COUNCIL FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
Minutes for December 8, 2000
A. Attending: Belzer (Chair), Bain, Dean, Hjelm, House, Kunicki, Kruger,
Reynolds, McKnight
Excused/Absent: Fisher, Jones, Paulson, Pehrsson, Wabrek, Sato, Enos, Das, Nitse
B. Approval of the CTL
minutes for October 20, 2000 and November 17, 2000
MOTION: Moved by Kruger. Second by McKnight. For approval of the October
20, 2000 minutes.
ACTION: Unanimously passed.
MOTION: Moved by Kunicki. Second by Dean. For approval of the November
17, 2000 minutes.
ACTION: Unanimously passed.
II. BUSINESS
A. Update on Center Activities/Faculty Intern Position
House stated that a committee was selected for the Technology Mediated Instruction
Initiative. She reported that Dr. Lawson has allocated $54,00.00 for Technology Mediated
Instructional Initiative grants. The project is related to technology. The money is in an
account and ready to disperse.
House announced that Institutional Research still needs a faculty intern, and asked
Council members to make this announcement to their departments.
B.
Selection of goals for review during the 2000-2001 academic
year, including recommendations
for Task Force members
Due to the time that has elapsed, Bain was asked whether or not a report be completed for goal
10A, based upon the information that was given to her a couple of years ago. Bain stated that it
would be difficult to do a report for either goals 6 or goals 10A. She also stated that reports she
has worked on have been completed right after the information was gathered. It was generally
agreed that a decision on which goals to pursue would be deferred until the next meeting, at
which time a decision must be made.
C. Summary of Data Gathered by Task Force on
Assessment
Dean stated she had one response in a month; she feels the need to try some other method.
Kunicki stated that it would have been helpful if they had responded for the next step. Bain and
others stated that perhaps the assessment coordinators were not sure of what the council
wanted them to do. Kunicki suggested drafting a question, so the Council is not doubling the
work for themselves. Some discussion centered around refining the question asked of
assessment coordinators or contacting them one by one.
Hjelm indicated that the he feels the Council needs to know whether Faculty Senate has been
specific enough on its’ directive to the Council. Dean suggested that the Senate was not clear
when the task force was formed and initiated its’ work. She suggested that the Senate be
consulted for further direction. Belzer indicated that a letter from Jennifer Attebury (former
Chair of Faculty Senate) in the Spring of 2000 had provided the directive that resulted in the
formation of a task force.
After a discussion Belzer read what the assessment handbook reads: “The Council for
Teaching and Learning shall review annually the assessment processes and reported utilization
of results from each program.” Kruger clarified, indicating that the handbook was not referring
to the assessments themselves but the processes by which the assessments were conducted.
Bain summarized the problems encountered when Institutional Research had reviewed
assessment plans. She suggested conferring with John Jones on this.
Kruger suggested that Council members go to their departments to determine how they feel
about the process. Some discussion following on the importance of making sure that all
departments were represented in the query. It was generally agreed that we would first gather
information from departments represented on the Council. Then, depending on the response,
the Council could choose to gather information from other departments as necessary. Belzer
requested that Council members should bring information gathered from our respective
departments to the
next meeting and make decisions from there.
D. Discussion groups for Spring 2001 on
Information literacy and responses from faculty
Kruger stated he had that he had forwarded the questionnaire out to his faculty. He received
a number of written comments. Several faculty members felt that they were already overloaded;
some felt they could have an on-line or printed guide for those that don’t know how to get on
line (and so on), or have workshops for each department.
Kruger also stated that the students taking his classes were somewhat computer illiterate. He
felt students need to get some computer literacy before they can be expected to search the web.
McKnight gave her feedback from her department faculty. She also had a mixed review. A
few positive, a maybe and a few negative. She wondered whether or not she had explained
the idea well enough.
Kruger stated that when he sent the questions to the faculty, the unanimous answer to the
question “Do you feel like our students are information literate?” was no. The unanimous
answer to the question, “Do you feel like they could use some information literacy?” was yes.
The only disagreement is how to go about it.
House stated that her responses were also variable. Some said that a one-hour workshop
would be great. Others felt that students should have acquired information literacy by the
time they leave high school. House indicated that question 3 was not discussed because
it became too political.
Hjelm stated that he had heard faculty question why the Council was getting into this topic.
A variety of opinions were expressed by faculty, from “students should learn information
literacy in high school” to “students can not really learn information literacy until graduate
school.” Reynolds provided a graduate student perspective on information literacy.
House suggested that the Council wait until the next meeting, when additional information
has been gathered and pool it before we can make a decision. It was suggested that a
sub-committee might be formed to read anonymous faculty comments and reach a
consensus at that time.
Meeting adjourned 4:05