Curricula and Assessment

Forest Technology Program Outcome Assessment

G. Andrew Bartholomay — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:30:00 PDT

Course grades are the norm for reporting a student’s overall proficiency. However, the one dimensional nature of grades implies that all individual course components have been equally mastered. The Pennsylvania College of Technology employs an institution wide program of Quality Through Assessment to aid in evaluating the institutional mission to, “provide students with quality academic programs that respond to economic and employment realities” (www.pct.edu/assessment/). The initiative employs outcome assessment at three levels, institution, academic school, and program. The Forest Technology faculty has been charged with incorporating outcome assessment into our ongoing curricular evaluation process. The faculty identified broadly defined required outcomes by incorporating SAF accreditation guidelines, the college’s mission statement, and program advisory board input. This core set of goals was approved through the college’s Curriculum Committee. The faculty built more detailed course specific outcomes into their syllabi and the entire forest technology curriculum was reviewed to ensure that skill sets would overlap among courses and result in a holistic forestry education. The result was a built‐in curriculum assessment tool that also improved student evaluation. The basic skill sets and theory in introductory courses are the foundation of more complex skills and theories built in subsequent courses. Collaborative student groups are used to provide realistic field data collection scenarios. Unfortunately, every student may not be self motivated enough to master each skill in this setting. Outcome assessment provides faculty with a mechanism to counter this problem. For example, students within a group are required to rotate through each task necessary to complete a field assignment. Using an “outcomes checklist” during the normal observation of field exercises, the instructor simply identifies which students have mastered each skill. Little extra effort is required of the instructor beyond identifying the required outcomes and employing the checklist. Posting the checklist allows students to be informed and proactive in demonstrating competence for each outcome. While outcome assessment is implicit in student grades, important technical skills are sometimes lost in the overall rubric. Undergraduates often require specific direction regarding the importance of mastering small pieces of the larger curriculum. The identification of distinct outcomes provides the student with both direction and tangible milestones. Program outcome assessment ensures that course work is integrated throughout the major and allows faculty to address student needs at both the course level and curriculum level. Ultimately, a more thorough assessment of student success benefits all levels of the institution. Better educated graduates increase the value of the institute through their contributions to society and the profession.

Envisioning the Future of Continuing and Professional Education in the Pacific Northwest

Nicole A. Strong et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:30:00 PDT

Historic demand for Natural Resources‐based Continuing and Professional Education (CPE) in the Pacific Northwest originated largely within private industry and government agencies. Rapidly changing and evolving professions and fields of interest necessitate a strategic shift among service providers, including higher education, so that professionals remain competitive and informed on emerging research, technology, and markets. A regional strategic plan to grow continuing and professional education infrastructure and business was developed for the Oregon State University College of Forestry (COF). Key informant interviews were conducted around the country to develop a guiding tool that will assist the College of Forestry take a more strategic approach to marketing and communicating its role as a CPE leader with regional stakeholders, as well to grow its ability to garner quantifiable benefits from the outreach and research services COF provide to the greater forestry and natural resources community. Assessment results, including a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, a series of Projected Outcomes, with supporting Recommendations and Next Steps will be presented. We will discuss how the recommendations might offer mechanisms that will allow COF, as well as other Universities around the country, plan with an eye on the future, overcome barriers, increase CPE output, generate revenue, market activities through multimedia advertising and publicity schemes, and increase visibility and recognition by industry, agencies, non‐governmental organization, policy makers, and the greater public for CPE services provided.

Instructional Program for Interdisciplinary Master of Natural Resources Degree, Oregon State University Online

Badege Bishaw et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:00:00 PDT

Managing natural resources is a complex problem involving production, ecological, social, economic and ethical systems, which affect and, in turn, are affected by the others. The proposed Master of Natural Resources (MNR) degree is designed to engage university scientists and world‐wide natural resource professionals in a process that integrates diverse perspectives about natural resource situations at the state, regional, national, and international levels. The MNR degree will assist agency and industry personnel meet their self‐improvement goals. Students will learn about the various disciplinary components that make up natural resource problems and solutions to them. The MNR curriculum is organized into three sections: core (18 credits), area of emphasis (18 credits), and capstone project (9 credits). It will be taught as a distance, online curriculum, although it may be possible for some students to work toward the MNR degree while in‐residence at Oregon State University (OSU). The MNR degree will facilitate learning by natural resource professionals who work in settings that require integrating multiple disciplines to find solutions to natural resource problems. It integrates disciplines through the curriculum, assignments, and a case study project. Students achieving the MNR degree also will integrate concepts and approaches developed throughout the entire program into a final case study project. The projected start date for the Master of Natural Resources degree is fall term of 2010. The degree will be housed in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and will be taught using existing and new on‐line courses. We expect the degree to be self‐sufficient within three years.

Assessment of Employer Perceptions and Student Needs in the Design of a Cooperative Employment Program in Professional Forestry Curricula

Jim Kiser et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:30:00 PDT

The knowledge and skills needed by professional foresters is rapidly evolving as the practice is changing to respond to a broader set of ecosystem services and markets. Today’s organizations prefer to hire graduates that have a specific set of skills to address these new and evolving issues, however, it can be difficult for students to gain experience in all of the necessary areas through a traditional four‐year academic program. A cooperative education program is an undergraduate education with approximately 1/3 of the education component conducted on the job. The work terms are structured to have a learning component, and the academic terms are organized to provide knowledge and skills that students can use on the job. The University provides the technical and theoretical background, and the work organizations provide the rich experiences that give the education context. Efforts are underway to establish a cooperative education component of the professional forest management programs offered by the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. Prior to the establishment of this cooperative program, the College is conducting a two‐part study to assess (1) employer perceptions of the knowledge and skills that are needed by graduates in a range of professional jobs and (2) a student needs assessment to determine the knowledge and skills that are expected and desired by potential and current undergraduate forestry students, as well as the features of an undergraduate educational program that attract a wide variety of students to forestry programs. The methods being used in the employer needs analysis are on‐site visits, online surveys, and supplemental focus groups to allow in‐depth understanding of the survey results. The methods being used in the student needs analysis are online surveys and subsequent focus groups. The results of this study will be used by the College in the following ways: (1) to serve as a tool for the formation, prioritization and maintenance of College‐employer partnerships, including cooperative education, (2) to inform educational objectives, (3) to increase intentionality in curricular planning and advising to best prepare students for professional success, and (4) to better define marketing and recruitment strategies for the College. Researchers intend to present preliminary findings at the conference. At that time, the researchers will also have a preliminary understanding of the opportunities and barriers inherent in the design and implementation of a cooperative education program into undergraduate, professional forestry programs in a land‐grant university setting. We hope to consult with the conference group to validate our findings and obtain more information based on the collective knowledge of the educators present at the conference.

Assessing Embedded Geospatial Student Learning Outcomes

John Carr et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:00:00 PDT

Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) plays an increasingly pronounced role in providing natural resource professionals with information and analysis tools. GIST is an integral component of resource planning, management and assessment; therefore, professors in the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University have designed and embedded geospatial exercises across undergraduate curricula in Forest Management and Natural Resources. We developed a flexible framework for assessing how well geospatial learning objectives are being met. Developing a framework requires identifying geospatial learning objectives, establishing criteria for success, and creating assessment tools. Structured interviews were used to identify geospatial learning objectives and criteria for success. Interview subjects included faculty with geospatial instruction embedded within their courses as well as program directors throughout the college. We used a grounded theory approach to code and identify emergent commonalities among subjects’ responses and prepared geospatial learning objectives from these categories. Assessment criteria and outcome indicators, based on key properties, were written for each objective. We crosswalked our objectives with the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Body of Knowledge1 to determine how well core topical areas are covered by the embedded instructional interventions. Anderson and Krathwoh’s framework2 was used to develop criteria for success by sorting objectives into factual, conceptual, and procedural knowledge categories and identifying the intended performance level of each objective. Based on these findings, we designed a pre‐post instructional intervention questionnaire addressing a range of foundational geospatial material. We pilot‐tested the questionnaire during the 2009 academic year to determine if geospatial objectives are communicated in observable or measurable ways, and if a pre‐post instruction questionnaire is an effective tool for assessing student learning. Findings from the pre‐post intervention pilot study, additional assessment approaches such as tracking questions embedded within course tests, the evaluation of students’ research reports from an assessor’s perspective, and implications for scaling‐up GIST assessment efforts within the college will be discussed.

Assessing Student Learning in Natural Resources: Recent Efforts at the University of Arkansas at Monticello

Sayeed R. Mehmood — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:30:00 PDT

In recent years, there has been a trend requiring outcomes‐based assessment of student learning in all academic programs. Most of the major accreditation entities have revised their standards to reflect this trend. The Society of American Foresters (SAF), the accrediting body for the nation’s forestry programs has also moved in this direction. The School of Forest Resources (SFR) in the University of Arkansas at Monticello has taken an active role in revising its model for student learning and program assessment. SFR’s two‐tier model is an effort to link student learning and program assessment in a way that is meaningful and practical. This presentation will discuss the specifics of this model and share some of the lessons learned from several years of discussions, phased implementation, and fine‐tuning.

Wildlife Education: Changing in the Wind

Mark C. Wallace — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:30:00 PDT

In December 2007 The Wildlife Society (TWS) Ad Hoc Committee on Collegiate Programs was established and charged with assessing current wildlife programs in North America, their change over time, theory vs. practice and the role of hands‐on training, the importance of TWS certification, and what the ‘ideal’ wildlife program should look like. This task was driven by concerns over wildlife programs, the type of education that students are receiving, the quality and experience of students entering the job market, university enrollments, and the role of TWS certification. I present some of the results from our Ad Hoc Committee including a summary of our inventory of current programs in the US and Canada and some of the disturbing trends that are apparent. Nearly 4 times more programs offer wildlife courses than was previously thought, many claiming to provide the training needed for wildlife careers. Today’s programs exhibit regional differences in the kinds of curricula offered. In the Northeast, 57% of programs offering wildlife courses were in Environmental Sciences followed by the West, Southeast, and North Central all with about 30% Environmental Science programs. While in other regions Environmental programs represented <18% of what was available. In the Central Mountains and Plains, Wildlife and Fisheries programs still represented 62% of offerings, followed by the Southwest (56%) and North Central (53%). Wildlife programs represented only 29% of available programs in the Northeast. Follow‐up sampling of respondents with wildlife programs addressed questions of curricula change and student competencies. Disappearing natural history classes, declines in expensive field classes, and less hands‐on experiences for students are all disturbing trends. Simultaneously, employers are pressing for additional new skills and advanced technologies: computer skills, GIS, and enhanced communication skills. While, to encourage parents to pay for college education, many US schools have instituted credit hour limits for degrees and increased the credit hours required for the ‘general education’ core that all students must take. For example, in one traditional program, the program can include no more than 120 semester credits, of which 63 are general education. This leaves only 57 credits (19 lecture or 14 lab classes) left to cover all the skills our profession desires: from mammalogy, plant ID, and ecology to wildlife management, population modeling, statistics, and GIS.

Survey of Forest Engineering and Forest Operations Programs in North America

Elisabeth M. Dodson et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:00:00 PDT

In 1999 the International Journal of Forest Engineering published a special edition titled “Forest Engineering – Looking Ahead Ten Years.” The lead article was “Graduate programs in forest engineering and forest operations: working towards extinction.” McNeel, Stokes, and Brinker surveyed graduate programs in North America that have named graduate programs in forest engineering and forest operations (FE/FO) with a primary focus on PhD‐level graduates. Concerns were raised over the low numbers of PhD graduates, aging FE/FO faculty, and declining employment opportunities for PhDs within traditional forest industry. These issues are still of significant concern; therefore, we propose to repeat this survey ten years later. We will compare our results with those reported in 1999 to establish a 10 year trend analysis while investigating the current and future viability of FE/FO programs throughout North America.

Trends in General Education Requirements for Forestry and Other Professional Program Students

John D. Bailey — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:30:00 PDT

Some novel general education requirements have been in place at Oregon State University (OSU) since a major and admirable development effort in 1988, but implementation has become overly problematic over the last decades. This observation and other pressing issues on campus drove a major review effort last year involving administration, faculty, staff and students. We were reassured by those results in terms of the philosophy and structure of our “Baccalaureate Core” and how well they align with emerging ideas from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and peer institutions nationwide. However, our campus community was consistently unsatisfied with the evolved, checklist nature of our general education requirements, the associated strategizing and gaming required of students and advisors, and the implications that this has for lack of horizontal and vertical integration of related components, both within the Core and across curricula to majors/minors. We are therefore starting a significant revision process centered on: 1. a renewed focus on basic learning outcomes for our graduates that tie together general education and major/minor curricula, with better description and communication of the overall design; 2. stricter requirements for first‐year experiences and advising that are more closely aligned to campus retention efforts; 3. expansion of experiential learning opportunities (e.g., research, study abroad and service learning) that could be used to meet several learning goals within our general education requirements; and 4. identified, centralized administrative support to assist with implementation in terms of departmental offerings, instructor support and course access. I will summarize our review and revision process/results and provide detail for each of the four proposed changes above, including specific issues from OSU and observed national trends related to each. From this, I hope to generate discussion (if not controversy) on the role of general education for students in our respective professional programs vs. those in more general (and flexible) natural resources majors.

Challenges to Professional Accreditation of Forestry Degree Programs with Low Enrollments: The Utah State University Experience

Terry L. Sharik et al. — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:00:00 PDT

As a result of its setting in the semi‐arid Intermountain West where forests are confined largely to montane environments, Utah State University (USU) has historically had relatively low undergraduate enrollments in forestry compared to other natural resource disciplines and compared to other institutions in the U.S. also offering a broad range of natural resource degrees. As a result of this history, coupled to the national trend over the past two decades of proportionally lower enrollments in forestry compared to other natural resource disciplines, undergraduate enrollment in forestry at USU currently constitutes less than 4% of total enrollments in natural resources. This situation makes it difficult to justify the offering of forestry courses and the hiring of faculty with forestry degrees, which in turn is a challenge to the maintenance of professional accreditation in forestry. Our response to this challenge has been to create a solid professional core of courses that is basic to the science and management of terrestrial ecosystems and is taught by faculty from a wide array of natural resource disciplines, coupled to a modest component of specialization in forestry in the third and fourth years of study. This approach, while perhaps disadvantageous from the standpoint of professional accreditation under current standards, provides our forestry majors with a broad background in the science and management of terrestrial ecosystems and in some ways anticipates current discussions at the national level regarding the accreditation of broader programs in natural resources.