Conference Session

Collaboration Provides the Best Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cheryl Cates, University of Cincinnati; Anita Todd, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Cooperative & Experiential Education

. This is the case at Alverno College. Faculty at Alverno College Page 12.1124.3have developed a curriculum designed to help each student develop to his/her fullpotential and will not allow any student to graduate who has not demonstratedeffectiveness in eight specified abilities. Even before assessment was widelyunderstood and practiced in higher education, the faculty at Alverno College wasassessing their graduates as a pre-requisite for graduation. An independent Officeof Research and Evaluation validates these performance assessment techniquesdesigned by the faculty in addition to investigating how curricular elements causelearning, how college learning

Conference Session

Cooperative Education Addresses ABET

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Stwalley, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Cooperative & Experiential Education

dependent upon local departmental ‘buy-in’. Therefore,following an initial collection of background material by the Director of ProfessionalPractice and a presentation to the Professional Practice faculty governing committee, anad hoc committee consisting of several Associate Heads for Undergraduate Education, anAssistant Director for the College of Engineering’s Women in Engineering Program, andthe Director was formed. Additionally, the Directors of EPICS (Purdue’s servicelearning organization) and SURF (Purdue’s summer undergraduate research learningorganization) were consulted, along with some of the smaller departments’ accreditationcommittees and several Associate and Assistant Deans of the College of Engineering.This group reviewed the

Conference Session

Cooperative Education Addresses ABET

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Mathews, Mississippi State University; Donna Reese, Mississippi State University

Tagged Divisions

Cooperative & Experiential Education

educationemployers that would provide additional data for the student achievements of ABET outcomes a-k. Since we did not want to have a negative impact on the return rate of the current surveys, weheld a focus group with a small group of employers to find out the best way to present theseadditional assessment questions without negatively impacting the return on our surveys. Thispaper will present the feedback from this focus group, the survey developed for this assessment,and the results from the first several semesters of the survey, including the affect on return rates.BackgroundMississippi State University (MSU) is a public, land-grant, doctoral, research universityclassified as Doctoral/Research-Extensive by the Carnegie Foundation. Enrollment

Conference Session

Curriculum Reform with Cooperative Education

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cheryl Cates, University of Cincinnati; Kettil Cedercreutz, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Cooperative & Experiential Education

curricula with industrial needs. The proposed three-year project would focus on: a) identifying curricular activities exhibiting astrong correlation with student co-op work performance; b) designing andimplementing processes allowing the systematic use of employer assessment incurriculum design; c) evaluating the impact of changes in curricular design uponstudent work performance; d) piloting and contrasting projects in both differentacademic fields and at different colleges; and e) developing a set of best practicesto be used for further refinement and dissemination of the process. Initialcollaborators include University of Cincinnati (UC) academic units as follows:the Department of Architecture (College of Design, Architecture, Art, andPlanning