Kristin Norris Bob Bringle Bill Plater

January 2012, AAC&U Annual Meeting, Washington, DC

• Discuss implications of civic learning in higher education

• Tools to assess civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions

• Introduce ePortfolios & civic learning at IUPUI

• Ideas to take back to your campus

• US education in comparison of the broader international context

• Civic Learning defined

“We conceive of ‘civic learning’ as any learning that contributes to student

preparation for community or public involvement in a diverse democratic society.

A loose interpretation of civic learning would lead one to believe that education

in general prepares one for citizenship in our democracy. And it certainly does.

However, we have in mind here a more strict interpretation of civic learning -

knowledge, skills and values that make an explicitly direct and purposeful

contribution to the preparation of students for active participation”.

- Howard, 2001, p. 45

Principles of Interactivity

and Integration:

• Self

• Communities and Cultures

• Knowledge

• Skills

• Values

• Public Action

“Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility” (Caryn McTighe Musil, 2009) in

Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices.

Intellectual Commons

Civic Engagement

Global Learning

Diversity Education

• Higher education is experimenting with new ways to prepare

students for effective democratic and global citizenship.

• In developing civic competence, students engage in a wide

variety of perspectives and evidence and form their own

reasoned views on public issues.

• The objectives of Civic Learning rely considerably on students’

out-of-classroom experiences and their development of a

capacity for analysis and reflection.

http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/The_Degree_Qualifications_Profile.pdf

• Associate level • Describes his or her own civic and cultural background, including its origins and development,

assumptions and predispositions

• Describes diverse positions, historical and contemporary, on selected democratic values or practices, and presents his or her own position on a specific problem where one or more of these values or practices are involved

• Takes an active role in a community context (work, service, co-curricular activities, etc.) and examines the civic issues encountered and the insights gained from the community experience.

• Bachelor’s level • Explains diverse positions, including those of different cultural, economic and geo-graphic

interests, on a contested issue, and evaluates the issue in light of both those interested and evidence drawn from journalism and scholarship.

• Develops and justifies a position on a public issue and relates the position taken to alternative views within the community/policy environment

• Collaborates with others in developing and implementing an approach to a civic issue, evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the process and, where applicable, the result.

• Master’s level • Assesses and develops a position on a public policy question with significance in the student’s own

field, taking into account both scholarship and published positions and narratives of relevant interest groups.

(http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/The_Degree_Qualifications_Profile.pdf?f2206 ,

pg. 18)

Why do we need more than a vocational education?

• Employers and others want to know what graduates know AND evidence to back it up

Do our graduates have evidence of their civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions?

- D. Mathews

• Importance of applying high-impact practices (Kuh, 2008)

• Curricular & Co-curricular experiences (including service learning)

• Assessing and Documenting the learning as a result of their

experiences

• But, HOW?

You can’t assess what you don’t know to look for

• Civic knowledge

• More than purely academic knowledge (dates, places, important civic or

political events)

• Knowledge of volunteer opportunities (ways to contribute to society and of

nonprofit organizations)

• Knowledge of contemporary social issues (current events and the

complexity of issues in modern society)

- Steinberg, Bringle, & Hatcher (2011)

• Civic skills

• Communication and Listening (ability to communicate with others and listen

to divergent points of view)

• Diversity (understanding the importance of, and the ability to work with

others from diverse backgrounds)

• Consensus-building (ability to work across difference to come to an

agreement or solve a problem)

- Steinberg, Bringle, & Hatcher (2011)

• Civic dispositions

• Valuing community engagement (understanding the importance of service

to others, and being actively involved in the community)

• Self-efficacy (have the desire to take personal action, with a realistic view

that the action will produce the desired result)

• Social trustee of knowledge (feeling a sense of responsibility and

commitment to use the knowledge gained in college to serve others)

- Steinberg, Bringle & Hatcher (2011)

What is educationally meaningful service?

Civic Education

• Learning activities intended to help students acquire knowledge, skills, and dispositions related to civic participation, civic processes, and civic systems

• NOTE - Not all community-based activities/instruction are designed to yield civic learning

Civic Engagement

• Active collaboration that

builds upon the resources,

skills, expertise, and

knowledge of the campus

and community to improve

the quality of life in

communities in a manner

consistent with the campus

mission.

Bringle, Hatcher, & Holland (2007)

IUPUI’s Center for Service & Learning “North Star”

The Civic-Minded Graduate

• Personal Integration

• Academic Knowledge and Technical

Skills

• Knowledge of Civil Society (e.g.,

Volunteer Opportunities, Nonprofit

Organizations)

• Knowledge of Contemporary Social

Issues

• Listening and Communication Skills

• Diversity Skills

• Self-Efficacy

• Behavioral Intentions → Civic Behavior

Personal

Identity

Civic Experiences

Educational Experiences

Cultural Norms and

Social Context

Civic-Minded Graduates

Civic-Minded Graduate

(CMG)

1

2

3

1 1

2

2

3

Cultural Norms and

Social Context

CMG

Sample student A

Sample student B

Sample student C

Potential Factors Influencing Civic-Mindedness

Norris, 2011

• Program Evaluation (CSL programs and others)

• Service Learning Courses

• Academic Units (e.g., majors)

• Institutional Assessment

• Curricular: Service Learning Courses

• Community-Based Federal Work Study

• Neighborhood Partnerships

• Community Service-Based Scholarship Program

• Student ePortfolios

• CMG Scale: 30-item self-report measuring knowledge,

skills, dispositions, and behavioral intentions

• Good internal consistency and factor structure

• Not correlated with Social Desirability

• Correlated with Integrity with which persons do service

CMG Narrative and Rubric:

Prompt: I have a responsibility and a commitment to

use the knowledge and skills I have gained as a college

student to collaborate with others, who may be

different from me, to help address issues in society.

Active participation in society to address social issues:

Considering your experiences at IUPUI, explain various ways you have been involved in your community that have addressed social issues. Describe why you were involved in these activities (motivation, not opinion about a particular cause). Was there anything else that motivated you to do these activities? Here are various examples of ways you could have been involved to elaborate upon:

• Volunteering or community service (ex. Working at the Humane Society)

• Political involvement (ex. Voting, working with a political group or official)

• Advocating for social change (ex. Writing a letter to a public official about a cause you care about; being an active member of a group that lobbies for legislative change; avoiding buying something because of the social or political values of the company)

• Informal community building (helping a neighbor, building connections in my community, teaching Sunday School)

Lastly, how do you think your college education and experiences have prepared you, shaped your views, or influenced your intentions to be involved in these types of activities in the future?

• Civic-Minded Graduate Scale

• Complete reflection on a professional development activity

• Complete end-of-award period reflection (CMG

Narrative/Scale)

• Faculty mentor rates the end-of-award reflection (CMG

Narrative Rubric)

• Design questions

• Free-form (Presentation) vs Structured (Matrix)

• Assessment purposes

• Students (credentialing vs authentic evidence of learning vs application)

• Institution (reaccreditation, research)

• Course specific (meeting specific learning objectives)

• Where is the evidence?

• Very descriptive reflections. Lacks examination and analysis of learning

• How do you know where to look?

• Multiple references (civic engagement, civic learning, civic education)

• Time consuming

• Dependent upon many factors (course design, guidance, feedback)

• Lessons learned

• Realistic expectations for a complete ePortfolio

• Support for both students AND faculty

• Identify one aspect of civic learning

• Challenges associated with using rubrics

• Time consuming

• Assessing the whole product vs an identified component

• Ideas & solutions – a work in progress

• Assess, Reflect, Adapt, Apply

• Student motivators

• Small steps that can be integrated ----more on this later

• Start with our Graduate Assistants

• Document civic learning as a result of their assistantship

• Structured reflection

• Immediate application – job searches

• What better way to highlight what they did every day for 1+

years for a total of 20hrs a week?

• Practice on ourselves!

What CSL is doing to within the broader campus ePortfolio initiative

• Faculty Development

• Partnering with other units

• Building capacity on campus

• Course related activities

• CSL program activities

• Cohort using ePDP

(Personal Development Planner)

in 1st year seminars

• Civic Learning Working Group

• Funding (SLA)

• Workshops on scaffolding

reflection around the ePDP

• University College (entry-point for first year students)

• Assisted them in developing the sections for the ePDP and the associated

reflection prompts and rubrics

• Helped with training faculty using the ePDP

• Other ideas – Common Theme Book, Study Abroad,

Undergraduate Research, Student Affairs, Programs with a

great deal of Service Learning, Librarians

• Workshops

• ePortfolios: The Basics

• ePortfolios: Making Meaning & Sharing with Others

• No more grading papers: Digital Stories

• Video Reflection Series

• Overview, Application, Camera operations

• Filming

• Editing

• Assessing

• Faculty Consultations

• Classroom sessions

• Identify courses already using SL

• Introduce small activities – Digital Stories

• Helps to facilitate the critical reflection process

• Yields a product students can include in an ePortfolio if they already have

one, or use to start their own

• Engages them in an activity that has multiple applications benefiting the

students even more

Other ideas – encourage usage of one aspect of the ePDP,

creating additional possibilities for building upon an ePortfolio

• Scholarship program related digital stories

• Alternative breaks trips

• Social justice issue

• Focused on issues in the community

• Departments with a great deal of service learning

• ePortfolios are extremely text heavy

• More appealing to potential employers = more likely to see their civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions

• Less time intensive than creating an ePortfolio

• More realistic devotion of time

• Facilitates a reflection process

• Our scholars tend to do free-form ePortfolios, this allows us to help structure their reflections a little more

• Great recruiting tool, marketing tool for us

• Authentic evidence of learning IF tied to learning objectives

• Students see the immediate value

• Student motivations – not just another paper

• An illustration of learning

• A way of documenting an experience(s)

• One way to facilitate the reflection process

• 2-4 minute digital video clip

• First person narrative

• Told in your own voice

• Illustrated (mostly) by still images

• Additional music added to evoke emotions

digital story

• Blogs, some tweets, etc.

Digital Story

• Refers to a kind of video

story as well as the

methodology used to

produce them

• The methodology is the

integration of knowledge,

cutting, paraphrasing,

revising, synthesizing, and

often reflection (Alexander,

2001).

Use the CMG Rubric to Assess these Digital Stories

1. What societal issue is PARCS addressing? How is PARCS

addressing this issue? And how is it more effective than any other

services offered to the community addressing these issues?

• Contact information:

• Kristin Norris (norriske@iupui.edu)

• Sakai ePortfolio (http://bit.ly/xj5cz6)

• Epsilen ePortfolio (http://www.epsilen.com/norriske)

• WordPress (http://civicallyinnovative.wordpress.com/)

• Bob Bringle (rbringle@iupui.edu)

• Bill Plater (wplater@iupui.edu)

• (www.epsilen.com)

• Slides available on SlideShare

• Access our CMG Tools & Michigan Journal of Community Service: (http://csl.iupui.edu/assessment/programDepartmentTools.cfm)

• http://hdl.handle.net/1805/2667

• IUPUI’s Personal Development Planner (ePDP) (https://pdp.uc.iupui.edu/Students/PDPOutline.aspx)

• Lumina Foundation (http://www.luminafoundation.org/publications/The_Degree_Qualifications_Profile.pdf?f2206)

• Digital Storytelling Information • Check out my ePortfolios

• Center for Digital Storytelling (Berkley,CA)

• “The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media” (Alexander, 2011)

• NITLE (National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education)

• Indiana Campus Compact Service Engagement Summit (March 29 in Indianapolis)