Ludmila Nunes, Erica Lott
How does a course redesign program impact development of a learning culture? And how can this impact be measured? We suggest that changes in learning outcomes (LO) proposed by faculty who went through an institution-wide course redesign program are: 1) an indicator of the program success; and 2) a measure of learning culture.
As Barr and Tagg (1995) conceptualized, the “shift from teaching to learning” implies that the measure of success in a learning institution shifts from a measure of quantity and quality of resources to a measure of quality of LOs. Thus, the way faculty conceptualize the LOs for their courses should reflect this change of focus towards a learning culture. Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956) can be used to categorize LOs into six categories that vary in terms of cognitive processes and go from concrete and simple to abstract and complex knowledge. Despite the need for the simplest categories (e.g., remember and understand) to achieve the most complex ones (e.g., create and evaluate), in a culture focused on learning, students should be expected to achieve the complex categories that require critical thinking instead of simple root memorization.
Here we compare how faculty change LOs as they go through a semester-long faculty development program focused on autonomy-supportive course transformations (see SDT, Ryan & Deci, 2000). This program has reached over 250 instructors since 2011 and thus its effects might indicate changes in the general learning culture of the university. Initial LOs (before the program) and revised LOs (after the program) were quantified and categorized in terms of their Bloom’s dimension. The average number of LOs per course decreased from 5.37 to 3.75 and the level of Bloom’s dimension significantly increased (d= 0.91, [0.66, 1.16]). These results suggest that the program was successful in increasing the quality of LOs. We will discuss the implications for learning culture in the university. We will also present a case study, where student performance on the different LOs was measured. This case study explores student learning as LOs are refined and become more complex and can hint at an increased academic rigor.
