Increased knowledge about student learning has generated and continues to generate change across the Foundation Coalition (FC). Various mechanisms have been used to increase faculty knowledge and awareness, including:

• Quantitative and qualitative data from examinations, standardized instruments, surveys, reports, student interviews, and focus groups
• Conceptual knowledge about how people learn, how to facilitate learning, and how to establish meaningful learning objectives.

  FC faculty are using assessment data and increased knowledge about student learning as a basis for changing curricula, pedagogy, and the entire learning environment to become, in essence, champions for change.

  Arizona State University
  Assessment -> Curriculum Improvement -> Reassessment: the total feedback loop results in a more supportive learning experience, especially for women students.

  In the 1998–99 academic year, quantitative data from student surveys and qualitative data from interviews and focus groups at ASU showed that female students were more negative or neutral about their team experiences than males. Presented with the quantitative data and qualitative reasons, faculty added two new strategies designed to improve the teaming experiences for all students, especially women.

  First, faculty implemented a team process check, in which students assessed:

  • Self performance in the team and
  • The overall team performance.
  They confidentially submitted their reports to the Director of Assessment, and then assessment and evaluation staff and FC faculty read and analyzed the documents. Finally, FC instructors met with the teams to discuss and improve team dynamics. As a second strategy, faculty built team time into the student schedules. Within a year of implementing these changes, no statistically significant differences were uncovered between male and female students on survey questions about teaming. Female responses were not only improved, they were more positive than the male responses.

  University of Alabama
  Groups of experienced and new faculty have been learning
  and working together to change the learning environment.
  

  Faculty at the University of Alabama are now involved in a weekly luncheon colloquium during which faculty members take turns leading the discussion on a current educational research topic. The colloquium was the outgrowth of a series of interactive workshops offered by FC faculty for their colleagues.

  One third of the engineering faculty attended the first workshop, in which participants working in small groups discussed various aspects of student learning. For the second interactive workshop, participants brought a syllabus and class notes and developed course objectives and in-class assessment tools. A third workshop was held in May 2000.

  The workshops and colloquia have been especially meaningful to the large (14%) cohort of new faculty that joined the College this year. All have attended some portion of the year's events, and doing so has dramatically changed both how they regard the process of education and their actual classroom practices.

  University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
  Assessment data challenge faculty assumptions about retention
  and student performance, resulting in major change.

  As a result of their membership in the FC, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth began analyzing retention data for full-time freshman engineering students over the past several years.

  Prior to this analysis, the dropout rate had been hidden by the high number of transfer students. In addition, faculty believed that the students who left the program entered with low SAT scores. Engineering faculty were involved in the evaluation of both the historical and pilot retention data and were interested in linking student performance data with the retention data.

  Examination of both retention and student performance data was a major factor in the faculty decision to adopt the pilot program.

  University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M University
  Faculty working together to learn about student learning results in
  improved curricula, pedagogy, and learning environments.

  The University of Wisconsin has pioneered a unique program focused on improving the faculty environment.

  Based on research showing that meaningful work is a powerful motivator, the College of Engineering initiated a program called Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment (CCLE) six years ago. Today, the program is a university-wide program. Over 150 faculty have participated, and the program has led to significant changes in the classroom, in the ways faculty work with students, and in the ways faculty work with each other.

  To strengthen its faculty learning community, Texas A&M University is now adapting the CCLE program that was pioneered at the University of Wisconsin.

  TAMU initiated its university-wide CCLE program at the beginning of the fall semester of 2000. The fact that the CCLE program has received strong support from the College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of the Provost indicates the positive impact of FC programs on the educational culture of TAMU.

  Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
  Learning together about learning and teaching helps faculty become
  more adept at curriculum and pedagogical change.

  This year, Rose-Hulman sponsored a three-day workshop on Process EducationTM for faculty. In addition to Rose-Hulman faculty, participants from Western Michigan University, Texas A&M University, University of Wisconsin, and Gaston College attended.

  Process EducationTM is the philosophy that learning, thinking, problem solving, communication, teamwork, and assessment are processes to be developed (and continually improved) by students as they master the content of a discipline area. The Process EducationTM approach complements the pedagogical theories advocated by the FC and provides a different perspective of how to combine them in a single approach.

  Faculty comments include:

• "...having our students perform self assessment can be an effective tool to raise standards."
• "requiring a reading log [for each student] has dramatically improved the quality of learning."
• "traditional approach to engineering education spends on purveying level 1 knowledge, [however, level 3 and level 4 knowledge] is really what we want students to have."

  These comments demonstrate the importance and impact of faculty learning together. Continuing its work to help faculty become more adept at curriculum and pedagogical change, Rose-Hulman is currently investigating the CCLE model developed by University of Wisconsin. Rose-Hulman is exploring how this approach can be adapted to meet the needs of a small campus with a primary focus on science, mathematics, and engineering.

  The original vision of the Coalitions Program was to profoundly change the culture of engineering education. For this to occur, the underlying values of engineering faculty, values so widely accepted that they rarely are questioned, must be altered or reprioritized. The FC has developed various strategies and techniques, as illustrated above, to increase the priority of values associated with, for example, improving student learning; working cooperatively with all faculty engaged in our students curricula; and recruiting, retaining, and graduating a diverse student body. This priority shift is key to the realization of culture change. As Ed Ernst, chair of the June 1998 Engineering Foundation Conference on Realizing the New Paradigm for Engineering Education, summarized, "In a very real sense the faculty must become the main champions for changing the way that we do engineering education."