Under Construction
Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) – Fa 2013 – present
This has been such a rich learning project with many wonderful faculty partners! What a rewarding series of explorations using ELLI. The highlights of each project are below, followed by lessons learned.
- Summer training on using ELLI – This series of SoTL projects began with a wonderful multi-campus summer training on using ELLI in 2013.
- ELLI in a paired course model – The first integrated project took place in Fall 2013 – the goal being to help first-year students strengthen their lifelong learning skills and to measure whether this could impact their academic success. The project integrated ELLI into a paired course model with Dr. Jorge Santiago-Blay’s environmental science course and my college reading course. Details of the project are found in this blog post and in our published paper .
- ELLI in a human development course on personal development – In Spring 2014, Dr. Sukhdeep Gill and I worked together to embed ELLI into her HDFS course on coping and personal development. She looked at the use of mindfulness and other reflective techniques as a means towards personal understanding and growth. ELLI scores proved to be sensitive to this work as well, showing statistically significant gains across the dimensions of lifelong learning. A manuscript is in preparation now to describe the project and results.
- ELLI in a coping with college course – Dr. Cora Dzubak and LeighAnn Myers offer this course every summer the week before classes begin. In summer of 2015, they incorporated ELLI pre- and post-surveys for 75 students in three sections who received instruction in college success techniques. Once again, ELLI scores showed statistically significant gains from start to finish in the course.
- ELLI benchmark project – 148 first-year students took ELLI in the fall of 2015 to provide benchmark data for the campus about lifelong learning qualities of our incoming class. This is an on-going project which I hope to grow into a longitudinal study, so that eventually we can also get the scores of our seniors to see any growth over time.
- ELLI in a first-year composition course – Dr. Tara Moore incorporated ELLI into two sections of her English composition course in Fall 2015 with excellent results. She gathered evidence from student writing as well as ELLI pre- and post-semester scores. Together, we have a manuscript in preparation now to share the results.
- ELLI in a college reading course – four semesters’ worth of ELLI data have been collected since Fall 2013. Every semester, students make statistically significant gains, yet Resilience scores continue to remain low. This is the project I will tackle in fall 2016 – to get those resilience scores to BUDGE
- ELLI project control group – over the course of several semesters, I’ve been trying to build up a control group for comparisons. Students who received no direct instruction in lifelong learning took ELLI pre-and post semester in courses such as environmental science, English composition, and college algebra. In every case, students made no statistically significant gains in any of the ELLI dimensions.
What have we learned? Direct instruction matters! Every class where students had the opportunity to study lifelong learning, reflect upon it, and apply it to their lives, they made meaningful gains. Courses that teach other personal and college success strategies – that have a self-reflective component – also show meaningful gains in the lifelong learning dimensions. Finally, we might hope that students become lifelong learners by virtue of their college experiences, but this may not necessarily be the case. Resilience is a tough nut to crack!! This is our next project!
Fast Friends (SP 2015)
Faculty Satisfaction Survey (Fall 2015)
Social-Emotional Learning projects (AY 2015 – 16 to present)
SP 2015 Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) projects abound these days! I created an infographic to summarize the projects and findings.
