Project Details:
Best practices in the use of learning outcomes in chemistry education
| Project No.: | 2011-003-3-050 |
| Start date: | 2012-06-01 |
| End date: | 0000-00-00 |
| Division: | Committee on Chemistry Education |
Objective:
Learning outcome driven chemistry education is increasingly practiced, providing new opportunities for international comparisons. We will develop a method for benchmarking (i.e. learning by sharing and comparing best practice) these outcomes, to enhance learner-centered chemistry education both in the developed and developing world. The project builds on and extends task group members’ experiences from national and international projects.
Description:
The interest in intended learning outcomes and constructive alignment has grown in many parts of the world due to both research in higher education (see e. g. Biggs, J.B. & Tang, C.S. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: what the student does.) and political decisions (e. g. the Bologna process).
Guiding chemistry education for the future requires the exchange of perspectives on core knowledge, skills and competencies. We will evaluate how learning outcomes for courses and modules are linked to each other and to learning outcomes for educational programs and how the expected learning outcomes can be aligned with learning activities and assessment.
2012: Collect information from and compare tuning, evaluation and benchmarking projects in the regions represented by the task group members (Europe, North America and Australia).
2012: In a meeting before the ICCE conference in Italy, the comparisons will be discussed and used to develop guidelines for self-evaluation which will focus on local learning outcomes for chemistry education including courses/modules, compared with national and/or international descriptors and with attention to alignment with learning activities and assessment. During the conference an open workshop will be given, with exchange ideas for quality enhancement of learning outcomes. Participants from different countries will give insights in applicability both in developed and developing countries. At a meeting after the conference we will decide on the final form for the self-evaluation.
2012-2013: All task group members write the self-evaluation together with universities that they select for a pilot study.
2013: At a workshop at the GA in Turkey, the self-evaluations will be compared and the task group members will exchange feedback. Other GA-members will also be invited to give feedback and learn from the experience. A full electronic report and manual for the benchmarking procedure will be produced, including a collection of examples of good/best practice for dissemination.
We will make use of the international framework and multicultural competence of CCE to successfully create a benchmarking method and criteria applicable to chemistry education all over the world.
We expect that the method can be spread both to developed and developing countries by all task group members, who first participated in the benchmarking process, or by activities within the Flying Chemist program.
Progress:
last update 21 Mar 2013