The Learning Environment

ITOW & The Learning Environment

ITOW Workshops

ITOW Benefits

  What is ITOW?

The goal of the ITOW Video Workshop and the supporting ITOW Website is to engender discussion among engineering faculty about what the learning environment is, on how to identify and address "underground" climate issues, and how to enhance student ability to learn. They are designed to lead to the exploration of all aspects of the learning environment (the classroom, labs, team experiences, and outside-the-class activities) as students experience it. ITOW workshops can and have lead to real change within departments or units including raised awareness about student learning experiences, additional workshops on team building or equity issues, or the development of departmental initiatives to improve communication among students and faculty.

The workshop and website offer a complete set of tools that are designed to:

• identify areas for continued discussion and action keyed into the interests of a participating department or unit

• provide tips and methodologies for addressing teaching and learning issues that arise during the workshop

ITOW Workshop Materials available here.

What are the Objectives (Goals) of ITOW?

• Explore the value of diversity defined broadly to include learning preferences, socioeconomic background in addition to race, ethnicity, and gender in teaching and learning for all students

• Discuss whether faculty responsibilities go beyond the delivery of material in the classroom

• Identify teaching and learning strategies and/or changes that can create a more equitable learning environment for all students and faculty

• Facilitate faculty and departmental ownership of these issues

• Initiate department activities related to the learning environment

How was ITOW project developed?

ITOW was developed at Penn State as a charge of ECSEL, an NSF coalition, and as part of the coalitions Faculty Development activities. The project addresses the need to change the learning environment climate in order to change faculty ideas and attitudes about non-traditional students or students with diverse learning styles. ITOW implicitly acknowledges that real diversity necessitates accommodation on the part of the existing arbiters of style and practice within any given social organization.

ECSEL is the Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership and was one of the first NSF engineering coalitions to improve engineering education in the US.  ECSEL members are CCNY, Howard University, MIT, Morgan State University, Penn State, The University of Maryland and the University of Washington. 

Who developed ITOW?

The ITOW concept was developed by a Penn State team Barbara Bogue, Director of Women in Engineering Program and Rose Marra, PhD, now Assistant Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri; Saundra Johnson, now Executive Director, of GEM and Tom Litzinger, PhD, Director of Leonhard Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Education and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State.  The ITOW Workshops were developed by Bogue and Marra. A second video was produced by Ardie Walser, PhD, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, City College of New York. Walser, Marra and Bogue are the continuing ITOW team.

What is the methodology?

In brief, ITOW is based on information gathered through qualitative interviews with undergraduate engineering students in 1996. All students were interviewed by an independent interviewer who used the same protocol, or set of questions, with each student. Students were questioned about positive and negative experiences in their classrooms and other learning environments. Beyond that, what the students say is unsolicited.

For additional information on methodology, visit the Resources web page.

  How is the Learning Environment defined?

This raises two important questions:

• Is a professor’s responsibility to simply deliver subject matter in the classroom where students can learn if they choose OR to take responsibility for creating an environment in which students can better learn?

• Is the delivery of the engineering curriculum something that happens primarily in the classroom OR in all places where students learn—teams, labs, study groups, office hours, etc.?

How does the learning environment impact student learning?

While students represent a spectrum of learning styles, backgrounds, and preparation, their engineering professors are typically less diverse. Most were straight A students, many have no industry experience (a place where most of their students will make their own careers), the vast majority are male, and a majority of those are white. This can make for some real disconnects in the classroom. And these disconnects can lead to lower productivity for both students and faculty.

Developing an awareness of the rich diversity that any given classroom offers, learning to draw on differing perspectives and experiences to enrich the curriculum, and recognizing that differing learning styles does not mean lesser learning styles are all outcomes that help faculty enhance student ability to learn.

Who is responsible for the Learning Environment?

This is one of many fruitful discussions that arise during the ITOW workshop. The answer is generally that everyone is responsible. While this seems obvious, the question is typically left unexplored—with faculty thinking that if they deliver the material, it is the student’s responsibility to learn and students feeling that if they pay and show up, it is a faculty member’s responsibility to make them learn. Exploring the territory between these two traditional views makes for challenging and rewarding workshop sessions.  

  How can ITOW be used to impact the Learning Environment?

What are methods that faculty can use to create a positive learning environment?

The ITOW workshop materials and web pages, including Resources and Learning Strategies, offer practical answers to this question. Both offer insights, suggestions, www links and citations from researchers in education and equity and tips from faculty who have participated in ITOW workshops.  

  What is an ITOW Workshop?

• The ITOW Faculty Workshop is presented to faculty and administrators to raise awareness of learning environment and diversity issues for students and the impact of these on teaching. The initial workshop is approximately one hour.

• The ITOW Facilitators Workshop is a “train the trainers” workshop that prepares you or other in house people to present the ITOW Faculty Workshop in your institution.

This page provides information on the ITOW Faculty Workshop. For more information on the ITOW Facilitators Workshop, go to Facilitating ITOW.

Who conducts the ITOW workshops?

ITOW works best when it is implemented with two to three trained facilitators—one facilitator takes the lead while the others help to engage discussion, track comments and responses, and identify follow-up action areas. 

To have maximum impact on your institution, two criteria are important in identifying workshop facilitators. Your facilitators should:

• Have existing relationships with engineering faculty who have defined status within the institution present the workshop and whom the faculty respects. Examples in a given institution may be senior faculty members, engineering teaching/learning specialists, or WIE or MEP administrators. 

• Be trained facilitators and be willing to participate in facilitation training.  (ITOW does offer facilitator training at your institution, tailored to your institution.  For more information, contact ITOW@psu.edu.)

Laying the groundwork correctly is critical in the success of an ITOW Workshop. Discussions typically allow participants to discuss issues normally not discussed, issues that raise emotions. A trained and prepared facilitator can channel these discussions to collaborative problem solving; an untrained facilitator can leave the group frustrated and more deeply convinced that discussions about the learning environment are best left alone.

Who attends the ITOW workshop?

Faculty and administrators. Facilitating ITOW at basic organizational levels (i.e., departments or units) or for groups with administrative duties in common (i.e., the college executive board, advisory board or task force) is optimally effective. Participants can discuss internal problems freely. It is also harder for participants to decide that a problem under discussion applies only to the other departments.

  What products does the ITOW family encompass?

• The ITOW Website, a dynamic tool

• To find out more about the workshops

• For tips on how to follow up

• For a guide to relevant research and activities in teaching, learning, and equity. 

The ITOW Faculty Workshop facilitation materials for facilitators:

• The ITOW Video (14.3 minutes) featuring the words of undergraduate engineering students describing their learning experiences (For a short clip, return to the ITOW homepage).

• The Workshop Introduction, setting expectations for a successful workshop

• Video cue sheets, a guide with suggested facilitator cues

• Worksheets, to capture participant thoughts and facilitate discussion

• Methodology description, to provide participations with information on how the video was developed

Follow Up Materials:

• Comments sheets, to provide ideas for follow up activities

• Tips sheet, to offer practical advice and methods to improve learning experiences

• Standard evaluation form

The ITOW Facilitators Workshop Guide:

• Planning an ITOW Workshop

• Facilitating an ITOW Workshop

• Follow Up for an ITOW Workshop

  How does ITOW benefit an institution? What are the results?

The workshop format was developed to fit demanding faculty schedules. While it may be ideal to have in depth, repeated workshops, this just isn’t practical in most academic situations. The ITOW Faculty Workshop, presented in approximately one hour, can be facilitated during faculty meetings, retreats, or at specified times. The built in follow up within departments or units provides a tool for continued discussion and action. This also makes it doable for facilitators—the department or unit takes ownership of workshop follow up.

How can a one-time workshop be effective?

The ITOW Faculty Workshop is designed to start the discussion and create awareness of existing learning dynamics and problems. ITOW is carefully designed to create ownership of follow up in the department or unit sponsoring the workshop.

Effective workshops have these elements:

• Careful pre-workshop planning, including meeting with the department or unit head and discussing the climate and interests of participants

• Planned follow up, using the provided materials, which continues the discussion and identifies areas for action that the participants have identified and agreed upon during the course of the workshop. This encourages ownership of the workshop outcome and, more important, the issues that arose during the workshop

What are examples of effective follow up?

ITOW Faculty Workshops results include:

• A committee to develop a contract for faculty/student responsibilities

• Workshops on how to implement and supervise student teams

• Equity workshops, committees, retreats.

Who has used ITOW?

ITOW Workshops have been implemented at department and unit levels, for climate committees and executive committee meetings, for departmental retreats, for a University, at national conferences, and for a cross-university coalition group. Examples of Universities that use ITOW are the University of Maryland, the City College of New York and Penn State.