Home > 2001 Workshops

Course Portfolio Instructions

Ed Neal

RATIONALE

The goals of the Matrix project are numerous and complex (see "Matrix Evaluation Components," Appendix 1) and therefore the evaluation of its outcomes will require an in-depth analysis of each course to ascertain its contribution to the project goals. "Course portfolios" provide a systematic method for collecting comprehensive information about each course and for assessing how well the courses form an integrated curriculum. As you will see from the instructions that follow, creating a course portfolio is not difficult; the task consists primarily of collecting artifacts to document the process of designing, teaching, and evaluating a college course. (One of the basic rules is "Don't throw anything away.") Course portfolios will also be extremely useful for disseminating the Matrix curriculum, in paper or electronic formats.

There are many benefits to creating Course portfolios that go beyond the needs of the curriculum project. For example a course portfolio is a highly effective faculty development tool. Teachers report that creating a course portfolio yields important insights into teaching and learning, thereby improving their effectiveness. The portfolio can help you determine which content selections, course formats, teaching strategies, required readings and assignments seem to work with a particular undergraduate population and why. Course portfolios facilitate sharing your course materials with other interested faculty members, so your colleagues might also benefit from your work. Course portfolios can also be used in promotion/tenure/merit reviews, to document the "unseen" effort that goes into the creation (and/or improvement) of a college course.

William Cerbin, a professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, expressed the benefits this way:

In summary, the course portfolio approach enables teachers to connect assessment of student learning to improvement of teaching. It is a way to represent the scholarship of teaching and also promote a view of teaching as scholarly inquiry. Finally, the course portfolio provides a vehicle for self-reflection and collective reflection on the ultimate aim of teaching—to enhance student learning. (Cerbin, 1995, p. 6)

If you would like to see Cerbin's course portfolio for his Educational Psychology course, it can be found at: http://kml2.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery/general

 

DESCRIPTION

Course portfolios can serve many different purposes, so many variations are possible, but the simplest format consists of a teaching statement and a collection of documentary materials.

A. Teaching Statement. Although you probably already have most of the artifacts you need to create a course portfolio (or will have, by the time you finish teaching the course), these materials don't reflect the thinking process that you went through to create the course, or the changes you made as the course progressed. Your "teaching statement" will provide the necessary conceptual framework for understanding your approach to the course and your instructional methodology. An example of a typical teaching statement appears in Appendix 2, written by a professor of Mass Media.

From this example, you can see that the teaching statement gives you an opportunity to trace the development of the course over time, to account for the decisions you made, and to report on the success or failure of various approaches. Specifically with respect to the MATRIX project, you can identify which of the Seven Principles you targeted in your course, how you developed strategies to teach them, and whether or not you felt the strategies were successful. To help you get started, here are a few questions to help stimulate your reflection on the course and its development:

• What is your general philosophy of teaching, and how does the design of this course reflect that philosophy?
• Where does this course fit in the MATRIX curriculum?
• Where does this course fit in the school and/or departmental curriculum?
• How many of the Seven Principles from the MATRIX project does this course address?
• What limitations and constraints did you have to deal with in developing this course?
• What were the learning outcomes (goals and objectives) for the course?
• What teaching methods and strategies did you use to achieve the outcomes?
• How did you assess student achievement of the outcomes?
• How successful was the course in achieving the goals and objectives?
• How did students react to the course? (How did you measure their reactions?)
• What will you change when you teach the course again?

B. Documentation. Your teaching statement should refer to specific documents, materials, artifacts, and other evidence that you can present in print or electronic form for the "body" of the course portfolio. Any material that provides evidence for some aspect of your teaching statement can be included in this section of the portfolio—some examples are listed below:

• The course syllabus (and previous syllabi, if you intend to document significant changes in the course).
• Formal statement of course goals and unit objectives (if they don't appear in the syllabus).
• Citations and/or synopses of journal articles consulted in designing the course.
• Instructions for projects, papers, and other student exercises.
• Handouts, problem sets, lecture outlines.
• Audiovisual materials (traditional and digital)
• Examples of tests and quizzes.
• Examples of student work (tests, essays, lab notebooks, journals, projects)
• Examples of your feedback to students on their work.
• Student evaluations (mid-course feedback, end-of-course questionnaires, written comments, transcriptions of student interviews, etc.).
• Copies of student e-mails that reflect the impact of the course on their learning.
• Peer observation reports/memos.
• Course resources (Web sites, required readings, excavation sites, etc.)

GETTING STARTED

The core of the portfolio is your teaching statement, so it makes sense to write a first draft of the statement as early as possible. As you write the statement, you will see opportunities to refer to documents or artifacts in the body of the portfolio, which will make it easier to compose the essay and (by connecting your statement to the documentation) will strengthen the portfolio. For example, if you describe a teaching strategy that you think was particularly effective in enabling students to master a basic course concept (e.g., a formal debate about descendent communities' rights) you might reference the sheet of instructions for the debate, the materials that students used to prepare for it, and/or written student commentary on the debate.

It is clear that one shouldn't discard anything related to the course until you're certain it can't be used in your portfolio, and it should also be obvious that you can anticipate the need for certain kinds of materials and make sure you collect them (e.g., mid-course feedback from students).

If you are accustomed to using digital course materials and are experienced in uploading materials to a Web site, it makes sense for you to think of your course portfolio as an electronic portfolio and plan accordingly. Ultimately, the entire MATRIX curriculum will be available on a Web site, and if you have already developed an electronic portfolio, it will expedite this goal of the project. If you are not comfortable with this kind of technology, you can still create a print version of the portfolio that can be transferred to the Web later on.

You can browse through a variety of different course portfolios by accessing the Carnegie Foundation's "Knowledge Media Laboratory" Web site (http://kml2.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery/general). You will also find two more examples at these sites sponsored by the American Historical Association:
http://www.theaha.org/teaching/aahe/portfol1.html
http://www.theaha.org/teaching/aahe/Kelly/Pew/Portfolio/welcome.htm

For further information or help in constructing your portfolio, please contact Ed Neal ed_neal@unc.edu .

APPENDIX 1

Matrix Evaluation Components

A. Learning Outcomes

1. Applied Archeology.

Students are not prepared for jobs that require understanding and application of historic preservation laws, ethics, cultural resource management strategies, resource evaluation, National Register evaluations, proposal writing, personnel management, and business practices (Blanton 1995). They stress the need for instruction in public relations; writing for the public; working with land owners, developers, governmental officials, teachers and students in grades K-12; promoting cultural diversity; understanding current education methods and trends; protecting archaeological resources; site stabilization; and working with descendant communities and avocational archaeological groups.

The results of the SAA's student survey, taken through the Student Affairs Committee, indicates that almost 2/3 of the students responding were preparing for jobs as university professors while 1/3 were working towards employment in the governmental or private sectors (Smith and Krass 2000). A few were hedging their bets and preparing for both. It is not surprising that the majority of those seeking positions in the academy were those enrolled in Ph.D. programs while the majority of non-academic job seekers were M.A. degree candidates. Given the majority of the respondents were preparing for academic positions it is interesting to note that 2/3 of them saw the need for incorporating applied archaeology into the curriculum. Ph.D. and M.A. degree seeking students agreed that the vast majority of them would not find employment as university professors and that they would, at least during some part of their careers, find employment in the applied field in private and/or governmental sectors and need the skills to compete for and be successful at those jobs.

2. The Seven Principles

2. Stewardship: In considering archaeological resources, students need to understand the nonrenewable nature of archaeological sites and associated material. The information content of such material and value of the data in interpreting and understanding human behavior should be emphasized. Once the information has been removed from the ground, whether through archaeological excavation` or as a result of looting, development, erosion, or other processes, the site itself is gone. When archaeological investigations are conducted, the information from the ground is transformed into archaeological data in the form of collections, records, and reports that are used to interpret and explain the past.
3. Diverse Interests: In presenting archaeology courses to undergraduate students, the instructor should make students aware that archaeologists no longer have exclusive rights to the past, but that various publics have a stake in the past (Watkins et al. 2000). No one truly "owns" the past; rather we all share common roots in that past which bear different fruits. Diverse groups such as descendant communities, state, local and federal agencies; and others (salvers, "metal detectors") compete for and have vested interests in the nonrenewable resources of the past. Students must also be made aware of basic preservation laws so that they may gain an understanding of the importance archaeology places on the protection of our common heritage. They should also be made aware that relationships can be enhanced through the development of partnerships with these diverse groups. By examining the ways that the products of the past have been used to further political and national interests, students can also be made aware of the social implications of our discipline. By recognizing that our differing views rise from common roots, we can understand the relationships we share, extend our influence beyond our individual reach, and unite to attain our common goals.
4. Social Relevance: If we are to justify archaeology's existence as a discipline – in terms of both public support and public interest – then we must effectively articulate the ways in which it benefits our society. In the past, archaeologists considered these benefits to be self-evident. Teachers simply presented the "substance" of our field and assumed that students would intuitively see its value. This complacent view can no longer govern the way archaeology is taught. Given the existence of diverse interests in the past (some of which may prefer to see archaeology disappear), those of us who teach archaeology in the 21st century must convey to our students why we believe that archaeology is important.
5. Professional Ethics and Values: Articulation of ethics and values are seen as a sign of growth and maturation of the profession. The eight SAA Principles of Archeological Practice are fundamental to how archeologists conduct themselves in relation to the resources, their data, their colleagues, and the public. The linking of these principles to specific lecture topics, or as individual lectures, will provide students with a basic foundation when establishing their interest in the study of cultural resources. The Register of Professional Archaeologists (ROPA) Code of Ethics and Standards of Research Performance are a more detailed set of ethical behaviors relative to the specific practice of research. These statements provide direction and foundation for the practice of field archaeology and its consequences and as such should be incorporated into presentations in upper division classes.
6. Communication: Archaeology depends on the understanding and support of the public. For this to occur, archaeologists must communicate their goals, results, and their recommendations clearly and effectively. Archaeology education must incorporate frequent training and practice in logical thinking as well as written and oral presentation. For any non-specialist audience, jargon inhibits understanding and makes it less likely that archaeological goals will be understood and supported. An archaeologist must be able to make a clear and convincing argument in public as well as professional contexts based on the analysis and interpretation of relevant information. Effective communication also includes mastery of standard tools like computers and the Internet, as well as the ability to interact cooperatively and effectively with others involved in producing a product or reaching a decision.
7. Basic Archaeological Skills: Students planning a career in archaeology need to have mastered a set of basic skills. At a conceptual level, these involve the ability to make pertinent observations of the archaeological record, to record and describe these observations, and to make appropriate inferences. Skills include basic principles of surveying and cartography (e.g., map making and reading), stratigraphy (e.g., ability to draw accurately and interpret a soil profile), archaeological methods (e.g., ability to complete field and laboratory forms), database management (e.g., ability to create and use data tables), and technical writing (e.g., ability to write artifact, feature, and site descriptions).
8. Real World Problem Solving: One of the most difficult things for undergraduates to do is to connect the classroom world and the real world. Helping students make this transition in the context of course work often drives home the main points and demonstrates applicability to their lives and professions. The essence of the "real world problem solving" is flexibility and grounding in the basics of archaeology. Students can be exposed to problem solving through classroom examples and observations of real situations. An important aspect of reality is communicating that archaeology is one of many interests that must be reconciled for projects to be completed successfully. It is our public service responsibility as professors of archaeology to demonstrate through examples and assignments a basic understanding of how business, politics and local community or bureaucracy works, as well as fostering an understanding of preservation laws, and regulations. Archaeology outside the academy is usually done when it is part of a solution to a problem in construction and development, a disputed location of something, or planning to avoid a problem in the future.

B. Process and Product Outcomes

• Connect to and prepare teachers K-12
• Prepare students for the technological workplace
• Prepare students as citizen and stewards
• Include underrepresented minorities and women
• Include nontraditional students (part-time, changing careers)
• Link 2 year institutions and 4 year institutions
• Link undergraduate and graduate education
• Link education and the workplace
• Employ creative teaching and pedagogical scholarship
• Develop new materials and practices for a national audience
• Address the needs of the discipline
• Improve learning
• Address diverse student backgrounds and career aspirations
• Consider national needs and opportunities
• Use innovative materials
• National distribution of results
• Employ significantly new educational materials and pedagogical practices
• Use and develop materials that incorporate effective teaching and learning strategies
• Employing credible and diverse evaluation
• Prepare other faculty at test sites to use prepared materials
• Prepare materials for dissemination to other institutions and taking into consideration the

need for adaptability and commercial or self-sustaining national distribution

• Prepare intellectually vigorous lectures
• Employ innovative educational strategies
• Develop appropriate course content
• Employ sound evaluation
• Clearly identify course objectives and expected outcomes and how objectives will be accomplished
• Collaborate with other institutions

APPENDIX 2

Teaching Statement Example

(Introduction to Mass Media)

Framing statement

This portfolio is for a freshman-level course offered by the X Department of Journalism--a course that fills a general university requirement and attracts students, not all of them freshmen, from across campus.

Two reasons underlie the creation of this portfolio (or a portfolio for any class, for that matter): 1) to help the instructor think more clearly about what the class is trying to do, how it should be organized, and what it is intended to achieve; 2) to create a blueprint--or roadmap--for others who will teach the class and would benefit from a discussion of the class and some hints about how to organize it, what works well and what to hope for at its conclusion.

Design

Introduction to Mass Media is a course that has been in existence since the 1989-90 academic year when it was offered one quarter to a group of about 35 students.

The decision to develop it was linked to the understanding that in a department oriented to print media (primarily newspapers and magazines in that era before online print), students were exposed to a lot of media, much of it electronic, and were greatly influenced by it. Faculty believed they needed to study the influence of other media and think critically about them.

Few students, however, had any classroom opportunity to explore what the impact(s) of mass media was on their lives, let alone on the society in which they lived, its culture or the democratic political process.

In the 1990s, J190 has increased in frequency and in size -- from one time per year with

35 students to three times per year with 105 students per offering. It became a popular General University Requirement, filling a humanities requirement before being switched to a social science requirement in 2000.

The catalog description of the course says it is designed to introduce basic issues and problems facing journalists and the public as recipients of mass media messages in national and international society, as well as to explore the nature, theory and effects of mass communication, the structure of media systems, the flow of world news, the controls on the media and the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.

This description serves as a mission statement when understood in the context of the history of the Journalism Department's intent that students, especially its majors, should understand the complexities of mass media, not just print journalism, and their impact on society.

The department's goals put it this way:

A student graduating with a degree in journalism should have a strong liberal arts education, skills in critical thinking and analysis, an aggressiveness in gathering diverse and substantive information that may not be readily available, and an ability to write clearly and reasonably quickly on complex topics. The graduate should have a sense of commitment to see that the democratic processes in society are served by the timely disclosure of quality information to the reading, viewing and listening public.

From these goals, and with the recognition that as a GUR the course reaches many non-journalism majors, the overarching question guiding the course is this: What is the impact of mass media on American society and culture, and what is their impact on democracy and the self-governing process?

A trio of objectives emerged for the course to answer this question and serve to guide its exploration:

1) Students in J190 should be able to understand and identify the workings, structure, dimensions, key concepts and theories of mass media, especially in America.

2) Students should be able to analyze the various media messages and their portrayal of people, events, issues and ideas, especially in light of those people, institutions and corporations producing, controlling and influencing those messages.

3) Students should develop an ability to evaluate the structure, interests, motivations and content of mass media and evaluate their impact on society, culture and the political process, especially regarding whether media provide citizens with all relevant information so that they may govern themselves effectively.

The hope for J190, therefore, is that class members will come to understand the tremendous impact media as an institution have on them and will gain media literacy and leave the class with a more critical understanding of media structure, workings and impact. Of course, in the best of all worlds, they would use such knowledge to make a difference in their lives and in society.

Enactment

To achieve these objectives in one brief quarter, what content does the course use, and how is the content ordered?

The selection of the content is especially crucial to success, because the course could easily be conducted as one simply cheerleading for media, especially since media are not critical of themselves and since students are bombarded with media messages throughout their lives. Therefore, the course needs to take a different approach -- one of media literacy -- and needs to use scholarship that questions media's social, cultural and political impact.

To that end, a text (for example, Media Impact by Shirley Biagi) is used that includes two important themes: 1) media are profit-oriented businesses; 2) media reflect and affect the cultural, social and political dimensions of the United States and the world.

Supplemental books are used that examine cultural, social and political impact of mass media -- along with media economic ties.

Required readings come from Ben Badikian's The Media Monopoly (exploring media mergers and how media drive for profit affects democracy), Tim Pilgrim's Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained (exploring how special legislation affected newspaper competition in the Seattle area), and Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (exploring how the change from a typographic society to one visually dominated by television has affected culture and society).

Class lectures and Web summaries also weave in material from sources such as Julia T. Wood's Gendered Lives (exploring how media stereotype women), Shirley Biagi's Facing Differences (exploring problems of race and gender within mass media), Herbert Schiller's Culture Inc. (exploring how cultural space is dominated by media images and advertisements), and W. Lance Bennett's News: the Politics of Illusion (exploring how media are manipulated by politicians -- with adverse consequences for democracy).

Because students of today learn in a visual manner (the average person spends more time in front of the television than in school), the class also uses an extensive array of videos that explore the following areas:

1) how media are structured (a handful of corporations like Disney control most of America's mass media -- including the informational news media) and subject to manipulation and why they are more and more image-oriented (Mass Media; Consuming Images);

2) the effects on society of media entertainment being focused on violence (The Electronic Storyteller and The Killing Screens);

3) the consequences for women, men, racial groups and others when media stereotypes them (Women Seen on TV; Still Killing Us 3; Dreamworlds 2; Tough Guise: Violence, Media, And The Crisis In Masculinity; Ethnic Notions; and Bell Hooks);

4) the effects of mass media with a structure oriented toward advertising and profit, not promoting self-governance, on culture, society and self-governing (Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media; Free Speech for Sale; Illusion of News; The Ad and the Ego; Advertising and the End of the World; The Myth of the Liberal Media).

With this array of material added to experienced teaching and professorial knowledge, the objectives and goals detailed above have a higher likelihood of being met, especially since together, the materials above constitute substantial evidence that mass media have effects, some of them adverse, on society, culture and self-governing.

But, the material is best presented at the proper pace and in an order conducive to maximum learning. In a way, the professor of the course is a preacher (professor means professing a point of view), presenting information and evidence with an enthusiasm that begins to stir first the interest and then the whole being of the congregation.

The following order is one workable way to teach the course:

1) A theoretical overview of how mass communication works (who says what in which channel to whom with what effect), along with an introduction about the main questions concerning the class (how do media impact society, culture and self-governing), is presented via the syllabus introductory lectures, text readings and an opening writing assignment asking them to tell what they think the impact is.

2) Lecture material and an introductory video (#1 mentioned above) puts the priority on the importance of self-governing by approaching study in the course from this perspective: "People in a self-governing society need all possible information to make the best decision regarding how their society goes forward. To achieve this, they must communicate en masse. Therefore, the problem facing them is mass communication -- how do the masses communicate to govern themselves. Mass media are a potential solution to this problem of mass communication. How well do mass media do in solving this problem?" (Students to discuss in online groups questions related to the learning and some class discussion is useful as well.)

3) The structure of mass media is studied (showing how that handful of corporations such as Disney, AOL Time Warner Turner, Viacom, General Electric, etc. own and control most mainstream media) using lecture material, the text and The Media Monopoly (the 2000 edition) readings. As it should be throughout the quarter, class and online discussions continue so that students may exchange ideas about the impact of the structure of media ownership or similar class material.

4) As the quarter begins to unfold, each major mass medium is studied -- print first, then broadcast -- and using the text and readings, emphasis is placed on reinforcing that each is controlled by those large corporations. As this reality takes shape, the course begins to focus on what the effects are on people as they perform their self-governing duties, the society and its culture. Some theories of mass communication and related assertions are introduced that say mass media set the agenda for society, tell people how to think of their world and cultivate in them attitudes and behaviors that come to be viewed as normal. (The text, readings and videos from categories 2 and 3 above are used. Class and online discussions continue, students analyze and respond to compelling video arguments in writing, and exams ask them to identify, understand and analyze.)

Particularly useful are responses to videos about gender role portrayal by using questions such as this: The video, Dreamworlds 2, argues that portraying women as mere objects in music videos and other visual media do not directly cause sexual assaults against women but cumulatively influence how we think about the world and influence what we believe to be true. Thus, they cultivate conditions in a society that allow such acts. In your view, to what extent do such portrays affect how society thinks about women?

Turn in your one-page argument on Monday for 10 points.

5) As the study of broadcast media concludes and study of advertising and public relations begins, the questions asking how media cumulatively and, for the most part, unconsciously affect culture and society are reiterated. Also, with this new context given, the question of how media affect self-governing again becomes an area of focus. (The text, lectures, readings, especially Postman, and some videos from category 4 above are used. Class and online discussions continue, usually intensifying, more written analyses are completed, and an exam requiring an increased amount of analysis is given.)

6) The class then focuses on interweaving the social, cultural and political/self-governing dimensions and explores the ramifications – including environmental -- of a society, and world for that matter, dominated by mass media working in this manner and making beautiful the using up of the natural resources.

Students are asked to evaluate the status of mass communications and argue for a way of improvement. Lecture/discussions -- in class and online -- continue, a final chapter in The Media Monopoly is used, the videos Manufacturing Consent and The Myth of the Liberal Media are viewed, and a take-home final essay aimed at analysis and evaluation concludes the course -- as does a final lecture using the poet Wendell Berry, who urges students to work together in communities to solve problems, to live more poorly than media tell them to, and to find work, if they can, that does no harm.

Results

Of course, assessment of whether such an ordering of content achieves the objective of the course can be conducted by a number of methods -- but only in the framework of understanding that J190 is a class where outcomes assessment may not be easily quantified because of the nature of the exploration. However, here are a few that have proven to be helpful:

1) Some objective questioning (usually a matching of concepts and definitions on an exam) and in-class oral questioning can be a check for recognition and understanding of the main concepts related to the class. Some of this kind of assessment also shows the level of student reading of the materials, watching the videos and noting of class- or Web-presented information.

2) Some short-answer questions asking students to identify and analyze in writing media messages, portrayals, concepts and theories show level of learning. Brevity can be an advantage in a large class in terms of grading, and brevity is not necessarily lack of depth – for as the class assignments put it: "The student wrote a long answer because she/he did not take the time to write a short one." This means that concise answers may well have as much thinking demonstrated as longer ones.

3) Some free-writing situations (online discussion and analysis/response to class material such as videos or readings), and essay questions asking students to evaluate the class materials (in a final written essay project) indicate the amount of learning as well.

For example, a question about a video exploring the impact of media on politics might read:

The video, Illusions of News, asserted that the selling of political candidates in a manner similar to selling products is now the norm in American (and other) cultures. In your view, tell whether this growing practice is as harmful as Bill Moyers, Ben Bagdikian, Todd Gitlin and the crew would have us believe. If so, why? If not, why?

Also, an opening writing assignment asking students to tell what the impact of media is on society, culture and self-governance can act as a pre-test as well.

4) Some feedback opportunities given in class at the midpoint (along with intermittent feedback via questions in the online discussion groups and a weekly opportunity to respond to teaching and class content via a Web-posted response tool) have proven to be good ways to allow students to speak directly to what is being taught, what its relevance is, how it is being taught, and what specific learning has come from it.

Together, these tools of assessment create a grading "picture" that shows if students have read or watched or listened to the information presented. The tools move less emphasis on analyze and evaluate devices earlier in the quarter to more later on.

Each assessment –- be it an exam, a video attendance, video response or online-discussion entry -- can be given points relative to its importance. Together, the values can be totaled and placed on a grid, with those achieving high levels of points being given high grades. In an ideal world, or in Europe, of course, grades for the course would not have to be assigned.

More important, perhaps, ordering the content of the course in the manner above – a manner that culminates with interlinking of social, cultural and self-governing effects -- brings increased interest from the students. In part because world pollution, energy shortages, human rights and manipulation of people and their culture and a lack of information about them by mass media intent instead on profit and entertainment, students begin to see how mass media are adversely affecting their own lives and futures.

By quarter's end, the concepts and facts that accumulate, along with the results of studies showing media influence has this detrimental side, prompts students -– who are beginning to see their personal stake in this -- increase student ability to think critically about media and the problem of mass communication.

J190 instructors can find success and pleasure in such learning, as well as pleasure in the students who want to take class videos home to show roommates, parents, family and friends or in those who drop in their offices quarters later and want resources beyond those kept on the Web for a paper in their majors that touches on mass media or the student who writes or e-mails years later about how some discussion or event reminded them of J190 and the impact the course had on their lives.

Instructors can also find pleasure in the popularity of the class on campus – not because grades are easy to get, but because the content is intellectually challenging and highly relevant to their lives and futures.

This is not to say that all students are challenged and pleased with the class and go away as critical thinkers par excellence. All classes have "central negatives," students who either hate the instructor or find the material offensive. In J190, a few students fit this category, and some even become super-patriots and attack the professor because they view class content as being an attack on corporate-capitalism and the American way of life. However, this is never more than a handful -- and professors who believe that all views should be heard encourage them to articulate and support their arguments -- without fear of grade penalty.

On the whole, one could say the main outcome of the course is a general ability of students to think more critically about mass media because of knowledge of the impact. This is evidenced by the a final essay project asking students to evaluate the state of mass media and/or offer solutions to problems they see. Usually over 90% of these essays discuss media in a way that indicates unwillingness to accept media messages at face value and that voices a need for improvement of media structure and content.

The high percentage of such a stance in papers argued and supported in a logical fashion (for the most part) supports the more nebulous belief noted above of increased student ability to evaluate and to think critically about the important concepts of the class.

A creative instructor could on the last day of class circulate forms which, after reminding class members about their Day 1 J190 assessment of the impact of media, ask students to rank on a scale of 1 to 10 how the course had increased their ability to evaluate critically mass media. And, perhaps every instructor of the course should do so just to create a record of student perception of class learning and value -- just as others could change and improve the course.

In this manner, the outcomes of J190 might be quantified in a manner similar to a math or science class -- if, indeed, such quantification is even desirable.

 

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© 2003 MATRIX
Project Director: Anne Pyburn
Indiana University Bloomington