Week 8: Consider your progress in class

This is one of the weeks when I'd like everyone to respond to the same prompt and it is centered on the IDEA objectives I've chosen for the General Education Capstone.

As I discussed in class, the IDEA is the bubble survey you've filled out in many classes during your time at Ai Indy. You may have thought you were filling out the same survey for each class, but the IDEA is a national survey program that is designed to allow each class to be customized by the faculty member. In Week 7, each faculty members is given a bubble sheet for one of their classes that will be surveyed. The instructor picks three to five objectives from the 12 available -- selecting only the ones that related closest to the competencies of the course.

Then, in Week 9, when you fill out the bubbles, you are asked to rate your progress on all 12 objectives. Some, you will see, relate closer to the course than others. Those are most likely the ones that will "count" the most when the statistics are computed. An instructor cannot announce which objectives "count" during Week 9, because it might influence how you score them. We want you to understand which ones fit with each class and how you think you are progressing on meeting them.

There is a lot more information available on the survey and these strategies at the IDEA Center website. But, for the purposes of our class and this blog, I want you to consider how these three objectives relate to our course and how you are progressing in meeting those objectives. If you have some recommendations for improvement or questions, those would be helpful too. Your feedback can change what happens the next month in our class.

IDEA Objective 3: “Learning to Apply Course Material (to improve thinking, problem solving, and decisions). This objective is picked as important by many instructors because it is at the heart of teaching, especially in a college like Ai Indy. Back in the 1900s, John Dewey, one of the pioneers in higher education stated that learning is greatly facilitated when students are shown how new information applies to their lives. This application to life increases a student's motivation, use of critical thinking, and recall. Basically, every activity we do in the Gen Ed capstone is designed one way or another to address this objective.

IDEA Objective 8: “Developing skill in expressing myself orally or in writing.” This objective connects directly to Competency D of the course: Ask students to think, discuss, and write -- very intentionally -- about the issues listed in Competencies A-C. Addressing this competency and objective is why you write so much and in so many different ways inside and outside class, and why we discuss your ideas in class, and you present your ideas from your assignments.

IDEA Objective 10: “Developing a clearer understanding of, and commitment to, personal values." One of the idea purposes of a bachelor's degree education is to educate the whole person, not just in the skills needed for a specific job, but in the understanding, experiences, and critical thinking skills needed to participate actively in adult life. To be wholly education, then, a student must define, understand, refine and commit to personal values that will serve that person in the future. All three assignments have elements of this objective, but the "This I Believe" essay is built solidly around this objective.

What I'd like to hear from you this week in your blog is, what do you think of these objectives? To they seem to fit with what you expected and/or are experiencing in class so far? Do you think you are making progress toward achieving these objectives in this class and/or in others? Do you have any recommendations for the last four weeks of class?

I want your ideas about IDEA!