6.4 Conclusions and Caveats
Using the ICE framework has the potential to raise students’ consciousness about various aspects of their learning experience as they themselves systematically engage in individual and group think-aloud processes of identifying, assessing, and communicating their Ideas, Connections, and Extensions. With an increased understanding and visibility of the course learning outcomes, students can become more invested in the purpose-driven, ICE-specific teaching and learning activities and assessment as they practice the intended learning outcomes. In my experience and based on the feedback I have received from students who have used the ICE framework, it enables them to take more ownership for their learning and successfully demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and values they have and have gained throughout the course.
As mentioned previously, I use the ICE framework in all the courses I teach, and although I use it somewhat differently depending on the level and course learning outcomes, it nevertheless has application beyond what this chapter offers.
Writing this chapter has given me the opportunity to reflect on the ICE framework in a way I have not previously done. I think that the critical feature of the ICE model is its conceptual power that has the potential to make visible—for students and instructors—the big picture and its ability to build student agency, reflexivity, as well as critical capacities. This conceptual power is particularly appealing given sociology’s interest and enthusiasm for big picture thinking about our world. Until I started writing this chapter and having conversations with other chapter authors and the editors of this book, I did not recognize all of the ways that I use ICE (as a conceptual framework, teaching and learning activity, and assessment) nor how embedded it has become in my teaching and learning practices. As such, this process has had an illuminating effect for me as well as my students, allowing me to more clearly recognize how and why the ICE framework appealed to me in the first place. It offers the kind of big picture framing that I value as a sociologist and promulgate as a professor of sociology.
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