Faculty of Environment Undergraduate Studies Report 2015

Transcription

1 This report is intended to present a statistical representation of ongoing activity related to undergraduate studies enrollment, teaching, and teaching quality in the Faculty of Environment. The data present areas of success and potential improvement. The report also contains items for discussion that attempt to stimulate conversation regarding the short-term future of undergraduate studies in Environment. Enrollment Trends Figure 1 below shows the November 1 count date first-year enrollment for the Faculty of Environment for the last seven years. The data represent very stable enrollment ranging from 484 in 2012 to 552 in The 2015 expected enrollment is slightly lower; the current estimate from the Registrar s Office is 503 for the incoming class Total Co- op Total Regular Figure 1 November 1, First-year Enrollment for the Faculty of Environment The first-year undergraduate enrollment targets for all Faculties are shown in Table 1. Environment is the second smallest Faculty, with approximately the same undergraduate target as Applied Health Sciences. Table First-year Targest by Faculty or Program Faculty / Program % of total Rank Applied Health Sciences Arts Computing & Financial Mgmt Engineering Environment Mathematics Science Software Engineering

2 The following table presents first-year data on student enrollment in individual plans in the Faculty. These data are again based on the November 1 st count date. Because some programs were created more recently than others, the number of years of data varies as shown in the first row of the table. Table 2 Historical November 1, First-Year Student Enrollment Summary Statistics Plan # of years of data Max Min Average Median Standard deviation ENBUS INDEV ERSC ERSR GEMC GEMR AVIA GEOMC GEOMR GEOG KI PLANC Notes: Plans followed by C represent co-op; R represents regular; 3 represents 3 year general. Table 3 shows the 2014 November 1, first-year counts by Department. Table 4 shows the distribution of all undergraduate students by home department over the academic year fall 2013 to spring The data are presented as a percent of total Faculty enrollment for the term and in absolute numbers. The other category refers to students who are on exchange, in a non-degree term, or enrolled in English language programs. Table November 1st, First-year Enrollment by Department % of Faculty Absolute SEED 31.7% 175 ERS 13.9% 77 GEOG 26.1% 144 KI 5.8% 32 PLAN 22.5% 124 Total 100.0% 552 Table 4 Undergraduate Majors by Unit, Academic Year F2013 W2014 S2014 % of Faculty Absolute # % of Faculty Absolute # % of Faculty Absolute SEED 28.2% % % 177 ERS 16.5% % % 94 GEOG 29.6% % % 242 KI 5.2% % % 28 PLAN 18.7% % % 112 Other 1.7% % % 19 Total 100.0% % % 672 2

3 A comparison of Tables 3 and 4 suggests that current first year numbers in SEED and PLAN exceed the previous year s proportion of students. The greater number of students in the full GEOG cohort reflects the relatively large number of transfers and 2+2 students in the various GEOG programs. In addition to the previous data, data for the number of students graduating by plan are available. The data in Figure 2 show the number of students graduating from each program by year, between 2008 and The data include those who graduated with both a unique plan major and a joint major. This figure shows the pronounced growth in the Faculty in the period prior to From a low of 201 granduands in 2009, the Faculty reached 482 graduands in The small reduction between 2013 and 2014 is a result of the lag created by the full co-op cohort in the School of Planning. The figure also provides further insight into the division amongst co-op and regular programs. Note that at graduation, co-op represents less than 50% of graduands which is significantly different than the November 1 enrollment data presented above. While some of this difference may be explained by a lag in the data the 2014 graduation data are linked to the incoming class data from 2009 and includes a number of students who shifted from a co-op program to a regular program Coop Regular Figure 2 Number of Students Graduating by Year and Program Type 3

4 Undergraduate Teaching in the Faculty of Environment The following data are intended to show the quantity of teaching that takes place in the Faculty of Environment. The data are derived from the academic calendar year between fall of 2013 and spring 2014; the data are presented with an acknowledgement that the small sample size may reduce the validity of conclusions drawn. In total, 14,462 students were enrolled in the 202 undergraduate courses offered in the Faculty of environment during the study period. The distribution of enrollment amongst the course offerings is shown in Figure 3. Approximately 54% of the Faculty s offerings have enrollments less than 50. Another 25% of course enrollments are in the range of students. Only about 20% of Environment s courses have enrollments larger than Frequency More Bin Figure 3 Distribution of Class Sizes in the Faculty Of the 43 courses with enrollment greater than 100 taught in the Faculty, 17 were taught by faculty members from Geography while 11 were taught by sessionals. The remaining 15 were spread over the other Departments / Schools. In the study period, there were 10 courses with enrollments greater than 200. Of these 10, five were ENVS courses (enrollment in parentheses): 178 (540), 195 (245), 200 (236), 201 (313), 278 (322). Three of these course offerings those listed in bold were taught by sessional instructors. Only ENVS 201 and 278 were taught by tenured (or tenure track) faculty. This has been identified as an undesirable situation and, as a result, two of the three courses previously taught by sessionals will be taught by full time faculty going forward. ERS has committed to teaching ENVS 200 while Planning has committed to 4

5 ENVS 178. Geography remains committed to teaching ENVS 278, and SEED has consistently taught ENVS 201. Each individual faculty member (excluding sessionals) in Environment teaches on average 125 students per year. When one adjusts for reductions in teaching requirements due to administrative, research or other exemptions, the average increases slightly to approximately 135 students per adjusted FTE (afte). The data range amongst the units from a maximum of 174 students per afte to just under 87 students per afte. The average number of undergraduate courses offered per afte in Environment was 2.06, with a range across units from 1.45 to Quality of Undergraduate Teaching The most readily available data regarding teaching quality are derived from student evaluations. The table below presents summary data from the calendar year 2014 based on professor rank. Ordinal data are converted to continuous values using the 1 through 5 unsatisfactory through excellent scale defined on the course evaluation sheets. Lecturers, where available, are grouped with assistant professors to maintain anonymity. Table 5 Summary Data for Course and Instructor Evaluations by Rank Assistant & Lecturers Associate Full Course Instructor Course Instructor Course Instructor Max Min Mean Median th th n The data suggest excellence in undergraduate teaching. At all faculty levels, the 25 th percentile score for instructor is above satisfactory; the means in all cases exceed very good. There is a widespread belief that the likelihood of receiving a positive course evaluation varies as a function of class size. The data generally do not support this conclusion. Below are two figures that show course evaluation score and instructor evaluation score as a function of course size. Statistically, course size explains approximately 1-3% of the variance in evaluation scores. There is a very strong statistical correlation (0.844) between course evaluation and instructor evaluation. If a student rates the course highly, the instructor also tends to be rated highly. 5

6 Assistant Prof Associate Prof. Full Prof Figure 4 Course Evaluation as a Function of Class Size Assistant Prof Associate Prof. Full Prof Figure 5 Instructor Evaluation as a Function of Class Size 6

7 Items for Discussion 1. The role of co-op and regular programs in plans with dual entry: Further analysis of the Faculty s enrollment data raises the question of the role of regular programs in Environment. The data suggest that co-op programs have grown from about 60% of the undergraduate enrollment to more than 75%. Some of this growth (approximately 10%) is a result of Planning converting to full co-op. This growth, however, is offset by the introduction of three regular only programs: Knowledge Integration (enrollment ~30); Geography and Aviation (~25); and International Development (~40). Those programs that offer admission to both co-op and regular programs Environment and Resources Studies, Geography and Environmental Management, and Geomatics have significant decreases in regular enrollment. These data are presented in Table 7. Table 6 Decrease in Regular Program Enrollment Plan 2008 enrollment in regular program 2014 enrollment in regular program Number of students enrolled 2014 ERS 23% 14% 11 GEM 18% 13% 7 Geomatics 26% 5% 3 The cooperative education program is widely considered to be the University of Waterloo s strongest attraction for prospective students. Given the low numbers of students enrolling in the regular programs (21 or 4% of total), it may be worthwhile to consider options around dual offerings for the programs listed in Table 7. Increasing the number of co-op students can also present challenges in terms of finding employment. Figure 6 shows co-op employment data by term for the Faculty from 2008 to Note that in spring and winter terms, the rate of unsuccessful placements (for those actively participating) ranges from 2% to 8%. A challenge exists for the Faculty and for cooperative education in developing sufficient jobs Winter WT Spring WT Fall WT Figure 6 Co-op Employment Rates by Term 2. The possibility for advanced course offerings for students: Currently, all students in the Faculty take ENVS 178 as part of their core curriculum. Similarly, a significant portion of students take ENVS 200, 201 and 278 as required courses. Teaching these large courses is made more challenging by the various levels of capacity and interest amongst the students enrolled in the course. These courses are often taught at a level that allows 7

8 some of the less well-prepared students to succeed and, as a result, those students with strength in an area may not be sufficiently challenged. One possible way to address this problem is the introduction of advanced components to be held with these courses. For example, ENVS 178 currently has four contact hours per week three lecture hours and a one-hour tutorial. The interested and capable student could elect to enroll simultaneously in a supplemental course hypothetically called ENVS 178L with an additional contact hour where these students could be taught advanced concepts and given additional assignments. Similar courses could be developed for ENVS 200 (with a stronger field component), ENVS 201, and ENVS 278. Potentially, courses that face similar distributions of engagement and capacity within plans could structure similar supplemental courses. The addition of several of these courses to the curriculum would allow: students to self-select into advanced topics of their own interest; students to count these towards their program requirements; faculty members to teach to appropriate levels in their courses; faculty members potentially to engage their Ph.D. students in supplemental teaching. 3. The development of additional working groups on curriculum in the Faculty: Over the past year, an informal working group of instructors teaching courses related to communications has been meeting on a semi-regular basis. The objectives of these meetings are: to ensure consistency in quality of material delivered; to coordinate evaluation standards; and to discuss resource needs. This model seems to be working reasonably well. There may be some value in creating similar working groups in thematic areas. These may include (amongst others): quantitative methods and statistics; ecology and ecological restoration; and research methods. The objective of these working groups can be to ensure progression in terms of the level of comprehension a student is expected to achieve through the Faculty s curriculum. In other words, conversations can take place to identify what foundational material should be delivered, the points at which these materials are reinforced, and the courses in which a student can be expected to master the material. These groups could be coordinated through the Associate Dean Undergraduate office, or potentially through the Teaching Fellow. 4. The attraction of students from across the University: The Faculty of Environment has long been recognized as the leader in environmental education. It is important to continue this excellence with the development of new or growth in existing strengths in undergraduate teaching. Potential areas include extending leadership in ecology, in issues related to sustainable economic development, and topics related to urban sustainability. As the University transitions to a new budgeting model, increased resources will be available to support this growth. I welcome discussion on opportunities to promote the Faculty s strengths. 5. Other ongoing issues: With my undergraduate colleagues across the campus, work continues on the following issues: a revision of the guidelines for plagiarism under policy 71; a revision to the guidance around exam protocol, particularly monitoring the uses of electronic devices and accommodation for students with conflicts; 8

9 the scheduling and timetabling process; English language proficiency evaluation. Respectfully submitted, Jeff Casello, Associate Dean Undergraduate Studies 27 April,