Contexts for Thinking About Gateway Courses Teaching Seminar May 2009

1. Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Contexts for Thinking About Gateway CoursesTeaching Seminar May 2009

2. Contextual Frames • Landscape of Higher Education: Access & Achievement • A Look at NAU Freshmen • NAU: Our Goals, Our Future • How Are We Doing? • The Challenge is an Opportunity

3. Higher Education: Access & Achievement • From elite to mass participation • Increased diversity of preparation, socioeconomic location, ethnicity/race, patterns of enrollment • AZ: Increasing diversity and diminishing educational attainment • Students: Maturational context and cohort effects maturity, skills, experiences, insight about self & learning, expectations, aspirations

4. Expectations of Public Institutions in the Era of Accountability • Our task is not to “weed out”, but to enable students to achieve learning and degree goals • Quality not defined by rates of attrition/failure, but by rates of success • Stewardship of resources external stakeholders expect us to be efficient; we want to advance our institutional goals

5. A Look at NAU Freshmen • Predominantly full-time, residential, traditional aged, farther from home than is typical • As well or better prepared academically than students at comparable public universities • About 1/3 are first generation and are increasingly diverse • Have high aspirations • Highly confident in academic abilities • Some inferences: lack insight about learning process, not especially inquisitive or inclined to critical thinking, risk averse

6. NAU: Our Goals, Our Future • We can expect to serve more first generation, and increasingly diverse learners • Governor, legislature and ABOR have staked out ambitious goals for college degree attainment • Our #1 Strategic Goal: Be a learning-centered university with a deep commitment to student success and high expectations for student achievement. • We strive to prepare students for the challenging world of the future • We are growing in an environment of high expectations and resource constraints

7. How Are We Doing? • Attention to and investment in undergraduate education over last several years has produced gains in retention (nearly 72% two years ago, 69% last year, looks promising for this year) • Research suggests that the most important variable (post-admission) affecting persistence is academic success in the first year • We have a number of courses that have consistently high rates of attrition and failure “gateway courses” • Gateways to degree attainment • Gateways to particular academic paths

8. How Are We Doing? • Data also evidence variation in DFW rates by course section among gateway & non-gateway courses • instructional design/pedagogy? • selection effects? • My take: stronger evidence for instructional design effects than for selection effects • Course redesign, course linked academic support, & course coordination have reduced mean and variability in DFW rates • We have some evidence that the most prevalent instructional design in LD courses is lecture

9. The Challenge is an Opportunity • To enhance NAU’s reputation—be a leader in promoting high rates of success and achievement among diverse learners • To become more effective so as to free up resources for other institutional goals • To succeed in pursuit of ambitious goals for undergraduate education, research, and graduate education • To better position faculty to achieve their goals

10. WHAT IF? • We became scholars of our most substantial enterprise undergraduate education? • We found ways to promote student achievement while at the same time enabling faculty to better balance multiple commitments to teaching and scholarship? • We inverted the typical paradigms that shape our approach to undergraduate? • We stopped thinking that “large” classes are a lost cause? • We really shifted the focus of instructional design from us to them? • We demanded of ourselves the same degree of credible evidence in relation to teaching & learning as we do in our scholarly work?