Eberly Center

Potential questions to facilitate discussion

Curriculum sequence and progression

• Are courses sequenced appropriately to allow for student progression from introductory to mastery levels?
• Is each outcome introduced at the appropriate place in the curriculum?
• Do any gaps exist where outcomes are not addressed sufficiently?
• Are there any unnecessary overlaps?
• Does too much time elapse between introductory knowledge, advanced knowledge, or mastery?
• What are the strengths of the curriculum (i.e., where program outcomes are addressed thoroughly)?Given our observations, what steps should we take to improve the curriculum (and student learning)?

Instructional activities/student practice

• Do students receive adequate opportunity to practice using their knowledge and skills in variety of contexts?
• Do they receive enough feedback from faculty on their performance?What are the instructional strategies that faculty most use?
• Do they align with the discipline/field?
• Do they align with employer needs?
• Are there additional strategies that should be used?
• Are “high impact” or “active” instructional practices used (e.g., public reviews, service learning, research opportunities, internships, culminating or capstone experiences, skill intensive courses--writing or problem-based intensive courses)?
• What concepts or skills do students seem to have the most difficulty with in your courses?
• Given our observations, what steps should we take to improve the curriculum?

• How should we go about assessing student learning and the effects of our changes/improvements?
  • Should we prioritize what outcome(s) to assess, and engage in a regular cycle of assessment?
• Might we use assessments already embedded in our courses to measure student performance at the program level?
• How should we assure that we use the same criteria to measure the same outcomes?
• How should we test interrater reliability?
• What is our implementation plan?
• What are our action items and next steps?