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Definitions and Terminology
What is a QEP?
The QEP is a faculty-driven strategic planning initiative that will create educational programs centered around a central theme in order to enhance the value of the UTA experience. UTA’s accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools or SACS, reviews every institution once every 10 years in order to re-affirm our accreditation. The QEP is a component of the reaffirmation of our accreditation. The central theme for our QEP, and its title is Active Learning: Pathways to Higher- Order Thinking at UT Arlington.
What is Active Learning?
Active learning is a method of teaching concepts in the classroom. Drs. Chuck Bonwell and James Eison, two of the foremost experts in this field of research, define active learning as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing.” Active learning involves reading, writing, discussion, and engagement in solving problems, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.” By this definition, making models in an architecture class, building circuits in Engineering labs, doing experiments in science lab classes, and participating in reading, writing, and discussing OneBook are all active learning examples already on campus. But the QEP looks to focus those efforts and make sure they connect you with the material and develop what is called "higher-order thinking skills". See http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/91-9dig.htm for additional discussion.
What are Higher-Order Thinking Skills?
Most educational experts break learned skills into two categories. Simple skills include memory and recall. Higher-Order Thinking skills are the skills that allow students to critically think,write, analyze, and solve problems. Categorizing items, comparing and contrasting ideas and theories, and being able to write about and solve problems are the skills associated with analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating ideas. These skills are often classified as Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, first described by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago, in 1956.
So active learning becomes the method of learning in the classroom meant to help students develop higher-order thinking skills in addition to the other skills currently taught in the classroom. Active learning, together with current teaching methodologies, would lead to a broader variety of learning outcomes for students in all kinds of classes. Also, it’s important to remember that active learning will connect to the subject matter a way that fosters the development of higher-order thinking skills, so active learning isn’t about doing projects or reading books just for the sake of saying we practice active learning.
Why Active Learning and Higher-Order Thinking Skills?
The QEP Steering Committee surveyed faculty, staff, administrators, employers, and alumni to determine both the kinds of things they felt a student with UT Arlington degree should know and how they would learn those things best. Although students surveyed didn’t use the buzz words “active learning” or “Bloom’s taxonomy” most students said that their educational objectives included learning the skills they needed to succeed in the workplace and to learn those skills by practicing them and doing them. Additionally results of the UTA Employer Survey (2004) suggested that higher-order thinking skills were what employers looked for in ideal candidates.
93.3% ranked being able to problem-solve as important, very important, or essential.
96.3% rated being able to apply job-related conceptual knowledge as important, very important, or essential.
90.8% rated being able to define problems as important, very important, or essential.
How will the QEP affect me in the classroom?
The university will create 12 pilot programs that will become the classroom models for using active learning as the means to developing high order thinking skills. Over the next five years UTA will study these programs, and others that come after the original 12, in order to determine their impact and effectiveness. As the program grows and expands, the university will learn the best ways to teach students higher-order thinking skills and active learning as a pathway to higher-order thinking will become institutionalized. It’s important to remember that active learning and higher-order thinking skills are already part of the curriculum in many classes at UT Arlington. The QEP means to focus those efforts, measure them, and improve them so that you get the most out of the work you put into a class.
Will the QEP or its initiatives cost me anything?
The implementation of the pilot programs and their assessment has been budgeted out of existing monies. So, tuition won’t be raised to pay for anything directly associated with the QEP. Developing higher-order thinking skills with active learning as the pathway is more about changing directions then building something new. Classes that use active learning, classes that develop higher-order thinking skills and classes that do both already exist on campus. The QEP’s goal is to make sure that their mission is focused and that we create a way to assess whether the methods are working.
What are SACS, accreditation and reaffirmation?
SACS is the regional accrediting body that certifies that UT Arlington’s programs meet uniform standards for granting degrees. Once accredited a school’s accreditation is reaffirmed every 10 years. Accreditation is what allows credits to transfer between colleges and universities because the accrediting body certifies that the level of instruction, type of courses, and curriculum are similar between all the institutions who receive accreditation.