Since campus-wide adoption of the PULs in 1998, a number of campus-level committees and offices-principally the Program Review and Assessment Committee, the Office of Planning and Institutional Improvement, and the Office for Professional Development-in addition to the individual schools themselves, have worked to ensure that they are firmly embedded into curricula and pedagogical approaches and into our ongoing assessment programs. University College and the first-year seminars, in particular, have played a prominent role in introducing the PULs to new students. Currently, assessment of student learning of the PULs takes place primarily at the school level. Assessment of the PULs at the campus level has occurred primarily through surveys of students, alumni, and employers carried out by the Office of Information Management and Institutional Research and through a series of special studies and initiatives. Perhaps the most ambitious of these initiatives, the Student Electronic Portfolio, is currently under development.
Based on evidence derived from assessment efforts to date, we believe that our students are achieving the PULs to some degree, but not to the extent that we would like. In addition, we need to continue our efforts to ensure that faculty and departments are working systematically and effectively to improve and assess student learning of the PULs. The performance indicators page for Teaching and Learning reflects this judgment. Below, we discuss our approaches to gathering evidence related to teaching and learning of the PULs at the school and campus levels and strategies underway for improving these approaches.
Assessment of the PULs at the Department and School Level
Each academic program at IUPUI is responsible for developing statements of learning expectations for its majors and assessing for accomplishment of those expectations. Most undergraduate programs have either incorporated the PULs into these statements or explicitly mapped the PULs to elements of their expected learning outcomes. (Here are examples from the Schools of Nursing, Engineering and Technology and Public and Environmental Affairs). Processes and results of assessment of the PULs, as well as of the major, are synthesized in the annual reports submitted by each school to PRAC and posted to the PAII Web site.
To supplement the annual school reports, and as part of IUPUI"s work on the Urban Universities Portfolio Project, the Dean of the Faculties funded a special study in 2000-2001 that examined teaching, learning, and assessment of the PULs in each IUPUI school that grants baccalaureate degrees. Conducted by three Faculty Associates under the leadership of the Director of the Office of Campus Writing, the study produced a major report, Phase I of a Study of Student Learning , which provides a cross-cutting analysis of how the PULs are integrated into school curricula and assessed across the campus. This analysis found that integration and assessment of the PULs, as well as faculty and student understanding of the principles and their purpose, vary both across and within schools. Results of the report are summarized in a set of matrices that provide information on how each PUL is addressed by each individual school; these matrices have been updated, drawing on information from the annual school assessment reports, to reflect changes and improvements implemented in 2001-2002.
As an outgrowth of the Faculty Associates" study, the Office for Professional Development at IUPUI has sponsored several major programs intended to increase faculty and student understanding of the PULs and to disseminate good practices for teaching and assessing for the skills and abilities the PULs represent. Specific examples of how various PULs are taught, learned, and assessed can be found on the " Examples" page of this section and are highlighted in the "Inside IUPUI" call-outs throughout this self-study.
Assessment of the PULs Campus-Wide
In 2000, the campus embarked on an even more ambitious effort to embed the PULs explicitly and firmly in undergraduate curricula through the development and implementation of student electronic portfolios organized around student learning of the PULs over the course of their undergraduate studies at IUPUI. The student portfolios, currently in the pilot phase, include samples of student work demonstrating achievement of the PULs over time, along with reflective essays by students focused on their intellectual growth in college within the framework of the PULs. We anticipate that by 2006, all undergraduate students at IUPUI will be required to develop and maintain a portfolio over the course of their undergraduate studies. Courses and programs across the campus will incorporate assignments explicitly designed for inclusion in the portfolios as demonstrations of achievement in one or more of the PULs.
As part of the student portfolio initiative, a broad campus-wide effort is currently underway to develop rubrics, defined by faculty, that describe introductory, intermediate, advanced, and exemplary levels of competence for each PUL. All portfolios will be assessed at several points in each student"s progress through the curriculum, using these rubrics to determine how effectively the PULs are taught and learned across departments, schools, and the entire campus and over the course of each undergraduate student"s education.
We expect these efforts to enhance awareness of and focus on the PULs among both students and faculty and to yield insights into more and less effective approaches to supporting student achievement of the outcomes encapsulated in the PULs. We thus see the student portfolio initiative as an important step in a long-term process of integrating, assessing, and improving our strategies for helping students achieve the key general education outcomes they will need in order to work, learn, and contribute to their professions, communities, families, and beyond.
Go on to: Planning for and Assessing Student Learning in the Major
