Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: 
Professional/Faculty Development to Introduce and Support Active Use of the Classic Seven Principles with New Technologies, New Pedagogies

A TLT Group Online Workshop

Tuesdays March 27, April 3 and April 10, 2007 at 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Led by Steve Gilbert, Steve Ehrmann, and Lisa Star, The  TLT Group

Workshop Resources

The Basics 

• Original 7 Principles Article (1986):   
  "The Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" by Chickering & Gamson

• Chickering & Ehrmann Article (1996): 
  "Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever"

• TLT Group "Seven Principles" Home Page

Ideas for using technology to advance the seven principles

• TLT Group library of hundreds of ideas

  • Public version of the library

  • Subscriber-only version of the library (click here to see list of TLT Group subscriber institutions).  If you're looking for an idea for how to use technology for a particular principle, or pedagogical problem, let us know!

• Teaching ideas for implementing principle 7, submitted by workshop participants

TLT Group Strategies for faculty development around the seven principles

• Presentation University exercise for faculty workshop. See if faculty are already thinking in terms of the seven principles, even if they've never heard of them. (ordinarily subscriber-only but available for the next few weeks for participants in this workshop. Copy for your own use, if you like.)

• Using a (Flashlight Online) survey to gather 7 principles LTAs from individuals, and then using e-mail to send a series of them to all interested faculty.

• The 8th Principle:  Useful thought experiment and discussion activity.  What could be added as the 8th principle to make the complete list more applicable to current experience and values at your own institution?

• Other Useful Discussion Questions about the Seven Principles

Redesigning a course around the seven principles (blended/hybrid courses) by shifting much of the presentation to homework (online presentations, quizzes, discussion) in order to free course time for more interaction, active learning, coaching, collaboration, etc.

• Ideas for course redesign that emphasize the seven principles (from Center for Academic Transformation)

• Using formative evaluation to 'debug' and improve hybrid courses (from Flashlight Evaluation Handbook)

The seven principles when used for program evaluation/assessment.  Based in part on the assumption that a program that does a better job of implementing the seven principles will be more effective (better learning outcomes, better retention) than programs with comparable goals but lower levels of the seven principles.

• National Survey of Student Engagement and related surveys.  Many of the items in this benchmarking program are derived from the seven principles. This program has developed an impressive, useful body of data and studies.

• Flashlight Online. This web-based survey system includes access to almost 500 validated items in the Flashlight Current Student Inventory, many of which deal with the seven principles and uses of technology for those purposes.

• Uses of the seven principles for accreditation self-studies. 

Other ideas for improving teaching, incrementally

• General Intro to LTAs
  Low-Threshold Applications/Activities

• Angelo & Cross Book- Classroom Assessment Techniques

• Resources from FridayLive! Session 1/26/2007
  about Creating, Sharing Seven Principles Libraries/Collections

• TLT Group's Exploration Guide for Educational Uses of Blogs, Wikis, RSS Feeds, etc.
  Wiki, Wikipedia

• TLT Group's Resources from FridayLive!  3/09/2007
  Educational uses of Google Docs & Spreadsheets

• Personalizing Pedagogy
  Important differences in ways of being effective teachers.

• Requests for specific info, resources
  Made during online session 3/27/2007

 Leader/Presenters
Resources for TLT Group's Online Synchronous Sessions    5-Minute Workshops (General)

Recorded Archives of the Sessions

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Back to top of page

Steve Ehrmann TLT Group, Inc. ehrmann@tltgroup.org	Steve Gilbert TLT Group, Inc. gilbert@tltgroup.org	Lisa Star TLT Group, Inc. star@tltgroup.org

 

Back to top of page

Back to top of page

Workshop Goals

• Introduce Classic Seven Principles (Chickering & Gamson) and how they can usefully guide applications of information technology (Ehrmann & Chickering).  Discuss why the Seven Principles are still so deeply respected by the few who know of them and why so many others in higher education know so little about them!  Offer vehicles for introducing the Seven Principles effectively NOW in ways likely to encourage more widespread understanding of them and active use of them. 

• Introduce collections of instructional resources organized to support and advance each of the specific principles (e.g., TLT Group's "library")  TLT Group's library of brief teaching ideas, sorted by Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles of Good Practice. How to use the Collection. How to add to it (or create your own). How to help faculty find and use these ideas  

• Examine conditions, situations where the Seven Principles apply best, can be especially useful  

• Examine conditions, situations where the Seven Principles apply least, are unlikely to be useful  

• Encourage participants to seriously consider a strategy to harvest and rebroadcast such LTAs and/or to systematically publicize our collection to local faculty.

Back to top of page

Consider the "8th Principle"
This is really a "thought experiment."  We acknowledge the solid base of research and practice that produced and confirmed the value of the Seven Principles.  We do not propose to extend them in this workshop.  However, we encourage thought and discussion about what might usefully be added.   If anyone accumulates a variety of these "8th Principles" as a result, the compilation could offer a useful perspective.
Optional:  Click here for a VERY simple form to use for this activity.

Please think about and discuss: 

• Most Important?
  Which of the Seven Principles is most important to you?   Why?

• Add an 8th Principle?  Which one?   Why?
  What, if anything, do we need to add to make the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education:

  • More applicable to the conditions and situations most relevant for your institution?  

  • More helpful to you and your colleagues?  

  • More applicable to your own experience and values?

• Caring? - Example of 8th Principle?
  In what ways is “caring” already part of the Seven Principles?
  Should "caring" be more explicitly and prominently included?
  Consider faculty caring about students; faculty caring about ideas and knowledge; faculty caring about their colleagues; as well as students caring about faculty; students caring about ideas and knowledge; students caring about each other…. Academic support professionals caring enough, but not too much about helping faculty improve their teaching and their students’ learning!

• Reflective Thinking about Learning?  - Example of 8th Principle?
  In what ways is “reflective thinking about learning” already part of the Seven Principles?
  Should "reflective thinking about learning" be more explicitly and prominently included?
  Doug Eder, Arizona State University: "...e-learning provides a special, if not unique, opportunity for students to reflect on what they have learned and how they learned it. The asynchronous nature of e-courses provides this special opportunity and, coincidentally, I do not see provision for reflective thinking displayed in the original Seven Principles." e-mail message to Steve Gilbert et al. 4/5/2007
   

Back to top of page

Other Useful Discussion Questions

Ø       Being Elevated by the Seven Principles? Can anyone take the Seven Principles seriously WITHOUT being led toward larger issues?  How do any of these Seven Principles connect to other, larger issues?  

Ø       Historical Context? How were the Seven Principles, developed in the 1980s/1990s) shaped by their historical context?  How have conditions changed so that the Seven Principles need to be revised?  How do they still apply?  

Ø       Research Supporting Seven Principles?  What kinds of research supported the identification of these seven principles? Is there any one place to go to see the citations of the research behind each of the seven principles? 

Ø       Challenge:  Awareness, Use?  Why do so few people in higher education seem to have heard of these Seven Principles?  To what extent were these principles accepted?  Embraced?  Implemented?  Is their work done?   Is there anything that has superseded the Seven Principles?     

Ø      Connecting Seven Principles with…? To what extent are the Seven Principles useful not only in your work with courses in higher education, but also within other activities on campus?  Off campus?  In what ways do the Seven Principles relate to Service Learning?  

Back to top of page

One Columbia Avenue,
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Phone: 301.270.8312/Fax: 301.270.8110  

To talk about our work
or our organization
contact:  Sally Gilbert