Appendix N: Results of Faculty Survey: Integrative Teaching & Learning--Spring 2007

Seventy-six teaching faculty at Roanoke College responded to an online survey in April and May, 2007. Results are given below, with the largest category of response for each question indicated in bold.

For this survey, please focus on one course that you regularly teach. Indicate here if the course is a general education or major course or both.

Response
Percent / Response
Count
General education / 42.1% / 32
Major course / 54.0% / 41
Both / 4.0% / 3
answered question / 76
skipped question / 0

Think about this course—its assignments, activities, and class meetings. Please use the rating scale below to indicate to what extent you now ask or encourage your students to do each of the following:

Never / Occasionally / Often / Daily / Rating
Average / Response
Count
Apply ideas from this course to their personal lives / 2.6% (2) / 21.1% (16) / 52.6% (40) / 23.7% (18) / 2.97 / 76
Apply ideas from this course to practical, real-world situations / 0.0% (0) / 17.1% (13) / 40.8% (31) / 42.1% (32) / 3.25 / 76
Make connections to what they learn in other courses / 1.3% (1) / 35.5% (27) / 50.0% (38) / 13.2% (10) / 2.75 / 76
Integrate ideas from more than one discipline / 1.3% (1) / 30.3% (23) / 44.7% (34) / 23.7% (18) / 2.91 / 76
answered question / 76
skipped question / 0


Imagine you had the expertise and resources to teach this course in an ideal way. Please use the rating scale below to indicate to what extent you would ask or encourage your students to do each of the following:

Never / Occasionally / Often / Daily / Rating
Average / Response
Count
Apply ideas from this course to their personal lives / 1.3% (1) / 15.8% (12) / 38.2% (29) / 44.7% (34) / 3.26 / 76
Apply ideas from this course to practical, real-world situations / 0.0% (0) / 3.9% (3) / 42.1% (32) / 53.9% (41) / 3.50 / 76
Make connections to what they learn in other courses / 0.0% (0) / 9.2% (7) / 48.7% (37) / 42.1% (32) / 3.33 / 76
Integrate ideas from more than one discipline / 0.0% (0) / 9.2% (7) / 44.7% (34) / 46.1% (35) / 3.37 / 76
answered question / 76
skipped question / 0

In a typical month, I spend about __ hours communicating with colleagues in my department about connections between courses we teach:

Response
Percent / Response
Count
0 / 13.3% / 10
1-2 / 48.0% / 36
3-5 / 25.3% / 19
5+ / 13.3% / 10
answered question / 75
skipped question / 1

In a typical month, I spend about __ hours communicating with colleagues in other departments about connections between courses we teach:

Response
Percent / Response
Count
0 / 41.3% / 31
1-2 / 50.7% / 38
3-5 / 2.7% / 2
5+ / 5.3% / 4
answered question / 75
skipped question / 1


My division:

Response
Percent / Response
Count
Humanities / 43.4% / 33
Social sciences / 34.2% / 26
Sciences / 22.4% / 17
answered question / 76
skipped question / 0

My faculty rank:

Response
Percent / Response
Count
Assistant professor / 25.7% / 19
Associate professor / 21.6% / 16
Professor / 21.6% / 16
Visiting faculty / 5.4% / 4
Teaching associate / 14.9% / 11
Part-time faculty / 10.8% / 8
answered question / 74
skipped question / 2

Years of undergraduate teaching experience:

Response
Percent / Response
Count
0-3 / 7.9% / 6
4-6 / 15.8% / 12
7-10 / 17.1% / 13
11-20 / 27.6% / 21
20+ / 31.6% / 24
answered question / 76
skipped question / 0


We have a FIPSE grant to provide faculty development for integrative teaching and learning. What types of support would be most useful to you?

Response Count 41

answered question 41

skipped question 35

1. / Release time for course prep/integrative or collaborative teaching. Faculty development for designing integrative assignments.
2. / Teaching Workshops and Professional Development.
3. / workshops on ways to integrate teaching and learning
4. / More faculty development opportunities which draw faculty from different departments and divisions together -- even for informal discussion.
5. / Some models of how this is done at other institutions. An idea bank.
6. / Workshops on ways to create more effective assignments. Support for summer faculty development work in the form of a stipend.
7. / Support for National Conferences Meaningful workshops Release time to do reading etc. on teaching and learning. B-)
8. / Workshops with RC faculty and no outside consultants
9. / Update video collection to DVD. BBC film series like THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED integrate history, science and social studies. However, the tapes are old (1986) so won't be with us forever...never mind how dated they are! I do not use many videos at all, but OFTEN recommend titles to students to expand their understanding of the history or social significance of scientific thought or discovery. I would also like to see faculty in other departments be encouraged to explore the history or significance of scientific advancements. Medical advancements resulting from different wars, or the ecological impact of war might be considered by historians; or famous scientists might be biographied in foreign language classes. Not all scientific brilliance occured in the english language! Science can easily be intigrated into daily living and non-major instruction. I would like to see other disciplines integrate some science, rather than treat the sciences as an enemy or enigma. The students would have a more positive and confident sense of science if non-scientists were to promote more understanding and less fear of the subject.
10. / More support/monies to integrate technology into the curriculum.
11. / Support for developing new courses (time to devote to it). Also, travel support to gain ideas at conferences, and also (for IL courses) to look at site-specific learning oportunities. Money for field trips and student travel would also be useful.
12. / Summer grants are helpful because then I don't have to teach in the summer to earn extra money. Instead I could work with other faculty on collaborative courses, minors or concentrations, as well as take summer courses in other fields. (I have already done the equivalent of a math minor here, and took computer science 101 this spring, but it's hard to do this with a full course load). If summer courses aren't offered in the relevant field(s), I'd need a course release to take them during the regular semester. I take courses for a grade so I really learn the material. (I took comp. sci. to help me work with a CS colleague to prepare a course or concentration in human-computer interaction, an interdisciplinary field combining psychology and computer science).
13. / Workshops/masterclasses conducted by specialists in pretty much any of the areas covered in Humanities II. Pedagogy workshops.
14. / Content and skills development workshops
15. / I am retired, so this question does not really apply to me.
16. / Support for course development and revision; collaborative teaching.
17. / facilating discussion across divisions relating to teaching techniques and resources to encourage integration methods for incorporating integration while maintaining content (for example, professional school examples, MCAT, GRE focus on content)In those situations where we cannot sacrifice content, how can integration be used on conjunction to reinforce content?
18. / 1. Workshops that provide specific examples of, and help with inter-disciplinary integration. 2. Funding for faculty development programs overseas. What better way to integrate than for faculty from various disciplines to travel together abroad, and then engage with each other to teach that material across disciplines?
19. / Funding for experiential learning support for my students/field trips, etc.
20. / Release time for extensive, innovative course development (ala expanded virtual/asynchronous, multiple performance options within single course, etc.) $ and time for developing theme-based, interdisciplinary (and Major serving) course with instructors in other departments
21. / Bring in people from outside the college to lead faculty development workshops. Have people actually visit our classrooms to observe and give constructive feedback.
22. / Long-term, periodic on collaborative teaching, service learning and co-curricular as well as interdisciplinary.
23. / Professional Development
24. / I have to think "workshop" but the emphasis I would like to see is on the mathematical/scientific materials used in other contents. I believe these courses are expected to bring other "topics" to the table but it would be beneficial if, for example, the humanities incorporated these other subjects into their material!
25. / Time spent with other faculty to decide how to integrate content and skills.
26. / What faculty most need to develop new courses, or new ways of teaching, or patterns of integration or collaboration is TIME. If the grant could BUY TIME for faculty it would be very helpful. Faculty collaborating or experimenting could do so most effectively during a semester with a two-course load (or such a term before teaching in a new way). Buying released time for the development of innovation would be most helpful.
27. / Time/resources to attend another professor's class- within and across disciplines-- so that I can better know what students are learning in classes other than my own. This would allow me to also begin wonderful conversations with other faculty, so that we can begin a dialog on what connections exist between our subjects and to help spur us and excite us to creating innovative new courses (or revamping existing ones)that cross disciplines, that emphasize connections to other material, the student's daily experiennces, and the world at large. This will undoubtedly help me better help students see the connections between my course and others they are taking, both within and out side the major.
28. / Faculty development! I teach a GST 202 course for the first time with absolutly no training, a shame.
29. / Workshops in which I could learn how to apply integrative teaching and learning concepts dirctly in courses that I teach -- in which I could do hands-on work developing the courses' pedagogy.
30. / Staffing support structure for linked courses and team teaching.
31. / Support for creating interdisciplinary co-taught courses.
32. / I would appreciate bringing in faculty presenters from institutions that have a well-developed integrative learning program.
33. / money to do experiential learning components (e.g. when teaching the Basseri have enough money to bring in several food samples; money to buy supplies to lay out the foundation of a cathedral using medieval tools; money to support our costume collection for witchcraft skits, etc.)
34. / Funding to attend conferences/workshops that address such issues as syllabus development and the development of novel and provocative assignments.
35. / Teaching assistants. I think students would be invaluable assets to this grant, would make my teaching in this way better because they know what goes on in other courses better than myself. A TA assignmed to each facultly teaching this type of course would cost next to nothing and would be a great inducement for me.
36. / workshops on how to integrate "weird" classes together so that it fosters our own thinking!
37. / Develop more interaction and coordination among the various departments and disciplines.
38. / Time for curriculum building. Resources for supplementary matierials - books.
39. / 1. Workshops oriented to providing practical tools for new methods of instruction. Avoid broad, general, philosophical presentations. Give us practical tools. 2. Provide print resources on recommended methods of instruction that we can have permanently and refer to in our offices. 3. Small grants to assist faculty making notable revisions in their courses and methods of instruction. $500-1000 range.
40. / Time to develop ideas for coursework focused on application and integration.
41. / Workshops and retreats.