Caroline Ketcham, Anthony Weaver, Jillian Kinzie
Capstone experiences are a high impact practice that many institutions identify as ‘transformational’ experiences for their students. There is currently very little research on what constitutes a high-quality capstone experience. Particularly, what the various types of capstones experiences are and whether students from a variety of diverse backgrounds receive the transformational outcomes. This poster will highlight the 1st year outcomes of a multi-year, multi-institutional model of research on capstone experiences. Leaders guide participants through 3 years of team-oriented deep dive questions related to capstone experiences. Of primary interest is addressing how the landscape of capstone experiences is changing as our student and institutional needs continue to increase. Both the diversity of students entering as well as the diversity of educational goals call on institutional leaders to better define access and success. This process includes 4-5 team projects with 5-6 faculty members from diverse disciplines, institutions, and geographic locations. Participants meet for a week each summer for 3 consecutive summers to plan research questions, analyze data and disseminate results. While each team works on more targeted questions, the seminar leaders are focused on the big picture, larger landscape questions and outcomes. The questions of our teams are around contemporary capstones; faculty development for high qualities capstone experiences; understanding how to address a diverse group of students and student needs; and identifying differences in curricular and co-curricular goals and outcomes. The combination of these deep dive questions allow seminar leaders to address the broader question of how to both develop and assess high quality capstone experiences with transformative learning goals and outcomes.
