OIT has planned for some time to convene a Task Force to look at this issue. The
budgetary and political climate will be factors in the timing and charge of any
advisory Task Force, and it is premature to speculate on what OIC’s best role
might be should a CMS be recommended as a priority for the campus.
3.
Collaboration
Collaboration is a hallmark of how support units must approach service to the
campus as a whole, particularly in light of the current budgetary outlook. Considerable
collaboration happens within the context of Academic Programs’ units. For example,
Instructional Resources (IR), Instructional Computing (IC) and OIC collaborate in the
design and operation of the computer labs in Kerr Hall. OIC collaborates with Summer
Sessions (SS) by processing its ESCI data, and is exploring the possibilities of doing the
same for Extension and Off-Campus Studies. OIC also collaborates with agencies across
campus. A recent example is the Web Minigrant experiment described above
(OIC/IR/IC/LSIT). OIC has collaborated with the Music Library in testing a system to
enable course-required listening assignments to be available through streaming audio via
the Web. The Summer Teaching Institute for Associates (STIA) is a collaboration of
OIC, SS, and the Graduate Division, and dovetails nicely with the recent Certificate in
College and University Teaching available to graduate students. The upcoming Faculty
Showcase: Teaching with Technology is a collaboration between OIC, IR, IC, the
College of Engineering, the College of Letters and Science, the UCOP Teaching,
Learning and technology Center, and Apple Computer. The planned Summer Institute:
Teaching with Technology is a collaboration between OIC, IR, IC, and LSIT. A
collaboration between OIC, Geology, the Bren School, ADEPT and LSIT produced a
demonstration of “Geowall,” a software/hardware combination that enables 3D display to
large groups; as a result a set of the equipment has been purchased to serve the faculty
from multiple departments who plan to use this new technology. In short, collaboration
makes it possible to accomplish things useful to the institution while making good use of
existing resources, and minimizing barriers of organizational bureaucracy.
4.
Institutional transition
One of the most important issues for OIC in the coming few years will be how
best to handle the replacement of senior staff members, three of whom are nearing
retirement age. These consultants have roughly eighty years of experience between them,
and include the founder of the Office and a colleague who joined in its first year, as well
as a nationally recognized expert in the development of TAs. While none of the three
have firm plans, it is likely that by the time of the next review of the office all three will
have departed.
The experience and expertise of these academic staff members cannot be directly
replaced, but neither are they irreplaceable. The challenge is to define a model of how the
Office can best function in the absence of this walking history, define the desirable
experiences and expertise of new staff under the (revised?) model, and select new staff, in
a way which makes the transition most effective without hindering the new visions that
new staff will bring.
5.
Resources
Overall, OIC is well served, and is able to well serve the campus, with the
resources it has available.
Physical space and facilities are adequate for the functions we perform, in part
because collaboration with IR allows locating facilities such as the Faculty New Media
Development Center outside OIC’s official space.
Budgets are effective in supporting the current level of consulting and technical
support services. The Office can maintain a good balance between up-to-date internal
infrastructure and direct costs of faculty grants. Taking on additional functions, such as
operation of a Course Management System for the campus, would of course require
additional resources. It goes without saying that it is important to protect existing
revenues in the event that the overall state budget climate does not improve. We believe
it will continue to be wise to invest in the development of faculty skills, courses, and
curricula.
People are the Office’s most valuable asset. The talented staff have extraordinary
experience in performing their roles with great effectiveness, efficiency, and good humor.
Five of the seven FTE have served the Office for twenty years or more. As indicated
above, interesting times are ahead when some of these experienced folks begin to leave.
Clearly a larger staff would allow more consulting and other kinds of direct support to
faculty and to academic programs. By the same token, fewer staff would result in less
service to the campus. It is our belief that the Office can best be served by focusing on
the best transition from existing to new staff. Adding new staff in the near future would
facilitate such transition by allowing overlap; failure to replace departing experienced
staff would be a significant loss to the campus.