Motivation for this Strategic Initiative:
New technologies and research are fostering interest in evidence-based pedagogical methods in the nation’s top universities, and we should employ them here at UC Merced. Our students bring many strengths in the form of resilience, breadth of experience, and motivation to succeed in their studies. Emerging pedagogical techniques can harness those strengths to help students succeed. Several SNS faculty and instructors have adopted innovative teaching methods ranging from “flipped classrooms” to hybrid online/in-person teaching, and these efforts should be fostered and expanded. Additionally, the switch to remote learning in response to the Covid19 pandemic has made everyone familiar with tools for remote education, which may offer a unique opportunity to incorporate new technologies into post-Covid19 teaching.
Summary of Task Force Report (see appendix for full report)
The task force organized their recommendations into two sections focusing on faculty and students, respectively. The faculty section addresses pedagogical training for faculty and instructors, improved coordination of the courses and curricula among SNS majors, and steps towards creating a culture of teaching excellence. The second section focused separately on the three phases of our students’ education: onboarding, first year, and finally second year to graduation. The task force proposed several near-term action items to promote pedagogical training, including organizing team-taught courses that pair faculty with differing levels of experience in innovative teaching, establishing an SNS/CETL “Pedagogical Fellows” program to help faculty learn teaching techniques, develop innovative course materials, and make use of “Graduate Student Teaching Fellows”, advanced TAs who can take on additional teaching responsibilities and help with innovative teaching. A final related point is the need to incentivize faculty to modernize existing courses or introduce new courses on contemporary topics.
Another set of action items begins the process of developing a “multidimensional” approach to teaching evaluations that go beyond written student evaluations and could include peer evaluations, careful review of the teaching materials, conversations with the instructors about their teaching, and other assessment tools. The task force also recommends that the SNS Curriculum Committee be immediately reconstituted and that all departments establish such committees. The role of the curriculum committees would be to ensure that courses and curricula are coordinated within and between majors and to serve as a liaison to other schools and CETL. Additionally, the task force proposed several other specific actions to improve teaching such as including Unit 18 lecturers and teaching staff in departmental meetings, designing teaching plans that help faculty and instructors improve teaching, modifying teaching credit to reflect actual effort (e.g. give additional credit for large enrollment or logistically complex classes), and hiring more teaching faculty with pedagogical training. Finally, there are several action items related to identifying elements of online teaching that should be preserved post-COVID19.
The task force developed a list of action items related to improving student success. For new students, they recommend working with other campus units to develop a summer bridge program that includes success workshops and to start outreach to the Merced City School District to help prepare students for admission to UC Merced as established by our Chancellor. For first-year students in the near term, the task force proposed evaluating the possibility of a pass/no-pass option in lower-division classes and increasing the academic focus of the Living-Learning Communities.
Proposed Action Items (see Task Force Report for more details and metrics)
2021-2022
- Work with departments to explore equitable team-teaching options that mix experienced and new instructors for large courses using innovative pedagogies.
- Explore instituting an SNS/CETL Pedagogical Fellow program and expanding the Graduate Student Teaching Fellows (GSTF) program for large-enrollment courses.
- Reconstitute the SNS curriculum committee.
- For departmental teaching plans, prioritize opportunities for faculty and instructors to teach the same class multiple times.
- Include instructors and instructional staff in department meetings related to teaching.
- Explore strategies for teaching credit to reflect actual effort in teaching specific courses.
- Institute policies for teaching relief for faculty or instructors reforming classes or curricula.
- Ensure that searches for Unit-18 Lecturers are advertised widely, include interviews that assess candidates’ teaching, and are concluded well ahead of the term they are needed.
- Create SNS-level awards for teaching at the faculty, instructor, and graduate student level.
- Work with campus-wide units on SNS-specific components for Summer Bridge programs.
- Coordinate with campus resources to provide student success workshops during orientation.
- Explore the possibility of allowing pass/no pass grading options in lower-division courses.
- Consider eliminating the practice of dismissing students after only one semester for low GPA.
- Work with Student Services to better link SNS students to campus support services such as CAPS, food bank, etc.
- Work with the VPDUE to ensure an academic focus within the Living Learning Communities.
2022-2023
- Explore the use of multidimensional evaluation of teaching in SNS for merit and promotion.
- Pilot use of peer observation of teaching as a possible SNS requirement.
- Incentivize faculty to participate in professional development workshops on pedagogy.
- Create department-level curriculum committees.
- Explore outreach to regional high schools regarding UCM admission guarantees.
- Encourage faculty and instructors to provide early course feedback to help students decide whether they should continue in a class.
- Work with VPDUE on piloting “parachute classes” to allow student flexibility in dropping classes without falling below minimum unit requirements.
2023 and after
- Encourage departments to include planning for additional Teaching Faculty hires as part of their long-term planning.
- Evaluate the post-pandemic potential of online and hyflex classes.
- Feature tools to help students match with degree programs that are aligned with their career goals.
- Work with SNS Excel! Program, VPDUE, and Student Services to develop SNS-specific support for mid-semester DFW students.
- Work with VPDUE to explore adopting the UT Austin system for identifying at-risk students and enrolling them into a support program.
- Explore creating honors discussion/lab sections embedded within regular lecture courses to encourage top students to stay at UC Merced.
- Offer interdisciplinary, SNS-wide, courses that teach signature skills (e.g. data science).
- Develop materials to train faculty and TAs on how to incorporate academic supports into the instructional time.
