11.3 Impact

Instructors tell me time and again that learning about ICE has had transformative effects on their conceptions of teaching and learning, even for those who might already have had ones that are comparatively sophisticated and complex. It seems that because the framework provides such a reliable, accessible, and portable way of organizing their thinking about teaching, learning, and assessment, the users gain a sense of clarity. That clarity in turn enables an intentionality to their teaching that many hadn’t experienced before. Even some who report having made no changes to their teaching practice or instructional decision-making say that ICE has enabled them to be more intentional in their teaching and that they can now explain why they do what they do. More than anything else, instructors report that the greatest impact related to their introduction to ICE was that they gained a reliable way of organizing their thinking about teaching and learning which enables them to adopt a clarifying way of communicating with their students about learning and assessment. They often report gaining greater awareness about the effects of their assessment plans on students’ approaches to learning and the critical importance of ensuring congruence among the elements of their courses’ curricula. The end result for many is a satisfying sense of increased confidence in their abilities to facilitate learning.