Expanded Contexts for Liberal Arts Learning
A project of the Study Abroad Learning and Cost Alliance
Excerpts from the Project Proposal
Project Two, ACM/Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts: Expanded Contexts for Liberal Arts Learning
Any project that seeks to gauge the impact of curriculum, pedagogy, or environmental factors on student learning must consider the application of its findings in a variety of different contexts. Two such contexts will be investigated in this project.
First, what implications for program design might follow from assessing liberal arts learning with the LSA? Can programs be effectively redesigned to increase liberal arts learning?
Second, to what extent do the findings from our Learning from Study Abroad (LSA) instrument correspond to insights from other research projects that seek to gauge the relationship between characteristics of a campus learning environment and the attainment of liberal arts learning outcomes?
The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) and the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College (CILA) are special partners and will provide exactly these kinds of contextual enhancements to our Study Abroad Learning and Cost Alliance. In the Expanded Contexts for Liberal Arts Learning Project the ACM and CILA will collaborate to explore the impact of study-away experiences on a broader set of liberal arts outcomes and then apply the results from this inquiry directly to strengthening the ACM study-away programs.
In the context of program redesign, the ACM, as a consortial provider of over a dozen off-campus programs of study, offers a rich laboratory for studying the impact of these experiences. All students who enroll in ACM’s consortial programs will take the LSA through the Internet application developed in Project 1 before their participation and after completing the program. The findings from the LSA will provide ACM with a greater understanding of the relationship between the elements of off-campus study and the learning outcomes we can ascribe to them, and this will provide a sound basis for making improvements to its programs during the course of this project. The ACM is in a position to make such program changes more expeditiously than some individual campuses may be able to do; as such, ACM’s participation makes possible a degree of systematic experimentation with program design on a scale that would be difficult to achieve with individual colleges and universities.
Working with The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College, ACM will enhance its understanding of off-campus study further by looking at the results from the LSA in a broader context of research into effective practices for liberal arts learning and the moral and intellectual growth of students through the college experience. Students who have participated in the Wabash National Study project will also be invited to take the LSA survey before and after a study abroad experience. This provides a control group for the LSA study and creates the opportunity to consider LSA results in the larger context of liberal arts learning that students demonstrate from their participation in the National Study of Liberal Arts Education. The research activities and resources of the Center will strengthen the foundations and enhance the potential range of insights derived from our Learning from Study Abroad project.
Study Abroad Learning and Cost Alliance