Assessing Student Learning Outcomes

1. Assessing Student Learning Outcomes • This presentation and other handouts are available on Blackboard • http://www.palomar.edu/blackboard • Log in using your Palomar College e-mail user name and password. On the right side, click on “Learning Outcomes.” Click on the Assessing SLOs tab. • Learning Outcomes website: • http://www.palomar.edu/learningoutcomes • To see the slide notes more easily, go to View>Notes Page.

2. Assessing StudentLearning Outcomes Palomar College Learning Outcomes Council Adapted from Florida Community College at Jacksonville Bakersfield Community College

3. Overview • Definition of assessment • Purposes of assessment • Process and potential models • Issues for the future

4. Today’s Outcome • Identify assessment tools appropriate for a targeted course or courses • Write an assessment plan for at least on identified SLO

5. What Do We Mean By “Assessment”? Assessment of student learning can be defined as the systematic collection of information about student learning…in order to inform decisions about how to improve learning. - Barbara Walvoord, Assessment Plain and Simple

6. Why assess? • To gain useful information about student learning that we can use as feedback to improve our programs and services • To provide our accrediting organization with evidence of student learning and program quality

7. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Cycle - SLOAC

8. Dual Path of Evaluation Feedback to Students Evaluation by Instructor Evidence of Student Learning (Assignments, Tests, Papers) Feedback to Faculty Feedback to Instructor Evaluation by Faculty Teams Feedback to College

9. Assessment Plans • An Assessment Plan documents what, how, and when you and your fellow faculty members will assess your SLOs. • What “tool” will you use? • Example: pre/post test, skills presentation, lab • How you will assess? • Example: Sample of assessments across sections of a course, all assessments in all sections • When you will assess? • Example: Collect data end of fall term; analyze data during spring term

10. Assessment Plans • Assessment plans also document what happened and how you used the results of the assessment/evaluation. • What were the results? • How were they analyzed or evaluated? • What did you do or plan to do as a result?

11. Some Basic Vocabulary • Direct Assessment Method • Writing assignment • Portfolios • Capstone projects • Performances • Common assignments, readings, embedded assessments

12. Some Basic Vocabulary • Indirect Assessment Method • Surveys • Interviews • Focus groups • Student self-assessment

13. Some Basic Vocabulary • Quantitative • Data collected in numerical or statistical values • Qualitative assessment • Data collected as descriptive information

14. Some Basic Vocabulary • Formative • Summative • Authentic • Criterion-based • Norm-based

15. Other Important Vocabulary • Embedded • Standardized • Home-grown • Triangulation

16. Curriculum-embedded assessment • Develop rubrics for each of the outcomes • Identify existing assignments that address each outcome • Sample student work from these assignments • Faculty team in the discipline scores the assignments using the rubrics

17. Models Curriculum-embedded assessment • Butler Community College • Johnson County Community College • Valencia Community College • Brevard Community College • Miami-Dade College • Many others…this is the most prevalent model

18. Models E-Portfolio • Develop rubrics for each of the outcomes • Identify existing assignments that address each outcome • Ask students to submit their work to an online portfolio site • Faculty team scores the assignments using the rubrics

19. Models E-Portfolio • LaGuardia Community College • Kapolei Community College

20. Choices… How to gather results? • Which model(s)? • What tools? • Which courses and/or sections? • Part-time faculty participation

21. More choices… When to gather results? • Each outcome every year, or rotate? • Outcome priorities?

22. More choices… How to review and interpret results? • Who is involved, how, and when? • What kind of support is needed? • How are results compiled and shared? • How will we use the results? • When can we celebrate our accomplishments? • How can we improve the process?

23. Concept or Implementation? • Collect data and then never use it • Measure things that are easy to measure • Do assessment because we have to • Collaborate to make sense of what we observe • Gather useful evidence of what we believe is important • Do assessment because it helps us and students

24. Some objections • “I don’t have time for one more thing” • “Somehow, the results will be used against me” • “Someone else is going to tell me how to teach” • Recognize that assessment is core to our practice • Take control of the process • Agree on what and how to assess – classroom practice is still up to the individual

25. Writing the Assessment Plan • Examine and evaluate assessment tools • Create the right assessment tool for your SLO • Use the worksheet to guide your planning. • Complete the SLO course template with your assessment plan.

26. Learning Outcomes Council Resources Website: http://www.palomar.edu/learningoutcomes Blackboard Learning Outcomes course: http://www.palomar.edu/blackboard