undergraduate level

Establishing an Assessment Plan for the Undergraduate Molecular and Cell Biology Curriculum to Achieve Program Permanence at UHM

This project establishes a programmatic assessment plan for the Bachelors of Science program in Molecular and Cell Biology …

The Political Science faculty modified existing departmental, undergraduate student learning outcomes (SLOs), which informed assessment development and curricular improvement. Using informal appraisal by individual faculty of student performance at the senior capstone level, the undergraduate curriculum committee found that students’ writing skills need to be addressed in a more cohesive and purposeful way in the curriculum. A 200- level writing politics course was designed to address the gap. In short, the discussions around the learning outcomes revision resulted in faculty collaboration in assessmentdriven curricular improvement. These discussions and innovations are part of a two-year plan to improve program assessment in the department.

Learning Outcome Driven Curricular Improvement – An Example from Political Science

The Political Science faculty modified existing departmental, undergraduate student learning outcomes (SLOs), which informed assessment development and curricular …

In the last 6 months, the Department of Psychology has initiated a new plan that is expected to provide useful information that will eventually assess our Psychology Undergraduate Program. This new Undergraduate Assessment Plan (UAP) emerged from training in Assessment Leadership Institute at UHM, which highlighted major principles and strategies to assess academic programs. With this training knowledge, an undergraduate curriculum map was developed with faculty input that incorporates the most recent Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) from the American Psychological Association (APA). These SLOs that graduating psychology majors should know include: psychological knowledge of key concepts; scientific inquiry and critical thinking using scientific reasoning to interpret psychological phenomenon; ethical and social responsibility in diverse settings; communication development for effective writing and oral presentation; and professional development for meaningful direction after graduation. The curriculum map is important in describing specific SLOs associated with each Psychology undergraduate course taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Effective Fall 2014, all instructors will include SLOs in their syllabus that reflects their course content. Another feature of the UAP in development is the incorporation of a rubric to assess student writing. To do so, a rubric for writing to meet the APA communication SLO was obtained from the American Association of Schools & Universities and modified to assess the writing occurring in our Psychology W courses. Pilot work is being conducted to determine the feasibility and reliability of a rubric to assess student writing in a small sample of student papers. On the basis of this study, the scoring and assessment method of papers may require modifications before presenting a working rubric to the department faculty for discussion. The UAP is to eventually require a final paper written in Psychology W courses to be assessed by the instructor using a rubric accepted by the Psychology faculty.

Department of Psychology Undergraduate Assessment Plan

In the last 6 months, the Department of Psychology has initiated a new plan that is expected to …

SLS 150 is an introductory course mainly for first-year (freshman) students with a strong interest in second language learning. A series of innovative and rigorous classroom assessment strategies have been piloted in this class. Lessons learned from this internal exercise will be extended to the full suite of the new SLS BA program and its progress with program assessment as we move forward to the five year provisional status review.

Classroom Assessment – Implications for Program Assessment

SLS 150 (Learning Languages and Communicating in a Globalized World) is an introductory course mainly for first-year (freshman) …

The Department of Botany faculty members have completed the initial steps of developing a program assessment plan for our three undergraduate degrees: BA, Botany; BS, Botany; and BS, Ethnobotany. We first devised explicit and realistic Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for all students completing any of our degrees. We then considered the extent to which our existing classes addressed individual SLOs and scored each class for each SLO in one of 5 overlapping categories: 1) does not address SLO; 2) provides introductory material that relates to SLO; 3) provides learning material that reinforces a subject; 4) provides students with the opportunity to master a subject; and/or 5) provides an assessment of student performance. This scoring process resulted in a curriculum map for each degree. The entire process has caused us to consider revising some courses, eliminating some courses, and designing some entirely new courses. The next step is to develop and implement tools for assessing the success of achieving programmatic learning outcomes.

Program Assessment – Department of Botany

The Department of Botany faculty members have completed the initial steps of developing a program assessment plan for …

The Global Environmental Science (GES) program offers a B.S. degree through the Department of Oceanography in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. A defining characteristic of the program is the requirement for all majors to conduct a year-long senior research project working one-on-one with a faculty mentor. The research experience is directly integrated into the curriculum as follows: 1) students are introduced to research opportunities through OCN 100 Seminar in Global Environmental Science, 2) the GES curriculum is tailored to the student’s specific interests through selection of 4 upper division electives that complement and support their choice of research topic, 3) students earn OCN 499 Undergraduate Thesis credits while conducting their research, and 4) OCN 490 Communication of Research Results provides instruction and experience in written and oral presentations related to thesis results. Graduation requirements include submission of a written thesis and a public oral presentation of the research findings. This integrated capstone research experience provides a locus for assessment of nearly all GES program learning outcomes. Written theses are read and assessed by faculty mentors and the program chair. Oral presentations are assessed by the faculty mentor and the program steering committee, including the program chair. To date, assessments have been conducted through informal evaluations and group discussion. Development of assessment rubrics are under consideration.

The Global Environmental Science Senior Research Thesis: A Locus for Program Level Learning Outcome Assessment

The Global Environmental Science (GES) program offers a B.S. degree through the Department of Oceanography in the School …

The philosophy undergraduate program has a relatively small number of student learning outcomes and most of these refer to acquired skills rather than to content knowledge. Mapping courses to these was a pretty uncontroversial and painless process. Development of assessment tools for the skills is a bit more challenging but we are making progress.

Keeping Program Assessment Simple

The Philosophy undergraduate program has a relatively small number of student learning outcomes and most of these refer …

Empirical data in relation to students' satisfaction with tutoring sessions were gathered with an open-ended survey from one semester. Themes were extracted to generate representative items. These items now comprise an assessment form with outcomes based on students' expressed needs. This is an example of formative assessment using both qualitative and quantitative data

Empirically Based Assessment

Empirical data in relation to students’ satisfaction with tutoring sessions were gathered with an open-ended survey from one …

Several studies have revealed that successful mentoring affects college student retention. Also, research on attrition shows that the first year is a critical stage in students' decisions to persist or leave college. Nora & Crisp have recently identified four essential elements to mentoring: psychological/emotional support; support for setting goals and choosing a career path; academic subject knowledge support aimed at advancing a student's knowledge relevant to their chosen field; and specification of a role model. In the 2007-2008 Academic Year, over 400 first-year students in English 100 at UHM were mentored by MA or PhD students in English, and analysis of their standardized end-of-term evaluations revealed that students identified each of the elements above in varying degrees, with “academic subject support knowledge” identified 79% of the time and with at least one of these elements identified 85% of the time. These results suggest that mentoring when delivered as part of a course holds great potential for boosting student retention at UHM.

Assessing Mentoring in First Year Composition: A Tool to Boost Retention?

Several studies have revealed that successful mentoring affects college student retention. Also, research on attrition shows that the …

Assessing Civic and Community Engagement in Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies was born out of community demand and community engagement has had a central place in the …

Assessing Written Communication Skills across Food Science Courses with a Common Rubric

The Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN) Undergraduate program has established an ad-hoc committee to assess written communication …

Creating a Rubric of Critical Thinking for Writing Intensive Courses

This poster reports an ongoing project collaborated by a team of Chinese faculty who teach writing intensive (WI) …

Curricular Assessment for Improved Sequenced Learning

Many students find sequenced courses to be challenging due to prerequisite knowledge being the starting point in each …

As the only institution of its kind in the world, the UHM Korean Language Flagship Center (KLFC) undergraduate program has been funded by the National Security Education Program since Fall 2008. The KLFC’s goal is to prepare American students to be capable of functioning in Korean as professionals in their chosen academic or professional fields. Flagship student performance is monitored and evaluated via various types of tests, which are administered on a regular basis throughout the program. The assessment tools that the KLFC BA program uses were developed externally and internally to measure students’ Korean language proficiency in four language skills. One of the assessment tools is an official ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) for speaking, provided by the College of LLL for all graduate BA language majors. Twenty-two Korean Flagship BA students from Spring 2011 to Fall 2013 have taken the official ACTFL OPI tests, and 21 out of 22 students’ speaking proficiency has improved over the two or three year period. We present these exit OPI results along with the entry OPI results to demonstrate the improvement in the student speaking proficiency. Furthermore, based on the exit scores, the Korean Flagship program has implemented changes for curricular improvement. This poster also displays curricular adjustment we have made, and the changes are expected to result in further improvement of our student speaking proficiency.

Korean Flagship BA Program Assessment Results & Curricular Improvement

As the only institution of its kind in the world, the UHM Korean Language Flagship Center (KLFC) undergraduate …

Kumu, Kuleana, Kaona: Assessing Multiple Viewpoints

The faculty of Hawaiian Studies (HWST) developed a blended assessment plan for our undergraduate program over the past …

Life Sciences Uniting in Assessing Student Writing

Student learning outcome (SLO) statements made by an educational program serve as targets for achievement and openly communicate …

Oral Communication for Language Teachers: Assessment Rubric Development

Scholarship on language teacher education emphasizes teaching language skills. Yet preservice language teachers must learn more than grammar …

Development of a Signature Assignment in Filipino Cultural Courses

This project presents a signature assignment for Indo-Pacific culture courses to assess the students’ cultural competency by discussing …

Capstone Signature Assignment Development in a History BA Program

The Department of History has been engaged in assessment work of our undergraduate major, identifying how we can …

Learning to Teach and Assess Problem Solving in Animal Sciences

Exploring curriculum assessment is an exciting but daunting activity, especially when you first dive in. Faculty are currently …

Fashion from Aloha Shirts

All Fashion Design & Merchandising courses were evaluated and analyzed by rubric for FDM program evaluation and assessment. …

Implementation of Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) at Postsecondary Mandarin Chinese Classes

This is an ongoing study on Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) implementation in postsecondary novice-level Mandarin Chinese classes. The …

Connecting Courses to Competency: Mapping the ATMO Curriculum

The Atmospheric Science BS program has strict requirements to meet the National Weather Service requirements for employment with …

Indigenous Social Sciences Curriculum: An Assessment of Undergraduate Programs in the College of Social Sciences

The College of Social Sciences offers 11 bachelor degrees and a wide range of undergraduate course offerings that …

Mapping Program Learning Outcomes for UNIV Exploratory Courses

The Mānoa Advising Center (MAC) began teaching their first major exploration course, UNIV 340, in Spring 2014. Since …

The undergraduate programs from two departments, Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences (TPSS) and Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences (PEPS), merged into a single, new program that began in Fall semester 2016. In this poster, the development of grading rubrics for the signature assignments associated with the various tracks of this new program, named Tropical Agriculture and the Environment (TAE), are presented. The signature assignments used were: (1) an internship; and/or (2) an internship plus a capstone course (PEPS 495). Rubric assessment, review, revision and subsequently approval by the TAE curriculum committee in November 2016 are outlined. Findings of the assessment project are provided including successful strategies using a top-down approach. Action plans and next steps are also described.

New Grading Rubrics for Signature Assignments: Tropical Agriculture and the Environment

The undergraduate programs from two departments, Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences (TPSS) and Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences …

Make Undergraduate Program Decisions Based on Evaluation of Individual Student Learning

In this workshop, participants will learn how to use individual student results for program-level assessment and decision making; …

Map Your Program Student Learning Outcomes to Institutional Learning Objectives

This workshop will help undergraduate programs complete the new question on the annual assessment report that asks them …

In 2018, the Communication program in the School of Communications conducted a program assessment of undergraduate senior capstone ePortfolios to evaluate the evidence of quality learning within the Communication major. The poster presents our assessment results and pre- and post- evaluation activities toward curriculum improvement.

Advancing Learning in the Communication BA through ePortfolios

In 2018, the Communication program in the School of Communications conducted a program assessment of undergraduate senior capstone …

Improving Oral Communication of Undergraduate Research Results

We demonstrate how faculty use efficient and effective assessment of learning to improve the written and oral communication …

This project was to increase the learning and the assessment capabilities in two core Child and Family courses.

Strengthening the Child and Family Specialization Curriculum through Developing Standard, Explicit, and Sustainable Assessments and Outcomes

This project was to increase the learning and the assessment capabilities in two core Child and Family courses. By …

Less than 75% of Biological Engineering students have been assessed as meeting student learning outcome targets in the identifying, formulating, and solving engineering problems. The program faculty have collaborated to adopt a developmental approach to assessment, rubric development, curriculum mapping, and instruction, including a signature assignment at the junior level.

Scaffolding and Assessing Engineering Design: Effecting Program Change from Course Innovations

Less than 75% of Biological Engineering students have been assessed as meeting student learning outcome targets in the …

Children in Hawaii experience the worst oral health outcomes nationally. Seven out of 10 third graders experience tooth decay, 7% need urgent dental care and 60% lack dental sealants. Limited pediatric didactic and clinical educational experiences for BS dental hygiene students affects attitudes towards treating pediatric patients. Curriculum changes should be considered in order to improve the comfort and skill level of future BS students in treating pediatric patients.

Pediatric Dental Care Curriculum Component Integrated in the Existing Dental Hygiene Program

Children in Hawaii experience the worst oral health outcomes nationally. Seven out of 10 third graders experience tooth …

For the BS in Animal Sciences supervisor evaluations from the capstone field experience provide a valuable external check on student achievement of learning objectives. A summary of five years of evaluations of ethical behavior and oral and written communication confirms student success.

Using Field Supervisor Evaluations for Assessment

For the BS in Animal Sciences supervisor evaluations from the capstone field experience provide a valuable external check …

This poster outlines the process through which faculty examined how the embedded assignments, field components, and signature assignment across a three-course sequence aligned. The course sequence of the three Learner in the Environment courses are outlined. Faculty utilized the federal funded Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEEDAR) Center tools to ensure that across the three courses students engaged in meaningful course and field assignments aligned with current research. Scoring criteria are provided along with initial and post-implementation ratings and a sample report. The courses were examined using the Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices, the Classroom Management, and the High Leverage Practices rubrics. Finally, from identified areas in need of additional clarity or additional coverage, this poster highlights how results from the report were utilized toward syllabi revision, which increased the number of elements addressed across the course sequence.

Course Series Alignment: Examining a Three Course Sequence

This poster outlines the process through which faculty examined how the embedded assignments, field components, and signature assignment …

Department of Mathematics Program Assessment via Exam

Department of Mathematics Program Assessment via Exam

Department of Mathematics Program Assessment via Exam by Heiner Dovermann

This poster shares results of a survey conducted in Summer 2016 to individuals eligible to participate in the Come Back to Mānoa program. In addition to an evaluation of the program itself, the results provide an overview of why seniors left UH Mānoa so close to finishing their degree and their reasons for returning. This poster adds to the extant research, which largely concentrates on first year and sophomore students, by bringing light to senior attrition and how to support those students to persist to degree (Hunt et al., 2012). Practical applications for utilizing the information obtained from the survey in order to help improve the Come Back to Mānoa program are discussed.

Assessing the Come Back to Manoa Program: Why Seniors Leave and How to Help them Graduate

This poster shares results of a survey conducted in Summer 2016 to individuals eligible to participate in the …

The poster will describe the process that the dietetics program faculty and staff underwent to develop a systematic and streamlined process for assessing student learning of 22 accreditation-required outcomes. The process includes collaborative curriculum mapping, assignment refinement, rubric development, and the establishment of an electronic professional portfolio system.

Streamlining student learning outcome assessment through ePortfolios in Dietetics Program

The poster will describe the process that the dietetics program faculty and staff underwent to develop a systematic …

Rubrics to Curriculum Map: Assessment Tools Inform ACM Curriculum Plans

Animation is one of the three degree tracks in ACM Department. It has 2 full-time faculty positions and …

Poster will outline new learning objectives for the Geography department as a result of a faculty discussion of the uniqueness of the discipline and the knowledge we want the students (majors) to take away from. Poster will then discuss methods of direct assessment of certain learning objectives that are included in the capstone course for majors.

Rethinking the Discipline and Student’s Learning Goal

Poster will outline new learning objectives for the Geography department as a result of a faculty discussion of …

The Department of Biology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa began collaborative program assessment in the fall of 2012. Previously, the Department of Biology had student learning outcomes, but they were not defined and implemented by the entire faculty. Following the generation of collaborative student learning outcomes for the undergraduate BS in Marine Biology, the faculty created a curriculum map and began program level assessment in spring 2014. This poster presents the BS Marine Biology learning outcomes, a curriculum map, successful strategies, and next steps following the assessment.

Collaborative Curricular Improvement Guided by Assessment

The Department of Biology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa began collaborative program assessment in the fall …

Assessment efforts at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa strive to help departments meet learning objectives the departments have set for themselves. As part of these efforts, departments have designed Program Learning Outcome (PLOs) for the departments as a whole, and individual faculty members have established Student Learning Outcome (SLOs) for the classes they teach; the SLOs are coordinated with the PLOs. Collecting data to assess how well the SLOs and PLOs are met has proven problematic though, in large part because the data collection effort is widely viewed as an additional workload increase for faculty, who are already stretched thin with research, teaching, administrative, and community service responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, many faculty are inclined to collect and provide small amounts of data. If the data are too meager, however, then an assessment that is both useful and fair is not possible. To deal with this, the Department of Geology and Geophysics is asking individual faculty members to provide a subset of data they regularly collect anyway as a normal part of the their grading procedures; in this sense no new data are required. In one-on-one meetings with the department’s assessment coordinator, instructors identify a suite of student responses (e.g., particular exam questions, particular laboratory assignments, parts of writing assignments, etc.) that would be appropriate and sufficiently comprehensive to assess how well the course is meeting its SLOs. The initial feedback has been that this approach is reasonable in terms of the time required and is perceived as fair.

A time-effective and fair way to collect assessment data

Assessment efforts at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa strive to help departments meet learning objectives the departments …

Undergraduate programs in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) are typically managed solely within a single department. For some programs, the numbers of graduating students each year are low and not considered viable. There is administrative and legislative pressure to dissolve small programs at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, including the agriculturally-focused BSc programs in Tropical Plants and Soil Sciences and Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences. The two departments within CTAHR that manage these programs conjoined to proactively revise their undergraduate programs. The outcome was a merged, redesigned program in agroecosystems having a common core, five areas of specialization and a focus on issues in the tropics. From the inception, developing an operable plan for program assessment was a priority. Consequently, even before selecting the program name, the program-level student learning outcomes (SLOs) were created to form the basis for program construction. A combined departmental meeting generated a curriculum map identifying how each of the core courses articulated with the SLOs, evaluated gaps and issues in the curriculum. Potential signature assignments were identified as indicators for assessment and templates for these were drafted. A number of opportunities and challenges arose throughout this process. Key to the successful creation of this program was encouraging faculty to think more broadly about the content of and rationale for what we teach and the anticipated knowledge and skills of graduating students.

An Interactive Approach to Curriculum Mapping

Undergraduate programs in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) are typically managed solely within a …

Basic program information: The Elementary Education Program (EEP) has about 30 instructional faculty and field supervisors who serve about 200 elementary teacher candidates every semester. The EEP offers undergraduate degrees in Elementary, Elementary and Special Education, Elementary and Early Childhood Education and certificates for teaching Multi-Lingual Learners. The EEP continuously uses assessment for formative and summative, and internal and external (national accreditation) purposes. Although we have established checks and balances to ensure that our graduates are prepared to be successful first year teachers, we are currently waiting for the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board (HTSB) and the Center for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to make policy decisions about requirements for recommendation for licensure. We are waiting for their decisions before we proceed in collecting some data, but we continue to measure our students’ professional dispositions and InTASC standards measured during their final student teaching semester. The purpose of the assessment project is to present our program’s curriculum mapping and its role in program assessment and improvement. Curriculum maps of two of the programs within EEP will be shared. The process of mapping the curriculum provided opportunities to communicate curricular content, processes, skills, and strategies taught in required courses that contribute to and build our students’ skills over the four semesters in our programs. We identified the points where essential concepts and skills were introduced, reviewed, and mastered (for summative assessment). Collection and monitoring of evidence of student growth and achievement helped the faculty monitor our own effectiveness in teaching.

Curriculum Mapping for Program Assessment and Improvement

The Elementary Education Program (EEP) has about 30 instructional faculty and field supervisors who serve about 200 elementary …

This poster exhibits the outcomes assessment practices of the BA in Second Language Studies program. While engaging in program assessment, the BA in SLS program has strived to develop an outcomes assessment process that is manageable and sustainable as well as meaningful and useful – a considerable challenge given the various pressures and constraints that many higher education programs are currently facing. This poster shows the process and instruments used for program-level outcomes assessment, the assessment results, and changes made to the program as a result of the outcomes assessment process. It also presents challenges encountered by the undergraduate committee during the outcomes assessment process and strategies employed by the committee to address those challenges.

Striving for Useful and Sustainable Outcomes Assessment

This poster exhibits the outcomes assessment practices of the BA in Second Language Studies program. While engaging in …

The Communication Department’s mission is to meet the challenges and opportunities of communication in the emerging technological, multicultural, and global context of the twenty-first century. We offer one of two undergraduate programs in the School of Communications (College of Social Sciences), serving approximately 200 active Communication Department undergraduates, with an average of 80 graduates per year. Our program offers three area tracks with senior capstones. In each of these capstones, students create an e-portfolio that is used for program assessment. This poster reports the process and results of the Communication Department’s 2013 BA assessment. A panel of faculty and Advisory Board members assessed all the e-portfolios in the Communication in Communities track (n=40). A rubric with measurable items associated with our seven SLOs was employed. We present a summary report demonstrating the percentage of graduates at each level of the rubric (unacceptable, marginal, proficient, or exemplary) and report the total percentage meeting our benchmark for each SLO. We describe how the results of our annual assessment were shared with Communication faculty, and we outline the changes we have begun to implement that we anticipate will have the greatest impact on curricular improvement

Communication BA Curriculum Assessment Using e-Portfolios

The Communication Department’s mission is to meet the challenges and opportunities of communication in the emerging technological, multicultural, …

The Communication Department’s undergraduate curriculum is currently guided by seven SLOs (Student Learning Outcomes), which are demonstrable skills or abilities that students are expected to possess before the conferral of a bachelor's degree. We, with our poster presentation, propose an additional SLO in civic engagement. Civic engagement has not been a formally assessed part of the department's curriculum in the past, but a recent internal evaluation has revealed it to be an important aspect of our faculty's teaching. A department-wide curriculum change to formally include this area would, therefore, pose no undo imposition on faculty independence. The students, more importantly, would benefit from new competencies and gain an awareness of issues of public concern that are essential to sound democratic governance. The SLO framework, by design, promotes effective learning through the application of a cohesive curriculum. Put simply, each class serves to advance a common educational aim or aims. Our proposed SLO—and its accompanying curriculum map—functions no differently. The assessment of student portfolios was directed by a rubric endorsed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, but other assessment tools may be used in its place. In addition to advocating an official position on the teaching of civic engagement, our poster project is intended to foster faculty discussion on enhancing the Communication Department's curriculum.

Encouraging Civic Engagement Among Undergraduates

The Communication Department’s undergraduate curriculum is currently guided by seven SLOs (Student Learning Outcomes), which are demonstrable skills …

Access to College Excellence (ACE) at UHM provides a series of first year programs that serve approximately 25% of incoming freshmen a year. A major ACE program is Learning Communities, in which ACE staff helps students to register a collection of courses in a cluster (e.g., general education, pre-business) and an Access to College Community freshman seminar course: CAS 110. All the students who registered for the courses in one cluster form a cohort—a learning community. CAS 110 enhances the community by helping students reaching the following learning outcomes: (1) building effective study and time management skills; (2) setting goals for success; (3) learning about the academic resources available; (4) learning core and major graduation requirements at UHM. This poster introduces the ACE learning communities and how it assesses the outcomes by using a pre- and post-survey method. The poster will present quantitative results from the closed-ended questions and qualitative results from the open-ended questions. The presenter will also present the impact of ACE Learning Communities by comparing the retention rates between the participants and non-participants, and between the less-engaged and more-engaged participants.

Assessment of ACE Learning Communities 2013

Access to College Excellence (ACE) at UHM provides a series of first year programs that serve approximately 25% …

Swine Production is a senior capstone course in which students integrate concepts learned in courses such as nutrition, genetics and reproduction and apply them to practical swine production. Most animal science students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa are urban students interested in veterinary medicine, and little knowledge of or interest in swine production. The department learning objectives include applying principles to livestock production, but having students engage in learning the course material is a challenge. The extension specialist teaching the course tried a new approach in fall, 2013, integrating instruction and extension. Instead of traditional classroom instruction and written reports, teams of three students were sent out to work with a cooperating farmer. The teams described their farm using a list of required information on general farm description, breeding program, feeding program, housing, waste management, health program, production management and economics. The farms were carefully selected to represent different management approaches including varying use of local food waste and agricultural byproducts in the swine rations and different types of housing and waste management. The teams presented the results of farm visits and farmer interviews in class presentations and written reports, which were revised before being submitted in final form to both the instructor and the farmer. The course was designated as developing both oral and written communication skills. Course evaluations indicated that 78% of the students felt that the farm visits and interactions with the farmers were the most valuable part of the course, and 44% mentioned hands-on laboratories (artificial insemination and baby pig processing), while others mentioned constructive feedback, small class size, having to think, oral presentations, and writing. Student journals indicated a strong rapport with and a very positive view of the farmers and farm practices. The farmers changed some of their practices based on student recommendations, most notably adjusting feeding according to condition score. Student grades were assigned using posted rubrics and were equal to or better than in previous years in a more traditional learning environment. The new structure had some challenges. Since this was the first time the course was taught using student engagement with producers, students were informed that some adjustment to assignments and grading rubrics might be made part way through the class and this in fact needed to be done. One example was development of a tool in which the relative contributions of the team members to the group reports were evaluated by all members of each team. Additionally, students were required to sign liability waivers and confidentiality agreements. Students had to use their own cars and to find times when all team members were available for farm visits. Students indicated that the amount of work justified 4 rather than 3 credits for the course.

Integrating Teaching and Extension: Swine Production

Swine Production is a senior capstone course in which students integrate concepts learned in courses such as nutrition, …