Connecting Your Work to LEAP Wisconsin:
A Faculty Collaboratives Conference
Thursday and Friday, September 24-25, 2015
Madison Marriott West, Middleton, WI
AGENDA
Thursday, September 24
11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Registration – Monona
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Lunch & Welcome Address – Monona
LEAP and Wisconsin—an Inspiring and Aspiring Overview – Susan Albertine, AAC&U,
and Rebecca Karoff, UW System
In 2005, the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) announced LEAP—Liberal
Education and America’s Promise—a public advocacy and campus action initiative to advance liberal
learning and high-quality undergraduate education for all students. Also in 2005, the University of
Wisconsin System became the pilot partner and Wisconsin the first LEAP State in AAC&U’s
initiative, committing to championing the importance of a twenty-first-century liberal education—
for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality.
Ten years—and a whole lot of essential learning outcomes, high-impact practices, rubrics,
proficiency initiatives, shared commitment and responsibility by dedicated faculty and staff—later,
where are we? The welcome address will provide an overview of where we are, and where we still
want to go, as LEAP and LEAP Wisconsin celebrate ten years of change work.
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Plenary Address – Monona
How the work of faculty has changed in the last decade: why the LEAP Initiatives
Matter – Dan McInerney, Utah State University
Once upon a time, in a golden (and imaginary) past, it seemed simple and straightforward to
understand the work of faculty. Variations exist throughout post-secondary education, but,
traditionally, the activities have fallen into three categories: research, teaching, and service. This
presentation suggests that there is another important realm of activity that we should also address
in the 21st century, a field of work that is pro-active in nature, defending not simply our positions
but also our disciplines, our disciplinary expertise, and our disciplines’ contributions to learning. It
is the work of advocacy, taking a seat at the table in academic, administrative, and public
discussions and clarifying the commitments we make to knowledge, skills, and student success.
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2:00-3:15 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions I
The Faculty Collaboratives LEAP Fellows will lead sessions connecting the teaching and learning
priorities of participants with a set of national proficiency initiatives designed to strengthen learning
environments.
On a Curricular Level, how do we Function as a System?: General Education Maps and Markers and
the Degree Qualifications Profile as Resources – Caroline Geary, UW Colleges, and Dale Splinter,
UW-Whitewater – Greenway
The presenters will provide introductions to the GEMs and DQP proficiency initiatives. GEMs—
General Education Maps & Markers—is a resource for institutions looking to increase coherence
and meaning in their general education programs. The Degree Qualifications Profile is a resource in
the proficiency-based education movement providing reference points for what a student should
know and be able to do upon degree completion at the Associate, Bachelor’s and Master’s levels.
Case studies will demonstrate how the initiatives can serve as stand-alone resources, as well as how
the two initiatives can work together.
From the Classroom to the Assessment Committee: A practical tour of the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics –
Tim Dale, UW-La Crosse – Salon F
The AAC&U’s VALUE rubrics are designed to operationalize and distinguish between complex and
nuanced learning outcomes like “critical thinking”, “creative thinking”, and “problem solving”.
These rubrics were created in part to be a resource to help address the problem of assessing
learning outcomes consistently and coherently. The rubrics can be used beyond assessment by
articulating details about learning objectives that can be used in course and curriculum design. In
this way, the VALUE rubrics are a useful resource for providing a common set of terms,
descriptions, and tools for conversations about learning outcomes and program development. In
this session we will explore the features of the VALUE rubrics, and investigate applications for them
in assignment, course, and curriculum planning and evaluation.
What Is Signature Work and How Can We Support It? – Tracy Slagter, UW-Oshkosh – Salon G
How can we encourage and support student work that is truly integrative, allowing students to
draw on experiences they have had in multiple classes? How can we facilitate learning across the
curriculum, from general education through to the major? The AAC&U’s centennial focus on
“Signature Work” provides a framework for thinking about these aims and how to make them
happen. In this session, we will discuss what Signature Work entails, examine some models of how
it is happening elsewhere, and engage in small group discussions about how we can recognize and
facilitate Signature Work in our own UW System.
Learning in the Major: Tuning – Heidi Fencl, UW-Green Bay – Salon H
This session will focus on projects that participants currently have on their plates related to
teaching or assessment in the major. Time will be provided for participants with similar areas of
focus to network and share ideas. We will also highlight the relationship between these projects
and learning outcomes, and make initial connections to ways that Tuning might interface to
strengthen or streamline the projects.
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3:15-3:30
Break – Monona
3:30-4:30 p.m.
Plenary Address – Monona
Providing Evidence of Our Students Learning: A Transparency Framework – Natasha Jankowski,
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
This session will explore how we communicate our institutional stories of student learning
internally and externally to various audiences. Using the NILOA Transparency Framework and its
development as a guide, we will explore together what it means to communicate effectively and
how to present evidence to different audiences to best share our work around teaching and
learning. Institutional examples will be shared as will information on how responding to
accountability narratives.
4:30-5:45 p.m.
Concurrent Sessions I Repeated (see above for descriptions)
The Faculty Collaboratives LEAP Fellows will lead sessions connecting the teaching and
learning priorities of participants with a set of national proficiency initiatives designed to
strengthen learning environments.
On a Curricular Level, how do we Function as a System?: General Education Maps and Markers and the
Degree Qualifications Profile as Resources – Caroline Geary, UW Colleges, and Dale Splinter,
UW-Whitewater – Greenway
From the Classroom to the Assessment Committee: A practical tour of the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics –
Tim Dale, UW-La Crosse – Salon F
What Is Signature Work and How Can We Support It? – Tracy Slagter, UW-Oshkosh – Salon G
Learning in the Major: Tuning – Heidi Fencl, UW-Green Bay – Salon H
6:15-7:45 p.m.
Dinner and Institutional Team Time I – Salon E
Teams should try to sit together at dinner. A cash bar is available in the hotel lobby. LEAP Fellows
and plenary speakers may be available for consultation during team time.
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Friday, September 25
7:30-8:30 a.m.
Breakfast Discussion – Monona
The UW System’s Innovation Hub—what should it look like in order to be truly useful to faculty? –
Peggy James, UW System Faculty Collaboratives Hub Director, and Jim Robinson, UW-Parkside
The Wisconsin Innovation Hub creates a dynamic, interactive environment to support collaboration
between educators for the purpose of student learning. The Hub provides spaces and resources to
inspire curricular innovation and assessment, connect educators as they create and enhance the
student learning experience, and support integration between two-year and four-year campuses.
During the discussion, participants will be introduced the Webpage underdevelopment, how the
online presence will connect with other social media, and the submission process for contributions
to the Hub. This is a collaborative session- participants are invited to help shape the design of the
Hub.
8:30-9:30 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions II
Tuning and the Degree Qualifications Profile – Dan McInerney, Utah State University – Monona
What does a major or a degree represent? Most students – and many faculty and advisors – might
answer by rattling off a tally of Carnegie credit hours, GPAs, required courses, or clinical hours. In
other words, they might describe a major or degree in terms of numbers. But what do majors and
degrees represent in terms of learning? In addition, how clearly do we define the learning
developed by our programs? How well do we document and progressively intensify the learning?
How carefully do we clarify these goals with students, parents, administrators, and policymakers?
The Tuning and DQP projects provide tools to help us address and clarify the questions of learning
that are central to our work as educators. This presentation provides an introduction to the general
purposes – and flexible uses – of Tuning and the DQP.
Identifying Useful Evidence – Carleen Vande Zande, UW-Oshkosh – Salon F
The session highlights assessment strategies and practices that are used for monitoring student
success. Participants will identify inquiry questions and identify data sources across the
university’s array of academic, student life and student support programs. Participants will engage
in approaches that are consequential to the work we do in assessment and promoting student
success across the institution. The session will provide participants with opportunities to develop
inquiry activities that point to what data are needed, how to set targets, and how to use data in
meaningful ways to address campus questions about learning and success.
Purposeful Curriculum Mapping – Peggy James and Jim Robinson of UW-Parkside;
Joe Foy, UW Colleges – Salon G
In 2013, UW-Parkside and UW-Waukesha partnered to use the DQP to establish a framework for
program outcomes that maps courses by learning outcomes and skill proficiency within the
Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS). The challenge was in creating a deep working
partnership so that students were not simply ‘adding’ courses from each institution, but building a
fully integrative and seamless learning experience. We needed to build ‘doors’ into understanding
and applying project work that engaged a large and diverse group of stakeholders across both
institutions. In this session, we will be describing and discussing these replicable doors.
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Signature Work – Susan Albertine, AAC&U – Salon H
Signature work is central to AAC&U’s LEAP Challenge. In this session, we will explore the meaning
of signature work in the context of disciplines and fields, relevant to both general education and the
major. We will use “threshold concepts” and theories of knowledge or epistemologies of disciplines
and fields to discover the potential of signature work and signature assignments.
Embedding Equity into Curricular Initiatives – Tim Dale, UW-La Crosse, and
Rebecca Karoff, UW System – Greenway
As we focus and build capacity on a variety of outcomes-based learning and curricular reform
initiatives through our LEAP work, it is important to be aware that differently situated students and
populations experience the benefits of curriculum reform differently. Research indicates that while
high-impact college experiences greatly benefit underserved student populations, these
populations are often excluded from these experiences. In this session we will focus on how to
translate a commitment to equity into campus practice, in order to ensure that college success is
available to all our students. We will provide an overview of the emphasis placed on equity within
the AAC&U LEAP initiatives, and engage participants in strategies for putting equity-mindedness
into practice.
9:30-9:45 a.m.
Break – Monona
9:45-10:45 a.m.
Concurrent Sessions II Repeated (see above for descriptions)
Tuning and the Degree Qualifications Profile – Dan McInerney, Utah State University – Monona
Identifying Useful Evidence – Carleen Vande Zande, UW-Oshkosh – Salon F
Purposeful Curriculum Mapping – Peggy James and Jim Robinson of UW-Parkside; Joe Foy,
UW Colleges – Salon G
Signature Work – Susan Albertine, AAC&U – Salon H
Embedding Equity into Curricular Initiatives – Tim Dale, UW-La Crosse, and Rebecca Karoff,
UW System – Greenway
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Institutional Team time II – Monona
12:15-1:00 p.m.
Lunch and Closing – Monona
An Interactive Call to Action for LEAP Wisconsin’s Second Decade
Susan Albertine, Peggy James and Rebecca Karoff
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