COUNCIL FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
September 29, 2000
A. Attending
Belzer (Chair), Kunicki, Dean, Hjelm, Kruger, Nitse,
McKnight, Pehrsson
Excused/Absent: Das,
Enos, Fisher, Jones, Paulson, Wabrek
Guest: Terry
Lay, Rosemary Fouad, Barbara Bain (sitting in for Jones)
B.
Approval of the CTL minutes for April 28, 2000
MOTION: Moved
by Kunicki. Second by Pehrsson. MSA to read for Action
on the April
28, 2000 minutes.
ACTION: Unanimously passed.
II. BUSINESS
A. Update on
Proposal for Teaching and Learning Resource Center
Belzer gave an update on the proposal for a Director
for the Center, which went before
the Faculty Senate and to the Academic Vice
President. The Faculty Senate tabled the
proposal until this year. During the summer, the
Academic Vice President, Dr. Lawson,
appointed Dr. Janet House as Interim acting Director
for the Center. She will fill this
position until June 10, 2001. This fall the Faculty
Senate did approve a full-time Director
for the Center. The Faculty Senate will forward this
to the Academic Vice President.
Last year, Nitse and Belzer served on the task force
to draft a proposal for the Center
and a job description for the Center Director. The
councils’ involvement will be important
as the task force continues to work on this
description. House said her job, as
Interim
Director is to find out what the Center’s vision is
and get things going. The next question was
whether or not the Center would have a budget. House
stated that Lawson would like a
tentative budget from her in the future.
MOTION: Pehrsson
made motion that Belzer, Nitse and House continue to work as
a task force on the vision of and the budget for the
Center. Second by Sato.
ACTION: Unanimously
passed.
B. Discussion
groups for Fall 2000 – Information Literacy and /or others?
Belzer introduced the Rosemary Fouad to the
committee. Fouad explained the term of
Information Literacy not being what a lot of people
interpret it to be. It has to do with
critical thinking and with getting students to become
critical thinkers. This is the issue we
need to deal with in order for students to be able to
access information, evaluate it, and
have the ability to use it effectively. Fouad
suggested that a systematic approach, requiring
the use of information literacy, could be integrated
across the curriculum. A discussion group
could bring out these issues, and if nothing else,
clear up some of the definitions and the
misconceptions.
House stated that Fouad has a 45-minute presentation
on information literacy, and that Steve
Atkinson could probably also put together a
45-presentation on writing across the curriculum.
A discussion group could be developed in response to
these presentations. The question was
raised on whether or not these presentations could
also be taken to other departments to get
their input and help faculty to understand the
issues.
After some discussion the council agreed it would be
best to go to the different departments
with presentations on information literacy, possibly
using the Center office staff to send out
mailings and handle administrative tasks.
Hjelm suggested House think about what she would like
the council to consider as a plan and
to bring the plan to the next council meeting.
Pehrsson suggested a discussion group across the
campus be established to generate ideas
for implementation, and that council members do some
networking before we can move to
build a larger base of support. Kunicki suggested making use of a newsletter
to let others
know what is coming and to invite others to
participate.
It was stated that the council could possibly
initiate two or three small discussion groups on
more focused issues for only a few weeks per group.
MOTION: Hjelm moved that House bring a strategy to the
October 20th council meeting
for how to get the idea of Information Literacy out
to the ISU campus. Second by Nitse.
ACTION:
Unanimously passed.
C. Timeline, selection of goals for 2000-2001 academic
year, and assignment of task forces
D. for working on goal assessments.
Belzer reminded the council and informed new members
that the council had discussed
evaluating 2 general education goals a year at the
April 28, 2000 council meeting. So far
the goals that have already been evaluated are 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 9. Goals 6, and 10a have been
evaluated but enough time has elapsed, without a
final written report, that these goals will
need to be re-evaluated. Last April, the council
discussed evaluating two goals a year,
beginning with goals 6, 7. In that way we could actually work through all twelve goals in
6 years time (assuming that goals 10a and 10b were
counted as one goal). In April, council
members were not able vote on any of these
suggestions, as we did not have a quorum at
the end of the meeting. Belzer opened the floor for
discussion, suggesting that the council
appoint council members to initiate the evaluations
of goals that the council elected to
investigate during this academic year. After some discussion on a generalized
protocol for
evaluating goals that was constructed by Bain and
Hatzenbeuler, council members discussed
how many representatives from the council and faculty
members should be appointed to
these task forces.
Council members agreed that we need clarification from Lawson and
Jones regarding who is in charge of the assessment of
general education goals. In the mean
time, the evaluation of goals will be tabled.
E. Recommendations from Faculty Senate on the
involvement of the CTL in the assessment
process and discussion for consideration by
assessment task force.
Kunicki and Dean had agreed to serve on this task
force last April. Brief discussion
occurred
involving the role of the task force and the
mechanisms they would use for collecting information
from assessment coordinators. Kunicki and Dean agreed to meet and report
back to the council
as they made progress.
Belzer encouraged council members to think about
priorities for the council for this academic
year.
Meeting Adjourned 4:15