A. Cal Poly Pomona as a Learning-Centered University

B. General Education

C. Asssessment

D. Academic Program Review

E. Remediation and Retention

Conclusion

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Transformation from a Teaching-Centered to a Learning-Centered Culture at Cal Poly Pomona

The previous chapter on "institutional culture" examined crucial factors in the processes of change redefining Cal Poly Pomona as a university, its conceptions of campus culture and community, structures of governance and organization, and relations to the students and public it serves. These processes present formidable challenges and rare opportunities, as the university responds to a changing California workforce and society and a growing, more diverse student body, to new technologies and competition, and calls for increased accountability and productivity, without commensurate increases in state support. In this chapter we will focus on the core functions and central mission of the university, teaching and learning, examining the processes of transformation of the university to a learning-centered institution and culture, committed to improving student learning and demonstrating educational effectiveness, maintaining both access and quality for students of the 21st century.

The transformation to a learning-centered culture at Cal Poly Pomona has been a natural one, due to the consistency of this attitude with the university’s overall polytechnic emphasis and its tradition of learn-by-doing. The following sections will demonstrate the extent to which we can observe this transformation and show evidence that this change is widespread. We base our comments on focus group sessions with staff, students, and faculty; extensive review of literature, documents, and published data; interviews with administrators and faculty; and attendance at meetings and events. The discussion in this chapter and presentation of data will revolve around six areas: Cal Poly Pomona as a Learning-Centered University, General Education, Assessment, Program Review, Remediation and Retention. We begin with an overview of the challenges we face as a university and their relevance to this transformation.

Discussion of Challenges

The mission of Cal Poly Pomona, presented in the University’s Strategic Planning Guidelines (1997), (Appendix A3) is "to advance learning and knowledge by linking theory and practice in all disciplines, and to prepare students for lifelong learning, leadership and careers in a changing multicultural world." The university’s "highest priority is to ensure the intellectual and social development of its students," maintaining a "campus environment supportive of learning." In order to assess these goals of learning, student development, and advancement of knowledge, we must relate them to the processes of transformation redefining the American university over the past decade, and the challenges--demographic and academic, economic and technological, professional and institutional--facing Cal Poly Pomona and the California State University at the start of the 21st century. These include eight main issues. First, the projected surge in student enrollment from Tidal Wave Two, taxing the resources of Cal Poly Pomona and the CSU, and continuing problems of academic under-preparation and the need for remediation of a majority of entering students. Second, a "dramatic demographic transformation" in student population, transforming Cal Poly Pomona and the CSU, coming to reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity of California, including greater numbers of women, non-traditional, and first-generation university students (Cornerstones: 26). (Appendix A2) Third, the changing nature of the workforce and economy, and "special responsibility" of Cal Poly Pomona and the CSU to prepare students with the advanced knowledge, skills, and understanding for lifelong learning, productive work, and effective participation in the information economy and diverse society of the 21st century. Fourth, the crisis of California K-12 schools, and responsibility of the CSU, which trains over 60% of California K-12 teachers, to improve teacher training and respond to the need for 250,000 new teachers over the next ten years. Fifth, the definition of CSU campuses as "state-assisted" rather than "state- supported," and problems of inadequate funding and resources; the corollary "corporatization" of the university by market forces, new technologies, and adoption of business models and practices. Sixth, the impact of technology on all areas of the university, including curricula and courses, academic disciplines and information/communication systems, teaching, research, and scholarship, instruction and the construction of knowledge. Seventh, the increasing criticism of American universities for their insularity and arrogance and lack of outreach to K-12 schools and communities, and demands for improved educational quality, institutional accountability, faculty productivity, and commitment to undergraduate education, including redefining the professional roles and responsibilities of faculty, emphasizing teaching and educational effectiveness. Finally, the worsening relations between faculty and administration in many American universities and the CSU, and conflicting visions of faculty roles, compensation, and workload, institutional governance, effective teaching and uses of technology, and the future of the university and the CSU.

Concurrent with and catalyzed by the challenges above, a "paradigm shift" has occurred within higher education over the past decade, defining a new vision for college and university education and providing a framework for educational and institutional reform. This new paradigm, described by Barr and Tagg, Peter Ewell, and others, features a subtle but profound change in how we think of college and of our purposes and methods of educators, transforming the pedagogy and curriculum of the traditional, teaching-centered college classroom and university (1995; 1997). Our mission is no longer "providing instruction" but "produc[ing] learning," through educational methods that are more effective, reflective, and consequential. If the mission of the college in the traditional paradigm is to teach, and the focus is on the faculty member/teacher, in the learning paradigm student learning must become the "primary purpose of an educational institution." The purpose of the college "is not to transfer knowledge but to create environments and experiences that bring students to discover and construct knowledge," making "discoveries and solv[ing] problems," becoming "members of communities of learners" moving through "ever more powerful learning environments." Education goes "beyond knowing to being able to do what one knows"; learning is at best active and collaborative, integrative and experiential, developmental, transferable, and characterized by self-reflection and awareness. Many sources of information on the new paradigm in teaching/learning have been consulted in developing this theme.

Proposing a new framework for institutional accreditation, WASC identifies three key characteristics of educational effectiveness for institutions to address, building on Ewell and others. Effective universities articulate a collective vision of educational attainment, setting goals and obtaining results for student learning at both the institutional and program levels that are clearly stated and widely understood, appropriate to the degree, and adequately assessed. Such universities organize for learning, consistent with their character and mission, through curriculum and pedagogy, faculty recruitment and development, organizational structures and processes, information resources, student services, and co-curricular activities. Finally, effective universities become learning organizations, developing systems to assess their performance and improve student learning, reflecting the character of the institutions and student body and focusing on key educational results. Learning must come first, proponents of the new learning paradigm agree, despite the challenges and difficulties, for the sake of learning itself and for our students.

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The criteria for educational effectiveness advanced by WASC, and the research and principles of learning upon which they are built, present a framework by which to measure, define, and assess ourselves, in the contexts of the challenges and changes facing Cal Poly Pomona and the CSU. The influential principles and practices of the learning paradigm, yielding the questions contained in the note, helped to focus our review of the changing climate and conceptions of learning at Cal Poly Pomona and deepened our understanding of our institution and experience. Addressing these questions, we will not provide a history of teaching and learning at Cal Poly Pomona but a thematic analysis, focused on selected institutional examples and practices, framed by central questions and issues of the self-study. We hope thus to better understand and explain ourselves and to define best practices and strategic plans for our university as a learning community. (more...)

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Responses to the WASC 1990 Report

The WASC visiting team in its report of Spring 1990 "paid special attention" to general education as an "important WASC standard" and an "increasingly important national issue." WASC advised the university of the continuing need to "incorporate general education into its academic mission," and expressed concern that general education in a polytechnic university not be considered merely an "adjunct to the main educational enterprise" (pp. 14-15). It urged the university to move toward "creative resolution" of the struggles and "considerable controversy" it had endured for "nearly a decade," and recommended that faculty and administration work together to produce "a more integrated [general education] program specifically designed for a polytechnic university" (pp.15, 17, 49). (more...)

C. Assessment

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Overview of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment and Educational Effectiveness

Cal Poly Pomona, like all universities, has a long history of assessing and certifying student work and achievement. Faculty members assess the work of students in all university courses and programs; departments routinely evaluate the achievements of their majors through direct measures of educational "outcomes" and indirect surveys and indicators of student quality and accomplishments. The university regularly examines the competencies of incoming and graduating students in areas such as English and Mathematics. Cal Poly Pomona’s featured educational philosophy of "learning by doing," linking theory to practice and emphasizing demonstration and application of knowledge, places the university in the forefront of the national shift in higher education toward pedagogies promoting active, student-centered learning demonstrated by competencies and learning outcome. (more...)

The purpose of the academic program review process at Cal Poly Pomona is to encourage excellence in instructional programs and to assess educational effectiveness. Specific goals include:

• Reviewing and, as needed, suggesting improvements in the following:

• The program and curriculum;
• Instruction and student advising;
• Faculty participation in research, scholarship, and creative activity;
• Faculty service to the University;
• Cooperation with other academic programs on campus

• Attending to issues of diversity and campus climate;
• Assessing student learning in the program for the purpose of program improvement;
• Reviewing the use of resources and facilities and identifying needs for additional resources;
• Charting new directions for the program and the department. (more...)

This section examines the academic and student support services and programs providing preparation and remediation and promoting the retention and academic success of Cal Poly Pomona students, attempting to create an integrated curricular and co-curricular environment responsive to our diverse students’ interests and needs. These programs and services are especially important as we seek to respond to the challenges and problems discussed in the introductory section. (more...)

The exploration of teaching and learning conducted here is preliminary and suggestive. We find that the university has made progress in assembling a reasonable data base on which to base decisions regarding students and programs, but that this form of decision-making is not yet fully integrated into academic life. Problems arising from the mix of abilities and backgrounds among students are to a great degree off-set by the vitalizing potential of that same mix, if we can maintain and expand the co-curricular support system we feel provides students with the validation and tools they need for growth and intellectual adventure.

Cal Poly Pomona has made substantial progress in the assessment of student learning outcomes and experience and the coordination of learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness assessment, represented by and promoted/advanced through the WASC self-study report and process (see also Chapter III Methodology for a summary of all our assessment efforts). Our experience at Cal Poly Pomona demonstrates that an institutional commitment to outcomes assessment both represents and presupposes profound institutional, organizational, and cultural change. We must continue to strive for the ideals of educational effectiveness presented by WASC in Invitation to Dialogue II as the basis for a new process of accreditation and revitalized educational institution.

It seems clear to us that the majority of students attending Cal Poly Pomona receive at least adequate preparation for the job market (and superior, in many cases), that they are active participants in their own learning process, and that the relationships they forge with faculty, staff, and other students are important and advantageous to them in their future development and life. It is true that they often "feel like a number", an experience not unique to Cal Poly Pomona, unfortunately. The smaller departments are able to offer a more homelike environment for their majors that palliates the anonymity of admissions and evaluations offices. The first goal of the University Strategic Planning Guidelines is to improve the excellence of our academic programs. Our study shows that this is a widely shared and well understood goal of the university, and that there is general consensus on the position that supporting student learning is a principal means of attaining it. We are beginning to see the evolution of inter-disciplinary, inter-divisional, and horizontal collaborations that are preconditions for a concerted promotion of student learning. As the distinction between academic and co-curricular programs grows invidious, the university requires enhanced communication and cooperation between its different components. Departmental isolation, autocratic decision-making, separatism and elitism of all kinds, are inimical to the inter-dependence needed to enhance student learning. Our primary suggestion for action in the Teaching and Learning theme is to continue the bridging, unfolding, and linking processes of governance underway and focus them on educational issues.

The more specific findings and recommendations from this theme are reiterated in part in the Conclusion to this report. Most of them recapitulate and build on issues developed in the preceding and succeeding themes, since teaching and learning are inter-penetrated with institutional culture, resource management, and the new directions in which the university is growing. Additional data related to the issues developed here is to be found in Appendix C and Annex C, in the Team Room, or can be made available on request. The general recommendations of continuous self-study and communicative sensitivity will certainly serve the purpose of improving collaboration to enhance learning.