More info on this study: Initial Literature Review | Preliminary Results
Attracting and retaining a high-caliber, diverse population of students is one of the ongoing challenges faced by Champlain and its peer institutions, particularly in a post-COVID world in which students and parents are all too aware that online education is, in many cases, a viable alternative to an expensive residential campus experience. I believe one way to enhance the desirability of the in-person, residential campus experience is to enhance our efforts to provide the one thing that online education cannot replicate: a close, personal learning community.
This is where small group teaching (defined as groups of seven or fewer students) could come in. The purpose of this study is not to consider small-group teaching as a replacement for the current teaching format used in Core courses, but as an alternative for those faculty and students who would like to teach/take some of their courses in this format. (This is similar to the tutorial program at Williams College, in which tutorials are offered alongside courses in more typical seminar or lecture formats. Some students take tutorial courses frequently, while others may never take one at all - it is their choice.)
Small-group and tutorial learning is a valued and beloved feature of the curriculum in some of the oldest and most respected British universities, and has been replicated by a handful of American colleges and universities as well. However, the number of American institutions that have adopted the tutorial format is very small and very elite; thus, Champlain has an opportunity to distinguish itself from its peer institutions in the higher education marketplace by offering a small-group learning format.
I believe that this format has the potential to:
Offer faculty an effective new format for teaching students critical thinking;
Boost Champlain’s Diversity and Inclusion efforts by providing individualized attention and support to students who have one or more “risk factors” that make them more likely to drop out during or after the first year;
Enhance Champlain’s appeal to international students who need extra language assistance;
Raise Champlain's academic profile and set the college apart from its competitors in attracting high-achieving students in search of a challenge.
Ironically, although the purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of small-group teaching as a means, ultimately, to attract students looking for a distinctive in-person experience and to help our students attain our college competencies, this pilot study was made possible by the widespread adoption of flex-hybrid teaching. The past year has opened up new and more flexible ways of thinking about "contact hours" (i.e. we now all understand that instructor-directed asynchronous activities like discussion forums can be considered "contact hours"), which will make it possible for small-group teaching to be more widely implemented without causing undue workload for faculty.
The faculty in this study were free to choose the format in which they offered small group instructions - the only requirement was that small-group instruction needed to be a "regular feature" of the course. Some faculty started the semester with full-class meetings and then split into smaller groups; some alternated one large-group and one small-group meeting each week; others had one small-group synchronous meeting and one asynchronous discussion forum.
Likewise, the content of small-group meetings varied. Some instructors used them for discussion, others for group or project work.
The goal of the study is to assess the efficacy of small-group teaching by evaluating class sections that utilize small-group instruction on the basis of engagement, retention, and learning metrics and comparing them to similar sections that do not utilize small-group teaching as a method of instruction.
Instructors participating in the study agreed to:
Utilize small-group instruction (defined as groups of six or fewer students) as a “regular and frequent” feature of the course (defined as small-group meetings happening roughly at least once a week).
Provide a copy of the course syllabus (to pair course sections with control sections with similar policies).
Take Roll Call attendance (this is good to do anyway for student well-being reasons). There is no requirement to have any particular policy regarding attendance - it just needs to be recorded regularly.
Facilitate student participation in a focus group and/or filling out written surveys about their experiences. The focus group can, if desired, serve as a kind of “spring break substitute” for you and your students at mid-semester.
Include extra questions on the IDEA form if requested.
Do a count of camera use for a couple of classes, if requested.
Make sure the common/culminating assignment for the course is collected in Canvas.
Allow me to interview you once or twice about your experiences as an instructor of a small-group-format course section.
Allow/facilitate the recording of one class session in the early weeks of the semester and one class session in the final weeks of class. Content in the recordings will be coded to indicate collaboration. (This is pending whether Champlain’s IRB would allow this to be done under “exempt” status - if not, we will not be able to do this as part of this pilot.)
While the metrics are still being finalized/vetted, I anticipate collecting data and using metrics like the following:
Engagement
# Canvas views by student/time period
% assignments completed/completed on time
The best control pairs for this will have identical late policies
Attendance
The best control pairs for this will have identical attendance policies
Survey of student engagement (ideally)
Still trying to figure out if/how we can correlate survey results with class sections
Perhaps a count of camera use at some point (just one or two classes, not the whole semester)…still TBD
Perhaps a student focus group mid- to late-semester
Retention
Student indications of intention to return in the fall
Withdrawals from the course during the semester for academic or mental health reasons (i.e. whatever’s not COVID)
Course final grade
Yes, of course an imperfect metric at best, but still worth tracking
IDEA Eval scores
It’s not quite clear what the questions on the spring IDEA form will be.
We may add a couple of extra questions to assess particular elements of the course
Competencies
In May, evaluate high-stakes papers (i.e. common or culminating assignment) from the tutorial courses and similar control courses for:
The primary competencies for the course, whatever those are
Inquiry
Analysis
Integration
Communication
Collaboration
In addition to looking for evidence of communication and collaboration in student assignments, we may also evaluate it on the basis of recorded and coded class sessions and if that is not possible, then we’ll ask students to complete surveys