Active Learning Across the Campus. IUPUI seeks to make active, collaborative, and experiential forms of teaching and learning a hallmark, not only of UC, but of the campus as a whole, as we work to promote student engagement and success. The predominance of professional schools at IUPUI and the strong professional orientation of our students mean that hands-on, real-life learning opportunities are especially important for them-both to keep them engaged and motivated to learn and to prepare them for the challenges they will face in their post-graduate, professional lives. Moreover, IUPUI"s urban setting and engagement with the Indianapolis community provide a wealth of opportunities and resources for service learning, internships, clinical experiences, field work, and hands-on research.
Our approaches to helping faculty incorporate these pedagogies into their teaching are discussed in the teaching portion of this self-study. It is worth noting here, however, that in the most recent IUPUI faculty survey , 92 percent of faculty report using class discussion as a teaching approach "often," "frequently," or "very frequently," 72 percent report assigning group projects "often" or more, and 65 percent report asking students to make in-class presentations "often" or more.
Results of student surveys, including student satisfaction surveys and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), also suggest that IUPUI students are active learners. For example, on the NSSE, approximately 59 percent of freshmen and 70 percent of seniors responded that they "often" or "very often" ask questions in class or contribute to class discussions. More than 35 percent of freshmen and 58 percent of seniors report making class presentations often or very often. In addition, 68 percent of seniors indicated that they had completed or planned to complete an internship, practicum, or field experience , while 54 percent had participated or planned to participate in community service or volunteer work while in college.
In addition, 26 percent of seniors reported working with faculty on research outside their regular coursework, whether through our three-year-old Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) or through other campus, school, or department programs. This percentage is the same as the average for doctoral intensive universities and above the average for our urban peer institutions.
These results are not surprising, given that virtually every professional program at IUPUI and many programs in the liberal arts and sciences require or provide opportunities for field work, internships, or clinical experiences, while all students can take advantage of a campus-wide internship program offered through the IUPUI Career Center. In addition, a number of undergraduate professional programs, including Education and Dentistry, have instituted curricula designed to ensure that students are involved in clinical experiences from the outset of the program. Capstone courses , required by most undergraduate majors, whether in professional disciplines or in the liberal arts and sciences, typically incorporate significant final projects in which students are asked to apply what they have learned either in a real-world setting or a close simulation of one, often working with one another in groups.
Other survey results related to student engagement are less encouraging; for example, in the NSSE, students reported relatively little interaction with faculty outside the classroom. While we might expect less student-faculty interaction outside class than would be typical at a residential campus, a number of current initiatives, including UROP, are seeking to foster higher levels of academic engagement of students with faculty outside class. For example, the Office of Student Life and Diversity is working to expand co-curricular activities that bring students and faculty members together around shared academic and professional interests. Plans for improving the physical environment for learning at IUPUI and for new student residences on campus, discussed elsewhere in this self-study, are likewise intended, among other things, to create increased opportunities for student-faculty interaction outside class.
Go on to: Technology and Enhancement of Student Learning
