Date
Mar 15, 2016
Attendees
AY 2015-2016 Members: Jont Allen, Can Bayram, Mohamed Ali Belabbas, John Dallesasse, Arne Fliflet, Patricia Franke, Pavan Kumar Hanumolu, Kiruba Haran, Yih-Chun Hu, Nam Sung Kim, Erhan Kudeki (Ex-Officio), Rakesh Kumar, Stephen Levinson, Yi Lu, Jonathan Makela (Chair), Serge Minin, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, Maxim Raginsky, William Sanders (Ex-Officio), Christopher Schmitz, Jose Schutt-Aine, Paris Smaragdis, Lav Varshney, Shobha Vasudevan, Venugopal Veeravalli, Lara Waldrop, Hao Zhu
Discussion Items
| Time | Item | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 5min | Approve minutes from March 1, 2016 | Makela |
| 45min | How do we quantify the quality and success of instructional methods in our core courses? | All |
Minutes
- The meeting was called to order at 2:09pm.
- Minutes from March 1, 2016 were approved.
- The committee discussed how we should evaluate the success of our curriculum
- Kudeki brought up that there any many methods already available and in use, including (ABET) self-evaluation and soliciting student opinions (gained either through discussions with students or ICES comments). Bayram added that he asked his mentees about their thoughts on courses during the semesterly appointments. Allen mentioned that Piazza and similar forums can be useful for gaining feedback throughout the semester, rather than at the end of the semester (i.e., ICES). In general, the consensus was that there already existed multiple avenues to gain information regarding how our courses are delivered. However, Makela countered that many of these are focused on assessing the content and not necessarily the delivery mechanism.
- Dallesasse suggested we should survey graduates who are several years out to get their reflections on what courses they felt were beneficial to their careers once they have had some separation from the university and have gained some perspective. Kudeki mentioned that Jamie Hutchinson conducts a survey of our alumnae that might be able to be leveraged to accomplish this task.
- The committee further discussed the self-assessments undertaken as part of the ABET accreditation process. Although these are useful exercises for the individual faculty members to go through, there is no central review of these (e.g., by the curriculum committee), potentially limiting the impact of learning from others' experiences. For example, we have had several faculty flip classrooms. Some have continued with it while others have stopped. Minin mentioned that through these experiments, he learns what does and does not work for a particular class (which might be different for another class). Haran added that what works in a given course changes from year to year, emphasizing the importance of having flexibility in how material is delivered. Levinson added that the individual differences of our faculty and how they deliver material is advantageous and a strength of how our department delivers its curriculum.
- The meeting was adjourned at 2:55pm.