MINUTES - MEETING OF NOVEMBER 3, 2005
NPIC - New Programs and Innovations Committee
Present: Debbie Weiss (Chair), Adam Abugri (Co-Chair), Nancy Bobrek, Recorder, Tom Fleming, Joe Goralski, Betty Horn, Doris Marino, Rachael Vaters-Carr.
Debbie Weiss, NPIC Chair, called the meeting to order at 9:35.There were three items on the agenda:
- Approval of the Minutes of the meeting of October 20th.
- Notification of New Special Topics Courses.
- Discussion of the document "Standards for Undergraduate Curriculum Proposals."
Announcements - The following procedure will be followed for logging special topics requests:
- UCF administrative assistant will check the applications received by UCF for Special Topics courses to insure that they are completed correctly and signed, forwarding them to NPIC when this is done.
- The NPIC Committee will approve the applications for logging and the NPIC Chair, will sign the applications.
- The courses will be logged into the Special Topics Database and applications will be stamped.
- Logged applications will be returned to the UCF administrative assistant who will officially notify the departments of approval.
Approval of the Minutes of the October 20, 2005 meeting.
A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of the meeting of October 20, 2005. Minutes were approved unanimously.
Notification of New Special Topics Courses - Two new Special Topics Courses were presented and logged:
HIS 298 Popular Culture in China
PSY 298 Special Topics in Psychology
HIS 298 - Popular Culture in China represented a name change from the course title originally submitted by the department, which had also been submitted on an old form. On the new form, Popular Culture in China is the official title of the course. Rachael Vaters-Carr made a motion that the two courses presented be logged. The motion was seconded by Adam Abugri. The vote was unanimous.
Discussion of the "Standards for Undergraduate Curriculum Proposals Draft."
Debbie Weiss began the discussion by reviewing some of the reservations that have previously been raised with respect to the document. She also passed out a copy of "Bloom's Taxonomy" to the members.
It was suggested that the committee begin by discussing the proposed document in a general way, prior to examining it section-by-section. Several members of the committee raised concerns about the "universal appeal" of the document, due largely to the fact that evaluation and learning outcomes are approached very differently by different disciplines. It was also noted that programs should dictate what courses are approved, and that perhaps we should build from the top down, beginning with the program level, instead of from the bottom up. Lastly, a question was raised regarding the student credits for laboratory and studio courses, as discussed on p.6. It was noted that 4 credit hours are the norm for a course in the sciences. This statement needs clarification in order to meet the diverse needs of different programs across the curriculum.
Other more specific concerns raised by the members were concentrated in four major categories: A. Schedule of major topics, B. Learning outcomes and objectives, C. Course evaluation methods, D. Bibliography requirements. Comments and suggestions follow:
Schedule of Major Topics
Could some departments do a better job of keeping an on-going file of syllabi that are developed? In some cases, this might expedite the creation of new courses. It was suggested that this would probably be an initiative for the DCC.
Strike the last sentence in parentheses on p. 7 under "Schedule of Major Topics."
Learning Outcomes
It was suggested that the learning outcomes should be set by the Departmental Curriculum Committees who are much more familiar
with the nature of the discipline. Would it be possible for each DCC to have a few sample documents for their programs that new course
developers could use to provide guidelines?
It was recommended that there be a sequence in this process, and a
place to note how this new course will contribute to the program objectives
statement. There was a consensus that the curricular framework is very important.
Course Evaluation Methods
As worded, this document does not adequately represent the fact that methods of evaluation are very diverse and appropriate to a discipline. For instance, in the studio courses the use of written assignments, mid-terms and finals is not standard practice.
Evaluation methods that are too specific may limit the creativity of the instructor. There is a concern that "other equivalent examination modalities" should not be
construed to be outside of "standard practice." Find a better way to express the key concept that the evaluation method employed be "appropriate to the learning outcomes for the discipline."
Bibliography Requirement
Requirements for the bibliography should be more general and both the lower and upper numbers specifying the required number of titles should be removed.
It was suggested that the citation format (MLA, APA, etc.) should also be removed in the final sentence, since it has already been stated that
"bibliographies should be formatted in a manner consistent with the field of study."
Adam Abugri made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:50. The motion was seconded by Joe Goralski.
Respectfully submitted,
Nancy J. Bobrek, Recorder
