Role of a Foundations Course
The common denominator in the foundations course experience is the intent to provide the basis for a much broader experience, be it transition from high school to college, exploration of campus resources, or familiarity with college-wide programs. In addition to these, there may be campus-specific needs to initiate or redesign a foundations course. These can originate from external as well as internal conditions. External conditions include changes in accreditation requirements or input from advisory boards. Internal conditions include faculty concerns about millennium students and their prepared-ness for college, the need to introduce technology tools that are widely used within an academic unit, or the belief that a well-conceived orientation program will foster greater student satisfaction and retention within a particular program.
Like many business colleges in the mid 1990s, the College of Business at Illinois State University was forced to change its curriculum due to a change in accreditation criteria. While a foundations course was not specifically required, we implemented one to facilitate our students’ enculturation into the college; to aid in their development of a career focus; and to augment the development of skills in critical thinking, library research, and team building. We were less concerned with students mastering specific topics than with their personal development and orientation to business. We wanted students to become familiar with business faculty and student organizations. In short, we wanted freshmen to identify with the college and what it had to offer.
Due to political and accreditation constraints, a two-credit course was developed. Our Business 100 course was offered in addition to a three-credit Foundations of Inquiry (FOI) course all university freshmen were required to take during their first semester. The FOI course provided an orientation to campus life and focused on the development of library skills and critical thinking; all classes contained a mix of majors. Since the FOI course was required of all university freshmen, the business foundations course was targeted for business students in their second semester.
Scoping a Foundations Course
Many questions need to be addressed before designing a foundations course: Should the foundations course be one-credit or three? Should it be required or optional? Is it best conceived as a disciplinary or a multi-disciplinary experience? Should it be taught by tenure-track faculty or adjunct faculty? Should the faculty team remain the same over time or should faculty rotate through the program? How great a role will technology play in the course? Are sufficient resources available and sustainable?
Depending on the discipline, senior faculty may have little or no experience teaching freshmen. For example, freshmen are a totally new experience for most business professors who historically teach juniors and above. There is a temptation to teach the foundations course in larger sections for economic reasons, but such an approach may be counterproductive to the overall philosophy of the course. Conversely, smaller classes of 30-40 students mean more sections and more tradeoffs assigning senior faculty to freshmen instead of upper-division classes as well as a greater need to assure consistent student experience across sections.
Every credit required for a foundations course takes away a credit that can be used elsewhere: a major course, an elective, a project course, or even an internship. Faculty members and administrators must agree and support the positioning of the course early in the process. Ideally, the foundations course will be taken in the first or second semester of the student’s freshman year. Campus-wide foundation courses have many advantages, although they are notoriously expensive and complicated to staff.
Perhaps the most critical issue in creating a foundations course is strong administrative and faculty commitment to making the course a success. Table 1 identifies the stakeholders in a foundations course and recommends roles for each stakeholder. Taking time to lay the groundwork may slow progress initially; nevertheless it is essential to make the upfront investment of meeting with various stakeholders to discuss intended course outcomes, to strategize about leveraging the foundations course in subsequent classes, and to understand costs associated with the course. Foundations courses championed by a lone faculty member are more likely to have limited impact, transferability, and longevity.
Course Design Considerations
While all the steps in the Methodology for Course Design (2.4.8) are relevant to foundations courses, the following activities require special emphasis in foundation courses.
Establishing the design team This core group must be comprised of senior faculty members who represent all disciplines covered in the scope of the course as well as faculty identified to teach the course. The team must attain a consensus as to the depth of content coverage, the pre-requisites for enrollment, the targeted skills for development, as well as the use of campus support services (i.e. library, career center, tutoring center, international programs office). It is important that the design team inventory what the course is intended to promote, such as disciplinary knowledge, process knowledge, featured contexts, specific tools, and way of being. It is convenient to organize and communicate this information in a knowledge table (2.3.9 Forms of Knowledge and Knowledge Tables).
Identification of long-term behaviors The course should highlight a manageable and developmentally appropriate set of characteristics, traits, and skills that can add value to one’s academic or professional career. It will be very motivating to students to cultivate a personal and professional identity that is aligned with long-term success, and this will help them integrate elements in the course knowledge table. To determine these behaviors the design team should consider the following questions: What behaviors should an exemplary student display at the beginning of their junior year? What pet peeves do upper division faculty or employers harbor about students and employees? How could a foundations course influence these behaviors? Professional profiles are helpful in anchoring these discussions and in clarifying the set of long-term behaviors that need to be targeted in the course (2.4.3 Development and Use of an Expert Profile and 2.4.4 Long-Term Behaviors).
Establishment of student expectation. As the first course in an area of study, a baseline will be established for workload, classroom behavior, promptness of assignments, quality of work, and co-curricular activities. First impressions leave a lasting impact, which is why the design of a foundations course is critical to a student’s college experience. It is advantageous to develop the course so that these baselines are set at a high level. Those of us who generally teach upperclassmen forget how malleable freshmen are and how much they can grow in a single course. By establishing thoughtfully constructed student expectations, it will be just as easy for the design team to create a great course as it is to create a good course (Collins, 2001).
Assembling of course materials The design team frequently reviews texts and other materials available on the market; either selecting one or creating a customized course packet from the materials surveyed. Ideally, the design team will go through the steps in the Methodology for Course Design (2.4.8) to systematically design the course in a manner that is outcome centered. Specific activities should then be developed to support these outcomes. This requires the combined effort of members of the design team and faculty selected to teach the course. 2.4.13 Overview of Learning Activities and 2.4.14 Designing Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Activities provide many insights on developing effective learning activities.
Scheduling and coordination The team must determine the mix of faculty (adjunct and senior), the continuity of the instructional team from term to term, and the location of the course in the academic calendar. While it is preferable for all sections of the class to be taught during the first semester of the freshman year, physical and financial resources may make it necessary to divide the sections over two semesters. It is important not to underestimate the number of sections needed, and to remember to include transfer students in the planning. If content coverage requires prerequisite courses, the foundations course must of course follow in sequence. For this reason, foundations courses in science and engineering are frequently placed in the second term. Those involved in teaching the course should have a solid understanding of the Methodology for Creating a Quality Learning Environment (3.1.3) since the success of the course will be as much a function in how it is facilitated as the curriculum materials that are used.
Regular review and assessment A team of faculty should oversee the implementation of the course, not just its initial design. Individual activities can be improved through the use of assessment tools given in 2.4.17 Assessing Learning Activities as well as classroom observation practices described in 4.1.11 Peer Coaching. A special forum should be convened after each course cycle to evaluate course effectiveness and to recommend improvements in the next cycle (Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2004). Ideally, this forum should include students, instructors, course designers, and faculty members who teach upperclassmen. A broad review body reinforces support for the course, helps institutionalize the legitimacy of the course, and enhances faculty awareness of changes underway that will influence student behavior in later courses.
Course Implementation
Developing a foundations course involves undertaking a major change process within a college. Faculty from different disciplines are asked to support a course which is outside their area of expertise, to work with members of other disciplines, and develop an integrated experience to help students, many of whom are not majoring in the faculty members’ areas of study. The process will likely be inconsistent with the “silo” culture typical of academia (Goffee & Jones, 1996). If the college and faculty are receptive to this challenge, collaboration around a foundations course offers the means to change underlying assumptions about students and to produce a transformation in the culture of the college (Stewart, 1994). If the foundations course is to have long-term success, the approach to developing it must be consistent with Lewin’s well-known change model: unfreeze—change—refreeze (Schein, 1993).
The original approach taken at ISU was similar to that undertaken with designing a conventional course: we determined the content we wanted, we selected a textbook we liked, and added a collection of activities. A major departure from the conventional course construct was that exams could count for no more than 35% of the grade; individual and team activities made up the balance. Faculty members were then assigned to teach the classes. Three years after we began the foundation course experiment, and following a Teaching Institute with Pacific Crest, we conducted a Course Design workshop with Business 100 faculty and other faculty. This increased buy-in from all faculty members and resulted in a more rigorous course with higher student expectations and responsibilities. The following year 20 faculty members contributed to a customized textbook that is updated on an annual basis (Newgren, 2006). Table 2 summarizes some of the major changes that have occurred over the life of Business 100. What has not changed over its seven-year history is the support of the administration for the course and the course’s basic purposes and goals. Paying attention to the course design considerations described above has served us well.
As a result of the aggressive approach we took to redesigning the business foundations course after our third year, we have a more active student body, and the royalty revenues generated have paid for outside speakers and faculty development events. The course always hits a positive note with prospective students (and their parents) at open houses, assuring them that they will be enrolled in a well-conceived business experience during their freshman year that includes activities aimed at helping them select an appropriate specialty within business. The course also helps some students to decide that business is not in their future, in which case they can change majors early in their academic career.
Concluding Thoughts
The design of a foundations course involves a larger and more diverse group of faculty than that required to design a conventional course. This requires unequivocal commitment from the administration and close collaboration with academic support services likely to be involved in the course. We suggest an aggressive approach during the developmental stage to energize faculty and to maximize benefits to the program. New faculty and transfer issues must be addressed as well as the framework for continuous course improvement. The significance of the course should be continually reinforced to maintain its legitimacy and to enhance its role in establishing a culture of high expectations and high student engagement.
References
Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap and others don’t. New York: HarperCollins.
Dick, W. O., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2004). The systematic design of instruction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (1996). What holds the modern company together? Harvard Business Review, November-December, 133-148.
Newgren, K. E. (Ed.). (2006). Enterprise: Business 100. (Revised First Edition). Lisle, IL: Pacific Crest.
Schein, E. H. (1993). How can organizations learn faster? The challenge of entering the green room. Sloan Management Review, 34, 85-92.
Stewart, T. A. (1994, February 7). Rate your readiness to change. Fortune, 129(3). 106-108.
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Administrators
Design Team
Course Instructors
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Senior Faculty
Support Staff
Students
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Course Characteristic |
Initial Implementation |
Current Implementation |
|
Textbook |
Existing Introduction to Business text |
Text written by 20 faculty members with support materials. |
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Composition of Faculty Teaching the Course |
Primarily Tenured-Tenure Track |
Primarily Non-Tenured Track |
|
Number of Sections |
15 in the Spring Semester and 4 in the Fall |
13 in the Fall Semester and 9-10 in the Spring |
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Number of Students/Section |
30 |
38-40 |
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Students Enrolled |
Primarily Sophomore |
Primarily Freshman |
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Ethics Coverage |
Minor |
Extensive, including orientation to COB Standards of Professional Behavior and Ethical Conduct |
|
Career Focus |
Minimal and Sporadic |
Focused and Concentrated |