Lessons from Lessons Learned

Even as FIPSE strives to bring about reform in postsecondary education, its own fund of knowledge and experience is constantly shaped and enhanced by the projects it supports.

A volume such as this one, which summarizes some of the best projects that we have funded in recent years, is as rich in lessons for FIPSE as we hope it will be for the field. It may be useful by way of introduction to identify some of these lessons. Some of them we at FIPSE have long known to be true. Others are as surprising to us as they were to the projects' creators. All will, we hope, prove helpful and encouraging to those who care about education.

When first conceiving a project, it is prudent to investigate first-hand the causes of the problem to be addressed. For example, the high college attrition of General Educational Development (GED) certificate holders is commonly attributed to the same lack of motivation that kept them from finishing high school. The director of the Mary Baldwin College project (p. 9), however, concluded after his own research that academic rather than motivational deficiencies caused GED holders to drop out of college. The rigorous program that he designed for inmates of a women's prison resulted in unprecedented levels of achievement and retention.

This project and the University of Virginia's Core Knowledge Foundation reconfirm the findings of many FIPSE projects--that ill-prepared or poorly-performing students learn best if they are provided solid academic content in an atmosphere of high expectations. For some students, however, the academic program needs to be buttressed with personal and financial assistance, as shown by Western Washington University's Law and Diversity Program and Prescott College's Center for Indian Bilingual Teacher Education. This assistance works especially well when it takes into account the needs of the particular group. California State University, Fresno's project on academic literacy skills, for example, includes information on academic culture in addition to language, because many of its students are the first in their families to attend college.

This volume abounds in lessons for international projects. In efforts that involve study abroad and collaboration with other institutions, simple is better. As the University of Connecticut's EuroTech, San Diego State University's MEXUS Program, and the University of Michigan's Business Assistance Corps demonstrate, the administrative complexities of such projects can become overwhelming. Getting students to go abroad and stay there long enough to profit from the experience poses significant problems. Projects such as EuroTech, where the stay abroad is built into the curriculum and is not likely to delay graduation, have the best chance of success.

The primacy of the faculty's role in educational reform is obvious to anyone reading these pages, as is the need to recognize and honor this role. Projects large and small--from the College of William and Mary's efforts to reform its advising system to the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education's establishment of performance funding across state institutions--succeeded in great part because of the amount and quality of attention they paid to faculty.

Even the best-designed projects, however, occasionally run into faculty resistance. The American Association for Higher Education's Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards reported greater openness to reforms on the part of administrators than on the part of the very faculty who were supposed to benefit from them. No matter how outstanding the innovation or how carefully it is introduced, resistance often crops up. California State University, Fresno, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, the Dickinson College Cluster, Cleveland State University--all these highly successful projects encountered some measure of resistance. The lesson for those contemplating a substantial innovation is to expect faculty skepticism, accept it as evidence of intellectual liveliness, and get on with the reform.

This volume of Lessons Learned, as did the three that preceded it, contains its share of surprises. Sometimes students reacted unexpectedly to well-intentioned efforts to help them--some refused to be mentored; others felt that faculty should be less lenient. An impeccably designed evaluation of a highly regarded faculty development method could not show that the method resulted in improved performance on the part of the students of participating faculty (Seton Hall University). Evaluation of technology proved especially problematic. The staff of Tufts University's software evaluation project found it difficult to pinpoint how technology affects student learning. Projects using technology and discovery learning highlighted the differences between students who want to explore a subject for its own sake and those who want to get through the material as quickly as possible (see Tufts University's Perseus project and the Dickinson College Cluster).

At California State University, Fresno, on tests of academic language proficiency native English speakers performed no better than students with limited knowledge of English. And staff of California State University, Los Angeles's Project LEAP found that language-enhanced courses intended for non-English speakers benefited their English-speaking peers as well. Some reforms, such as Clemson University's Cooperative Chemistry Laboratories and Diablo Valley College's interdisciplinary physics and calculus curriculum, which were designed for a general student population, unexpectedly resulted in better learning and retention on the part of minorities and women.

All this strongly points to the conclusion that good teaching helps all students. But it is crucial to keep in mind that even projects with unassailable evidence of success can founder on the shoals of fiscal realities. Initiatives involving interdisciplinary teaching, extensive faculty-student contact, innovative uses of technology and other hallmarks of teaching excellence are often expensive. Although a tiny minority, some of this volume's most illustrious entries did not continue because of lack of funds.

Fortunately, these are the exception. Following in FIPSE's almost 30-year tradition, the great majority of the projects featured here were remarkably successful in generating additional funding from both institutional and external sources after the FIPSE grant expired.

Despite a few anomalies, the lessons gleaned from the projects described below are encouragingly familiar: that holding students to high standards works, that passionate, creative teaching is crucial, that difficulties will arise and can be surmounted, that excellent work eventually brings recognition and reward. As good educators know, the wheel of innovation eventually returns to confirm the wisdom of the ages. FIPSE is proud of its role in that cycle.

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