The Use Of Cooperative Education In Curricular Reform: The Abet Feedback Cycle Realized

The University of Cincinnati has been awarded a US Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education [FIPSE] grant to be used for the Development of a Corporate Feedback System for Use in Curricular Reform. The duration of the grant is three years during which the University is scheduled to receive a total of $ 555,133 (57%). The matching contribution of the University of Cincinnati will be $421,396 (43%). Including matching funds the University of Cincinnati will be investing $ 0.976 M in industry integrated curriculum development. The objective of the grant is to build a closed loop system that measures student performance while on co-op and directs this feedback into curricular development. This project develops methodologies to use assessment data of student work term performance in curricular development, thereby continuously aligning experientialor cooperative-education based curricula with industrial needs. The proposed threeyear project would focus on: a) identifying curricular activities exhibiting a strong correlation with student co-op work performance; b) designing and implementing processes allowing the systematic use of employer assessment in curriculum design; c) evaluating the impact of changes in curricular design upon student work performance; d) piloting and contrasting projects in both different academic fields and at different colleges; and e) developing a set of best practices to be used for further refinement and dissemination of the process. Initial collaborators include University of Cincinnati (UC) academic units as follows: the Department of Architecture (College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning); the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (College of Engineering); the Department of Civil and Construction Management (College of Applied Science); the College of Business Administration; and the Division of Professional Practice. The assessment data will be analyzed by the UC Evaluation Services Center. The Evaluation and Assessment Center for Mathematics and Science Education at Miami University will act as the external evaluator for the project. Schools accredited by, or subscribing to, the attributes of the Accreditation Council for Cooperative Education will act as a reference group, ensuring a transferable end process. The ultimate goal of the project is to move schools engaged in cooperative education to a new era of market alignment. The objective is to build feedback structures that keep the schools abreast of a rapidly-changing environment. The inclusion of a wide array of programs and a large, diverse reference group caters to building a process that can be effectively utilized in schools engaged in cooperative education within a diverse set of academic fields and educational levels. The Grant was filed by Cheryl Cates as PI and Kettil Cedercreutz as co-PI in a joint effort with the Accreditation Council for Cooperative Education. The three year pilot program will involve the P ge 12480.2 Departments of Architecture (Prof. Anton Harfmann, College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning) , Civil Engineering (Prof. Richard Miller, College of Engineering), Construction Management (Prof. Benjamin Uwakweh, College of Applied Science) and the College of Business (Prof. Marianne Lewis, College of Business). Project Liaisons from the Accreditation Council for Cooperative Education (ACCE) include Professional Practice Executive Director Tom Akins from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr. Luther Epting from Mississippi State University. The UC (FIPSE) Project The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) is administered by an office of the U.S. Department of Education with the purpose of supporting solutions that are meaningful and lasting to problems in postsecondary education. FIPSE awards grants for innovative educational reform ideas then shares the proven lessons with the larger educational community. FIPSE grants fund initiatives that have potential for national significance in resolving problems in postsecondary education. FIPSE grants are comprehensive and action oriented in that they focus on innovative ideas rather than basic research and they address a variety of problems at a wide range of institutions. FIPSE is bold in its resolve to support unproven as well as proven ideas. The University of Cincinnati was awarded a FIPSE grant in 2004 to develop a corporate feedback system for use in curricular reform. With this funding the University of Cincinnati is embarking on the second century of cooperative education by creating a vibrant new partnership with faculty interested in curricular reform. Using over 200,000 data points produced annually through co-op employer evaluations we are able to create a feedback loop that shows the impact of teaching through student co-op performance. This information is being used in curricular reform projects around campus to both illuminate areas for reform and to measure the impact of changes on co-op student performance. Using aggregated data from employer assessments of cooperative education student work performance to measure curricular effectiveness forms a cornerstone of outcomes based assessment at the University of Cincinnati. One problem is that results may get buried in both measurement and statistical uncertainty. Enrollment numbers of a single work term may be too small to provide high measurement certainty. University of Cincinnati research shows that the situation can be alleviated by applying Six Sigma Process Stability Analysis (PSA) to data covering multiple academic years of pedagogically stable programs. Stable programs are in this context defined as mature offerings, having relatively small annual fluctuations in curricular offerings. The stability of a process allows the aggregation of statistically relevant data over a sustained period of time to look at student skill development as a function of the curriculum. This presentation focuses on demonstrating the effectiveness of a methodology relying on comparing means and standard deviations of student work term performance P ge 12480.3 indicators. The results are communicated through Mean Standard Deviation Matrixes (MSDM’s) or Delta Mean Standard Deviation Matrixes (ÄMSDM’s). The problem of matching curricular content with industrial needs has been, both nationally and internationally, approached on a variety of levels. Accountability concerns have created a focus on practical learning outcomes deemed important by industry. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) 2000 Criteria, developed in the late 1990’s, strongly emphasize an understanding of market needs. Measurement, feedback and continuous improvement form corner stones of the ABET 2000 philosophy. The thinking behind the criteria is largely based on the logistic concepts developed by Dr. E. Deming that revolutionized the manufacture of consumer goods during the last quarter of the 20 century. The establishment of ABET 2000 criteria constitutes a major step in the market orientation of the educational industry. The interaction between academia and industry inherent in cooperative education forms an asset that has a strong influence on the competitiveness and wealth of a community. The methodology covered in this paper is developed within the framework of the research project “Developing a Corporate Feedback System for use in Curricular Reform”. The ultimate objective of the project is to move schools engaged in cooperative education to a novel era of market alignment. The project focuses on building feedback structures that keep schools abreast with a rapidly-changing environment through the use of co-op work performance data for continuous curriculum improvement. The budget of this FIPSE project is presented in table 1. Table 1. Project Budget Year FIPSE UC Total 04/05 $253,356 [81%] $59,132 [19%] $312,488 05/06 $178,175 [54%] $154,418 [46%] $332,593 06/07 $123,602 [37%] $207,846 [64%] $331,448 Total: $555,133 [57%] $421,396 [43%] $976,529 Examination of the Literature Continuous improvement and total quality management has been used in business and industry for years with more than three fourths of the corporations in the United States actively engaged in some sort of program to increase effectiveness, efficiency, employee involvement, cost savings, or customer satisfaction (Hiam, 1993). Whereas many areas of the academy, particularly the business and administrative functions, have already adopted the practices of total quality management faculties have been resistant to the concept except when it comes to their own research. “Faculty members naturally and instinctively used continuous quality improvement techniques of the highest order to produce a tremendous outpouring in basic and applied research” according to Lawrence in his preface P ge 12480.4 (Ruben, 1995). Therefore if faculties are able to apply quality management techniques to their research it stands to reason that those same individuals would be able to apply the same techniques to their teaching. With the public dismay over rising tuition, frustration over the lack of jobs for graduates who have not been adequately prepared for the workforce, calls for increased faculty productivity and accountability, and accusations of waste, duplication and inefficiency in the academy faculty should be focused with equally as much rigor on the teaching side of the equation. Granted the scholarly aspects of the faculty role are typically more glamorous and hold greater opportunities for notoriety and respect from ones peers. Still a university is producing college graduates every year as its primary product. Every year business and industry hires, or chooses not to hire, those graduates. Yet in many colleges and universities today the external focus can be found only in the attempts to recruit new students with the conviction that the student is the customer. While this