Date
Location
Subject
25 August 2014
VC R-L1-034 DXB / CON-03-030 AUH
COL Coordinators Meeting
Minutes of COL Coordinators Meeting
Start Time
08:30 am
Coordinator COL 230
Assistant Chair EWS-DXB
Associate Dean, Abu Dhabi
Associate Dean, Dubai
Present
Absent




Chris Stryker
Cindy Stiegelmeyer
David Frear
Fariba Shaikh
Fida Al Omari
Hadeel Haroon
Hala Thabet
Hammad Ibrahim
Ikko Tucker
Co-Chair, IDS-AUH & Coordinator COL 270
Coordinator MTH 113
Coordinator COL 140
Coordinator COL 165
Coordinator COL 110
Admin Assistant – Abu Dhabi
Coordinator Arabic Labs
Coordinator COL 135
Co-Chair, IDS-DXB
Imani Lowman
John Wakefield
Jyoti Grewal
Lisa Isaacson
Assistant Chair, AAD-AUH
Coordinator MTH 213
Dean
Asst. Dean and Interim Chair EWS-AUH
Name
Dept./ College
1
2
3
4
Ahmed Salem
Annick Durand
Anthony Rhodes
Belkeis Altareb
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
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Finish Time
10:30 am
Name
Dept./College
18
19
20
21
Lisa Kassem
Magdalena Karolak
Mariam Hariri
Mark Causapin









22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Mary Bantilan
Michelle Elghardgui
Millicent Silva
Mokhtar Boularawi
Nadera Baig
Norman Williams
Roslyn Haley
Sheldon Kohn
Stephen Curry




31
32
33
Zia Saunders
Fairlie Atkinson
Saima Akhund
Coordinator COL 145
Coordinator COL 155
Coordinator MTH 101
Asst. Chair MTH-AUH & Coordinator
COL 112
COL Logistics Coordinator
Coordinator COL 120
Sr. Academic Admin Officer, DXB
Coordinator COL 130
Coordinator COL 260
Coordinator COL 240
Chair AAD-DXB
Coordinator COL 150
Interim Chair MTH-DXB &
Coordinator COL 111
Assistant Dean, DXB
Education Effectiveness Coordinator
Education Effectiveness Coordinator
Present
Absent
















Item
Recommendation / Decision
Responsibility
Unit/person
Date
Dean’s Remarks
 Dean extended a welcome to all and introduced Saima Akhund and Fairlie Atkinson as
the Educational Effectiveness Coordinators.
 Job Description for Educational Effectiveness Coordinators will be sent to all.
1
Education
Effectiveness
Coordinators’ Roles
 Contact Fairlie or Saima for assistance on Course Files/Learning Outcomes and
Assessment/ Quality Framework Emirates (QFE).
 For Arabic and Islamic courses – Coordinators have any questions are free to ask
Associate Dean or Assistant Dean on both campuses.
2
Submission of
Assessment Schedule
 Submit Common Assessment Schedule for courses, if any conflicts will suggest
alternatives.
 Complete syllabi and submit to Hadeel in AUH and Millicent in DXB – NLT 8/28
All COL
Coordinators
28/8//2014
3
Academic APRTF
Recommendation and
General Education






Meeting
17/9/2014
Meeting
9/9/2014
4
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Presentation of your
Course: 5-7 minutes
Roslyn and Imani need to discuss with Dean APRTF academic recommendation.
COL sequence as proposed by UC was approved by CAO.
COL 255 will be offered this semester.
Dean recommended raising issues so solutions can be found.
Ahmed to meet with Dean to discuss APRTF academic recommendations
Sheldon – Revision of COL 155 Curriculum Review
COL 105 Career Exploration
This course guides students through the process of exploring careers and provides the
strategies and skills necessary for a lifetime of career-related decision-making. Students
explore options for future careers by engaging in four activities: investigating the world of
work, considering the career-planning process, recognizing the relation between various
academic majors and career choices, and becoming familiar with CV writing. Academic skill
development and advising are ongoing throughout the course.
COL 120 - Life Skills:
Topic
UC sequence, GradesFirst, BlackBoard
What is Personal Development Planning? Definition of success, what does success mean to
you? Goal-setting
Identifying personal strengths and areas of improvement, reflecting on personal learning
history, responding to setbacks
Learning SHAPE (Style, Habits, Attitudes, Preferences, Experience), Developing a Personal
Performance Profile through self-assessment
SWOT analysis of goals, campus resources, time management, attitude, emotional
intelligence, stress management, managing personal performance
Problem solving & task management, Introduction to Community Service Project
Project topic selection & research question development, identifying keywords for project
research
Librarian Visit (searching for sources of information, evaluating sources)
Self-evaluation of people skills, connecting with others, listening, teamwork, giving &
receiving criticism, dealing with difficult people, leadership
Understanding how to be creative, using strategies to generate ideas
Information literacy - APA references & in-text citations
Community Service Project - Group Presentations
Approaches and models of reflection, developing a personal model of reflection
What should be included in a personal records file?
Understanding what employers want, choosing a job
Job Applications (cover letters, CVs, interviews)
Job Applications Continued
Recognizing personal change, reviewing reflections, planning next steps
Preparation for Self-Registration
COL 130 – Arabic Concepts
Arabic Concepts (COL 130) is an Arabic language course that aims to advance the students
proficiency in writing, reading and speaking skills, through critical engagement with selected
multidisciplinary texts. The texts are organized in five units as shown in the class schedule
below. Each text is followed by interactive questions and drills. At the end of each unit, the
student will also have the chance to review some basic linguistic information: orthographic,
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semantic, syntactic, and stylistic.
COL 130 will help students streamline their academic writing skills in order to express a
range of ideas and methods of argumentation clearly and concisely in Modern Standard
Arabic. They will learn how to analyze and sort out information, find evidence and evaluate
its quality, organize ideas for writing, use the appropriate word choice, create meaningful
sentences, and connect all in convincing and coherent arguments. Students can also at this
stage learn fluency and clarity in expression through oral presentations of course texts, to
communicate ideas to the rest of the class in a correct and accurate.
COL 135 - Islamic Civilization I
This course attempts to deal with the disciplines conventionally known as "Islamic studies"
or "an introduction to Islam." After discussing the emergence of these disciplines, various
disciplines are analyzed, covering essential topics such as definition, limits, basic issues,
major branches and schools, and relation to other disciplines. The focus is on approaching
Islam as a living religion and reality, rather than a dogmatic approach or as a mere source of
glorification of the historical past.
COL 230 – Islamic Civilization II
This course is to focus basically on the general frameworks of the Islamic Civilization, in
order to introduce a comprehensive preview of the various aspects and tracks taken, or
innovated, by this Civilization in its historic evolution. Therefore, the course is by nature an
introductory one dealing with a variety of highly varied issues, presenting a strong challenge
to whoever may teach it. The instructor should first of all focus on the overall frameworks,
general trends and basic issues, and in the meantime, must present the various intellectual
and doctrinal trends in each. For the course combines both the general absolute and the
specific relative. Therefore, this course is supposed to be comprehensive and balanced, and,
should simultaneously present the various aspects of the Islamic Civilization. It should also
be balanced by equally expressing all different views and doctrines. Meanwhile, the major
purpose of the course is to build an intellectual methodological framework that may take
the students out of the romantic vision received through upbringing, and construct a
rational one based on understanding, analysis and criticism. Any category should be
considered true only when it has already been examined and scientifically criticized so as to
give room to a variety of views, and at the same time to give these views its legitimacy.
COL 140 / 140A – English Composition I
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For COL 140 and COL140A, there has been an overall change in emphasis from a focus on
summary and response to a focus on summary with a response related to a specific prompt
that elicits certain rhetorical modes - extended definition, cause and/or effect, and
comparison and / contrast. The essay will require the learners to respond to a prompt that
requires usage of at least two of the three rhetorical modes. The number of course learning
outcomes has been reduced from 13 to 7 and assessments from 10 to 6. While there are no
instructor points, the teachers are free to arrange the allocation of points for the first
assessment via multiple drafting of a summary and response with an extended definition
and the same is the case for the essay. There will be a mid-term exam and a test also. The
final exam will comprise the analysis of a text and the writing of an essay based on a prompt
to elicit the rhetorical modes taught during the semester. CoOL140A will be made more
challenging for the learners by having them read and be assessed on texts that longer in
length and are more complex. The assessments will also be larger in length.
COL 145 – English Composition II
English Composition II further exposes students to academic reading and writing practice
with a focus on persuasive writing in various rhetorical contexts. It provides instruction and
practice in university-level reading skills, and requires students to implement, in written and
visual form, persuasive strategies in academic and non-academic contexts, and participate in
group discussions and projects. Students learn to identify and use persuasive language,
summarize, paraphrase, read and write critically, and design persuasive academic and nonacademic pieces of composition for specific audiences. The course requires students to
choose a commodity that is causing ecological problems or is traded or produced unethically
and design an awareness campaign ad for consumers. Students are then required to write a
1000 to 1200 word persuasive essay with the same objective. Grammar instruction is a
component of this course, which emphasizes clear, correct writing based on the process of
composing, revising, and editing. In addition to the course material, students are
encouraged to become self-directed learners, capable of reading university level content.
The course prepares students for COL 240 English Composition III.
COL 240 – English Composition III
This final course in the English Composition cycle has a dual focus. It aims to improve
students’ secondary research competencies, particularly in the areas of finding,
understanding and evaluating general and academic resources. It also aims to improve
students’ academic composition skills, focusing in particular on a) their abilities to
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incorporate information sources effectively and in a principled manner b) their abilities to
plan, draft and edit more extended argumentative text c) their ability to deploy rhetorical
modes (e.g. Defining, describing, narrating, comparing etc.) as part of a longer composition
with increasing independence.
COL 150 Global Awareness I
Human Geography is the first course in the Global Awareness sequence. As the team
revised the course over the summer, after meeting with Jyoti to clarify expectations, the
team of volunteers ensured that each week has a guiding question and specific learning
goals that are mapped to ZULOs. Further, since this has been identified as a “Beginning”
level course, the learning outcomes are all designed with appropriate levels of Blooms
taxonomy. To align the course closer with the methods and content of COL 140, the
assessment strategy has shifted from multiple choice to constructed response questions that
require writing. All instructors also have been provided with a revised template for recording
their weekly learning plans. Initial feedback from faculty seems quite positive, and this
iteration of the course seems much more straightforward for the faculty and hopefully will
result in greater student learning.
COL 155 – Global Awareness II
Imperial Encounters, provides comparative examination of imperial states. Each examined in
four different sections. Imperialism and its transition.
COL 110 – Mathematical Modeling with Data
I am the coordinator for the course COL 110-Mathematical Modeling with Data. From this
course, the students can organize, analyze data and present it by using Excel spreadsheet
software. The students will be able to know the differences between the quantitative and
qualitative data and they will learn some math skills and they will be able to solve any real
world problem using technology.
COL 111 – Mathematical Modeling with Functions
This course is designed to provide students with a broad general education in quantitative
reasoning and critical thinking. It will also provide a foundation for the development of their
ability to function competently and confidently in majors’ programs. The course will focus on
analytical reasoning and thinking to solve real world problems in business, finance,
economics, computer science, education and the natural sciences.
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The content of the course will be delivered through classroom activities and projects to
introduce the students to the various topics. For some topics or case studies, data can be
from primary sources connected with other courses, such as Environmental Science, Health
Science and COL 110. In each area, knowledge, analytical skills, critical thinking and
understanding will be developed using relevant examples for discussion, analysis and
interpretation in class with follow up exercises or assignments of a similar nature to be done
individually or in groups outside the classroom.
COL 112 – Mathematical Modeling in Business
This course is designed to provide students with a broad general education in quantitative
reasoning and critical thinking. It will also provide a foundation for the development of their
ability to function competently and confidently in Business Science majors. The course will
focus on analytical reasoning and thinking to solve real world problems in business, finance
and economics. The content of the course will be delivered through classroom activities and
projects to introduce the students to the various topics.
MTH 101 – Basic Mathematics
MTH 101 Basic Mathematics is a developmental course designed for students with low
mathematics placement scores. The course is considered to be a revision of areas of basic
mathematics involving operations with variables, linear equations, problem solving,
percents, graphing linear equations, and interpreting graphs. Students build upon these
foundational mathematics skills to explore the applications of basic algebra in real life word
problems.
MTH 213 – Business Statistics
Follows from MTH 112. Introduces students how statistics is used in business. Students try
to predict from samples in business.
COL 165 - Nature of Science Discovery
The primary goal of this course is to cultivate habits of mind by engaging students to
critically explore the world, evaluate ideas, and apply their learning to solve real-world
problems. The course emphasizes process more than specific content, while fostering
evidence-based reasoning.
The learning experience will integrate many disciplines, including biology, chemistry, physics,
environmental science, psychology, and health sciences. The focus, however, will remain on
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helping students reflect, analyze, think critically, and understand the nature and process of
human inquiry and decision-making. Emphasis is placed on observing, seeking patterns,
looking for relevance, explaining data, asking good questions, verifying ideas, and applying
knowledge from multiple perspectives to find solutions to complex problems.
During the course, students will also explore how science functions within the context of
different societies and environments, giving them insights into the historical and cultural
pathways that have shaped scientific ideas.
By using an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the nature of scientific discovery,
this course will serve as an important step towards gaining scientific literacy.
COL 260-Environmental Science
COL 260 is an introductory course in environmental science. It provides students the
background necessary to understand the complex environmental problems facing the UAE
and the World. Opportunities are provided in the course, where students discuss burning
environmental issues such as high ecological footprint, global warming, ozone layer
depletion, food shortages and greenhouse effect. The students understand how their daily
life choices contribute to these problems and take accountability. They discuss how these
concerns can be addressed and what could be their probable solutions. The course examines
the biology, chemistry and physics of environmental problems as well as the economic and
social issues that influence the solutions to these problems. At the end of the course the
students carry out a research on the topic of their interest and they make a poster or
PowerPoint presentation to their peers.
COL 270 – Introduction to Information Technology
We live in a world that depends on information technology. Computers, cell phones, worldwide data networks and other digital marvels are used in every profession and in all
academic disciplines. This course prepares each Zayed University student to be fully capable
and informed 21st-century citizens by emphasizing essential IT knowledge, skills and
perspectives.
Students in COL 270 engage in activities that focus on developing and refining their ability to
understand and apply IT concepts, products and services in their academic, personal and
professional lives. Through information-technology-enhanced approaches to collaboration,
communication, security, creativity and learning, students will master the critical thinking
and technology-using skills needed to excel wherever life takes them.
COL 270 is designed for students of all backgrounds and academic interests.
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Prior experience with computers, software and the Internet is required. COL 270 is not a
course designed to teach you basic computing or software skills.
COL 270 will improve your ability to use IT devices more productively, but you are expected
to know how to use your computer, operating system, word processor, spreadsheet, email,
web browser, cell phone, tablet computer, etc. when you enter the course.
5
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Course files / CLOs /
QFEs
Fairlie:
 Will simplify the process
 Alignment with the QFE
 Map our course learning outcomes to ZULOs to QFE
 It is a CAA requirement
 1/3 of all academic programs will be aligned by 2014
 COL does not have much to do, as all courses have CLOs
 Review CLOs, 4-6 Learning Outcomes for a course
 Map CLO to ZULOs, identify 2-3 ZULOs to a course
 Map to QFE will be done by Fairlie and overseen by Tony
 CAO wants feedback from students, how well the CLO were met during the semester
 Process: Course Learning Outcomes today in Syllabi and sent to Fairlie and Saima, copy
Tony
 Template will be ready by Wednesday, 27 August at 5 pm
1. Fairlie will map them to ZULO
2. UC already mapped assessment to ZULOs
3. Syllabi: Learning Outcomes, ZULOs.
 Tony: Assessment table already mapped to Learning Outcomes per course
 Students and faculty will be asked if CLO were met
 Syllabus template for every course
 Need a simplified version of syllabus for students. CAA required, give them that syllabus,
select portions useful and highlight. Students to concentrate on highlighted portions
 Time line distributed by Fairlie for actions
 Not using Metacourse for course copying anymore. Metacourse will contain Course
Files, and therefore sensitive information
 Template (Jimson Lee) will be rolled out to students and faculty Wednesday at 5:pm
 This semester the time frame to populate templates was short. However, Spring
Semester all templates should be populated in time. Documents and timeline attached.
Fairlie
27 Aug 14
5:00 pm
6
AOB
 Contacts in Dean’s Office:
Tony – SMT
Belkeis – GA
Lisa Isaacson – Language sequence
Zia – COL 105 and COL 120
Secretary
Name
Signature
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Millicent Silva
Chair
Jyoti Grewal