Report looks at UW rigor
By Steve Hill
University Week
A new Teaching Academy report evaluates whether UW faculty challenge their undergraduate students and how the University can enhance the quality of teaching and learning.
Pathways to Excellence in Undergraduate Education: Setting High Expectations and Achieving Excellence, released today and available on the Web at http://www.washington.edu/oue/academy/pathways.pdf, grew from a question Regent William Gates posed to President Richard L. McCormick. “Are we challenging our undergraduates enough?” Gates asked.
The president responded by directing the Teaching Academy to consider the question and to inspire campus-wide discussion of the academic expectations faculty set for UW students. The report addresses the issue of expectations by considering three questions: How challenging are the academic experiences of UW students? What are the qualities of an excellent undergraduate academic experience? And how must we enhance the quality of teaching and learning at the UW?
In attempting to answer those questions, George Bridges, a Teaching Academy member and the associate dean of undergraduate education, and a team of Academy colleagues examined information about student experiences at the UW and considered the views of Distinguished Teaching Award winners.
So is undergraduate education at the University adequately challenging?
“In some cases and in some places, it’s very challenging,” Bridges said recently. “In other places it isn’t. I think the next step is going to those places where it doesn’t seem to be challenging, and working to ensure that faculty members and their departments have adequate support.”
The report includes data on students’ academic experiences and their views about the difficulty of their courses. Of the nearly 350 students surveyed for the study, most felt that their courses were challenging. Just 8 percent said their UW classes were “fairly easy.” Fifty-three percent found them “somewhat challenging” while 39 percent found them “very challenging.”
On the other hand, there are predictable instances when undergraduate education doesn’t challenge the students. Large, lower division courses were generally viewed as less challenging, according to the surveyed students. Courses where the instructor lacks enthusiasm were also considered among the least challenging. Finally, students didn’t feel adequately challenged in courses where engaging the material or the instructor wasn’t critical to learning.
Faculty members offered complementary viewpoints on the subject and expressed additional concerns. According to the report, many faculty felt that lower division courses may be less challenging because they often are quite large. That can limit the amount of work instructors demand from students. And, because students vary in their levels of knowledge and proficiency, work that is challenging to one might not be as challenging for another student.
Finally, faculty members expressed concerns about the difficulties some students have in UW courses. Faculty noted that some students have demanding lives outside of the University that limit time they can devote to academic work. Others seem unprepared for college courses or come to the UW with low expectations about the level of effort necessary to succeed.
But the report goes beyond an assessment of the academic challenges facing undergraduates.
“The Pathways report is also about quality and what it means to have a quality education in this time, in this era at the University,” said Edwina Uehara, an associate dean in the School of Social Work.
Sam Wineburg, like Uehara, emphasized that increasing the quality of teaching and education wholly, would require a new way of thinking. One way to improve undergraduate education, according to Wineburg, a College of Education professor, is to remove the impediments to an interdisciplinary education.
“If we’re in an era where we think interdisciplinary courses are our future, then we ought to think seriously about creating a structure that could lead the way to that rather than thwart it,” Wineburg said.
Loveday Conquest said she hopes the report encourages new thought about education at the UW.
“One of my hopes is that people will start thinking out of the box in terms of how we deliver education,” Conquest, director of the Teaching Academy, said.
Bridges said there are plenty of resources within the University that faculty and departments can use to improve their delivery of education.
“We need to look at the exemplars within the campus community to find better ways of offering undergraduate education,” he said.
For a start, instructors throughout the University system could benefit from looking closely at the work of Brotman Award-winning departments and from the different types of teaching that are used across the three-campus system. Bridges said work is already under way to make large lecture halls more compelling with interactive computer technology that would allow students to engage in real-time discussion of the academic material.
And, he said, improvements don’t necessarily require spending more money.
“I’m convinced that the issues raised in this report are not all money issues,” he said. “These are issues of faculty putting their heads together with administrators and developing innovative solutions.”
A series of three forums based on the report is scheduled for April 12, April 26 and May 10. Gates will address the faculty at the first forum.