The Next Step: Assessing Course SLOs

1. The Next Step: Assessing Course SLOs Good assessment requires faculty with expertise and resources    to measure and report learning        in a variety of courses             under diverse conditions                  about students with varied abilities                       and disparate levels of academic engagement.  Janet Fulks, Assessing Student Learning in Community Colleges (2004), Bakersfield College SLO presentation by Karen Carlisi and Crystal Kolross Nov 30, 2006

2. The Next Step: Goals Defining Assessment Writing a measurable SLO statement Assessment = Gathering Evidence Deciding When to Assess Aligning Course Activities with SLOs Course - Embedded Assessment Using Rubrics Closing the Loop Using assessment and analysis to effect change Planning and Research

3. The Next Step: Outcomes • What you will be able to do • Write measurable SLOs • Decide when and how to Assess • Evaluate your current assessment tools • Develop rubrics to assess SLOs • Use Assessment outcomes Planning and Research

4. Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at helping teachers and students understand and improve student learning. It Involves: making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality systematically gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards and; using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance. (Angelo (1995) Defining( and Re-assessing) Assessment: a Second Try. AAHE Bulletin no. 48, p.7) Defining Assessment Planning and Research

5. Writing a Measurable SLO • Writing a measurable SLO statement • The essence of SLOs lies in focusing on the results you want from your course rather than on what you will cover in the course. • Ask yourself how you will know when you have accomplished those outcomes. • Make them measurable Planning and Research

6. Writing a Measurable SLO • Why do you use current assignments, course structure, and activities? • What is the learning you want demonstrated and how can you measure it? • Check your SLOs with other faculty, other schools, and professional expectations. • Integrate Institutional (degree) SLOs with your course SLOs. Planning and Research

7. Assessment and Grades Planning and Research

8. Deciding When to Assess • At Specific Points in Time • CATs – learner-centered - flexible • Use to inform the learning process • Enhances engagement • Over Time • Tests/Quizzes • Midterm/Final • Essays/Research Papers http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/flag/cat/cat.htm http://www.siue.edu/%7Ededer/assess/catmain.html Planning and Research

9. Aligning Course Activities with SLOs • What are the major assignments that measure your outcomes? • Do they match your outcomes? • Do my assignments reflect the kind of learning I most desire and match my outcomes? • Do my assignments require students to demonstrate the kinds of skills I am actually grading or assessing? • Where do they come during the semester? • How do you build toward them? Planning and Research

10. Aligning Course Activities with SLOs • What specific class activities and homework assignments help students to successfully complete your major assignments? • Map class activities and course work to SLOs. • If you find you have activities or assignments that don’t support your SLOs – remove them or revise to support SLOs. Planning and Research

11. Aligning Course Activities with SLOs • Each activity or graded item in the course is linked to an SLO. • Use a rubric or Primary Trait Analysis to assess the SLOs. Planning and Research

12. Aligning Course Activities with SLOs • Evaluate if students are entering your course with the pre-requisite knowledge you think they need. • If you feel it is important you may want to add an activity that assess the skills, abilities, and misconceptions students come in with. Planning and Research

13. Course - Embedded Assessment “Classroom–embedded assessment techniques, particularly those that align graded assignments with learning outcomes, motivate faculty because graded assignments become effective assessment tools and provide reliable alternatives to external intrusion and standardized testing” Boud, 1995a; Nichols, 1995; Watson and Klassen, 2003; Wiggins, 1993b. Planning and Research

14. Course - Embedded Assessment • Assignments, activities or exercises that are done as part of the a class, but that are used to provide assessment data about a particular learning outcome. • Course-embedded assessments make use of the actual work that students produce in your courses. • Faculty driven and linked to curriculum. • Can be graded or ungraded. • Instructor chooses current assignments, tests, papers etc to use for assessment of SLOs. • not necessarily the whole assignment but parts of it. Planning and Research

15. Using Rubrics • Rubrics clearly and explicitly outline both the goals of a given learning activity and the criteria by which it will be evaluated. Rubrics ensure a clear understanding of what is expected and allow faculty to provide focused and efficient feedback on class assignments. • A wide variety of rubrics have already been developed – it can be easier to adapt an already existing rubric than to create one from scratch. • Effective for course-embedded assessment. http://www.calstate.edu/acadaff/sloa/links/rubrics.shtmlhttp://www.bridgew.edu/AssessmentGuidebook/rubrics.cfm Planning and Research

16. Closing the Loop • State goals or objectives of assignment/activity more explicitly. • Revise content of assignment/activities . • Revise the amount of writing/oral/visual/clinical or similar work. • Revise activities leading up to and/or supporting assignment/activities. • Increase in-class discussions and activities. • Increase student collaboration and/or peer review. • Provide more frequent or fuller feedback on student progress. Planning and Research

17. Closing the Loop • Increase guidance for students as they work on assignments. • Use methods of questions that encourage competency. • State criteria for grading more explicitly. • Increase interaction with students outside of class. • Ask a colleague to critique assignments/activities. • Collect more data. • Nothing; assessment indicates no improvement necessary. Planning and Research

18. The Next Step Planning and Research