Meeting Minutes: Committee on Biological Sciences
Academic Advisory Committee for the Biological Sciences
October 15-16, 1999
Clarion Hotel, Jekyll Island, GA
Attendees:
| Regents | Dorothy Zinsmeister |
| Ga. Tech | No Representative |
| Georgia State | No Representative |
| MCG | Norris O'Dell |
| UGA | No Representative |
| Ga. Southern | John Averett |
| Valdosta | David Bechler |
| Albany | No representative |
| Armstrong Atl | Ron Beumer (Substitute for Kenneth Relyea) |
| Augusta | Russ Stullken (Substitute for Emil Urban) |
| Clayton | Rebecca Halyard |
| Columbus | (Substitute for George Stanton) |
| Fort Valley | Clinton Dixon |
| Georgia Coll/St U | William Wall |
| Georgia Southwestern | Elisabeth Elder |
| Kennesaw State | Ralph Rascati |
| North Georgia | Mark Davis |
| Savannah | Matt Gilligan (Substitute for Harpal Singh) |
| Southern Polytech | Bill Burnett |
| State U of West GA | Greg Stewart |
| ABAC | Leon Benefield |
| Atlanta Metro | Barbara Morgan |
| Bainbridge | Nancy Goodyear |
| Coastal Georgia | Eugene Keferl |
| Dalton | John Lugthart |
| Darton | Jeffery Hill |
| East Georgia | Jimmy Wedincamp |
| Floyd | Michael Windelspecht |
| Gainesville | Caywood Chapman |
| Georgia Perimeter | Betty Molloy |
| Gordon | Theresa Stanley |
| Macon | Eric Sun |
| Middle Georgia | John Pasto |
| South Georgia | Terry Harrington |
| Waycross | Andy Madison |
The Friday session was called to order by Chairman John Averett at 1:30 pm
Ralph Rascati distributed notes taken at the recent workshop for the Executive Committees of the various Academic Advisory Committees. The workshop was held, September 14 in Macon. Those notes would be the basis for some of the business discussions scheduled for the Saturday morning session of the meeting.
It was decided that we would have a Spring meeting in conjunction with the Georgia Academy of Science meetings to be held in Valdosta in March of 2000. The exact dates and times of the meeting will be communicated at a later date.
The rest of the Friday afternoon session consisted of four presentations on the usage of computer technology in education followed by discussion.
Bill Burnett (SPSU)
Bill summarized his recent experience using WebCT.
He uses a number of external links to interesting and fun sites for the students.
He also makes use of the Grade Checking/Tracking functions in WebCT. One of the
ways he stimulates student exploration of the material on the web site is to plant
hidden bonus point opportunities for the students.
Becky Halyard (CCSU)
Becky discussed her experience with teaching
Introductory Biology online. Textbook choice was influenced by the availability of
ancillary materials useful for online presentation.. Students have limited on-campus
meetings (midterm, final, some labs {6 labs on 3 Saturdays}; other labs are
done at home or on-line). Experience is that it is time-consuming to write
lessons and grade assignments when each lesson consists of tutorials, key terms,
activities, practice tests and assignments. Each activity also consists of many
different types of material.
Michael Windelspecht (Floyd)
Michael discussed his experiences using Front
Page to design online courses. They built their own server so as not to be dependent
on the campus server. Each online course requires an orientation session at which
students are told what to expect from an online course. A comprehensive final exam
is given on campus to minimize the effects of cheating. Other exams are given using
a Front Page Form and are submitted electronically. Each exam contains a statement
of honesty. General statements indicated that online courses are more time consuming
than on-ground courses because they include more assignments and require more contact
time per student.
Alison Morrison-Shetlar (GA Southern U)
Alison (director of the Center for Excellence
in Teaching & Learning) addressed the issue of whether technology really makes a
difference in teaching & learning. Assessment is the key factor in determining
effectiveness. She uses a student survey to determine if students are auditory,
visual, or kinesthetic learners. She then adjusts teaching style to accommodate
these various styles. She addressed problems that can be encountered with the
use of technology. She also discussed advantages of using technology. She encouraged
us to encourage faculty to write about their experiences as part of the "Scholarship
of Teaching".
A panel discussion followed the last presentation. Several issues were discussed including the need not to overwhelm the students and the advantage of collaborative learning even in large classes and in online classes. Workload issues were discussed in terms of how many students could be reasonably handled in an online course and how should total teaching load be allocated when online courses are part of the workload assignment. No specific recommendations were made but it was recognized that this is an issue that many of us are either currently facing, or will soon face, and some common recommendations may need to be developed.
Dorothy Zinsmeister (BOR liaison) then discussed a recent SACS Substantive Change Visit in North Carolina for which she was an observer. The visit was conducted as a system-wide visit looking at online course delivery involving 38 institutions divided into 3 geographic districts. Much of the visit was conducted electronically. She suggested that the University System of Georgia may be involved in a similar visit as early as fall 2000 and that we should be thinking about important issues. Issues raised in the NC visit included quality, testing security, student orientation issues, and faculty development support.
After some additional discussion the session was adjourned at 5:25 pm.
The Saturday morning session was called to order by Chairman John Averett at 8:30 am.
Dorothy Zinsmeister discussed the forthcoming SOTAB meeting. The Friday afternoon session will focus on plant/animal interactions and defenses. The Saturday morning session will focus on neurological interactions. Jim Muyskens (CEO and Dean of Faculty at the new Gwinnett Center) will be invited to be the after-dinner speaker Friday and to talk about his vision for the Center and consequently for faculty in the University System. Program notification and registration information will be distributed soon. Because of its success last year, their will again be a poster session at this year's SOTAB meeting. Faculty will be encouraged to develop presentations on the scholarship of teaching as well as on the traditional scholarship of discovery. Vendors are being contacted but so far only a limited number have indicated an interest. Betty Molloy encouraged us to contact vendors who might be interested and to communicate those contacts to her.
The next item of discussion involved putting Area F on-line and also Teacher Preparation issues. One problem with putting Area F online is whether labs can effectively be done on-line. One alternative suggested by Dorothy is to have an agreement that a student taking a course online from any institution in the state could do labs on any campus and those labs would count for the Biology Area F requirement. This will work if we can agree on a common set of Learning Outcomes (see additional discussion below).
A discussion of Teacher Preparation issues was then initiated by Dave Bechler from Valdosta State University. He distributed the QCCs for Early Childhood Education grades 1-5 for Life Science and Inquiry areas. Discussion included several individuals. Greg Stewart from West Georgia talked about redesigning their secondary education program and that the College of Education on his campus wanted 33 hours in their Profession Core Sequence. This would make it impossible to have discipline courses that would address all of the required QCCs. Other campuses are, or soon will be, facing similar problems. Resolution of those problems will depend on the degree of cooperation (or lack of cooperation) between the Arts & Science departments and the various Colleges of Education. The merits of 5 year programs where students would get a B.S. (or B.A.) in a discipline in a 4-year program followed by a 5th year to get their education courses (culminating in a Master's of Art in Teaching [MAT] degree) were discussed. While the general consensus was that this is a better approach it probably will not happen on a system-wide basis.
A motion was made to look at this further and to make recommendations at the Spring meeting.
Several announcements and mini-surveys were then made.
John Pasto (Middle Georgia) announced a
10 day trip/course to the Galapagos Islands and distributed flyers to anyone
interested.
A survey was then taken about Honors programs
housed in a department rather than in the Institution as a whole.
This appeared to be unique to Armstrong Atlantic State University among
the institutions surveyed.
Another survey was taken indicating that 13
institutions had at least one core Biology course without a lab while 12 required
labs for all of their core Biology courses.
Ralph Rascati then made a brief report based on the meeting held in Macon for the Executive Committees of the various Academic Advisory Committees. Notes from that meeting are attached to these minutes and copies of handouts from the meeting were distributed. {Anyone not receiving these handouts should contact Ralph at rrascati@kennesaw.edu for a copy}
Major items for discussion were:
- The system is considering expanding the technology fee to all institutions
and making it HOPE-eligible. However, inclusion of any new fee in the HOPE scholarships
means that more money must be available to serve the same number of students or that
fewer students can be served. One alternative the USG is considering is removing
non-academic fees from HOPE eligibility and substituting the technology fee.
Consequences are unclear. A motion was made and seconded to support the inclusion of the technology fee as HOPE-eligible and remove certain non-academic fees. After some discussion about the potential consequences to students of this action the motion was tabled.
A motion was made and seconded as follows: The Academic Advisory Committee for the Biological Sciences recommends that no changes be made to HOPE eligible fees until the System Office identifies and prioritizes those fees to be covered by HOPE and those fees to be eliminated and determines the consequences of those recommendations. Furthermore, no action should be taken until the system office solicits and receives input from the various Academic Advisory Committees.
This motion passed unanimously.
- One item under consideration by the BOR is to have students pay for
each credit hour taken rather than capping payment at 12 hours. Discussion of
this resulted in no specific recommendation although several options were mentioned.
A thorough analysis of potential financial consequences needs to be done before any
changes are implemented. This may again be discussed at the Spring meeting if more
information is available.
- The Georgia G.L.O.B.E. initiative (presented by Rick Skinner at the
Macon meeting) was discussed. The consequences of "anywhere/anytime" access
(as proposed for the program) on faculty workload and workload management were
discussed. As participation in this program is voluntary (on an institution by
institution basis) no specific recommendations were made. However, chairs should
be aware that if their particular institution decides to participate, workload
management problems may arise that will need to be resolved.
- A brief discussion of workloads took place. A memo from Dorothy Zinsmeister
(that was distributed at the Macon meeting) indicated that the System Office is taking
a "hands-off" approach to workload and leaving that to individual institutions. A
brief survey of practices at various institutions was taken. It was suggested that
the results of the survey be grouped by type of institution (2-yr, 4-yr, university,
etc.) and extent of research commitment in order to more effectively analyze the
results and make recommendations (if that is found to be desirable). Further discussion
of this may take place at the Spring meeting.
In partial response to Muysken's challenges to the Academic Advisory Committees (see attached notes from the Macon meeting) several goals were set for the coming year. These include being pro-active as well as reactive, determining common learning objectives for Area D1 and Area F biology courses, and examining these courses for possible distance delivery.
In order to establish common learning objectives the following actions will be taken:
- Becky Halyard (Clayton College & State University) will collect from each of the chairs the learning objectives associated with core biology courses. These should be in Word or HTML format and should include learning objectives that are based in the lab experiences for those courses as well as in the classroom experience.
- Michael Windelspecht (Floyd) will establish a web page and discussion board for the AAC onto which these learning objectives can be posted and discussed. All of this will be done by Thanksgiving.
- A committee consisting of Betty Halyard, Mike Windelspecht, Betty Molloy, and Greg Stewart will examine these, and distill from them, a set of common learning objectives and report on these at the Spring meeting.
These common learning objectives may well form the foundation for an e-core in biology appropriate for distance delivery as part of GLOBE or in some other delivery mode.
Finally, a discussion of the availability (and pursuit) of funding for AAC activities was discussed. BOR (System Office) funding will be investigated to fund a web site and other activities necessary to determine common learning objectives for core biology courses and investigate the possibility of distance delivery of these courses on a system-wide basis. Ideas for external funding will be discussed that may be used primarily to bring in external speakers for development purposes will also be generated. Other ideas for external funding will also be considered. These will be discussed via email before any proposal is developed and submitted.
The meeting was adjourned by John Averett at 12:15 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Ralph J. Rascati, Chair Elect
Kennesaw State University
Notes from the "Workshop of the Executive Committees of the Academic Advisory Committees"