Faculty Advisor Spotlight on Chris Hess, Butler University (IN)

“I really think of Mastering as an assessment tool,” says Chris Hess, a MasteringBiology user at Butler University.  Hess breaks the assessment into three categories: student self-assessment, classroom assessment, and administrative assessment.  Students self-assess through the amount of practice Mastering provides.  It’s important students have, “the ability to understand what they know and what they don’t.”  This level of understanding is the, “greatest predictor of success for new college students,” according to Hess.

Classroom assessment is achieved by making assignments due an hour before class starts.  Hess teaches in a traditional format, so he meets with his students face-to-face.  By making assignments due early, Hess has time to check his Mastering gradebook and modify his classroom content to reflect the appropriate level of student understanding.

Thirdly, administrative assessment came as a result of Hess having to report his results to the Dean of his department.  Tagging questions in Mastering makes it easier for Hess to collect meaningful data on student understanding.

Using this three-pronged Mastering strategy led to some surprising results for Hess, the most prominent one being, “that [he] could teach them more without them disliking [him] for it.”  Before Mastering, students got frustrated when high-level questions were introduced in class because they weren’t prepared for them.  The practice Mastering provides gets students used to questions at this level before Hess teaches them in class.

Hess enjoys sharing his Mastering success with his peers and finds working with other Faculty Advisors, Mastering users, and Pearson employees to be the most rewarding aspect of being a Pearson Faculty Advisor. 

Teaching can often be a low-reward occupation, but I always feel inspired to fight the good fight after doing Faculty Advisor-related events and other duties.

Tracking student success is an important component to showing how Mastering can work for you and Hess encourages other users to, “treat things scientifically” by limiting the variables in your course.  Don’t forget to constantly evolve while at the same time keeping track of what’s different from course to course.  “If you change too many things at once, it will be difficult to tell what is driving any successes or failures.”

In addition to successful tracking of student outcomes, Hess reminds new Faculty Advisors to simply, “be a sponge.”  Absorb everything that others can teach you to get the most out of Mastering.