Marisa A. Klages and J. Elizabeth Clark LaGuardia Community College--CUNY

1. (Ten Years Later)ePortfolio and Assessment: Learning, Changing, and Closing the Feedback Loop Marisa A. Klages and J. Elizabeth Clark LaGuardia Community College--CUNY

2. Session Schedule • Who is LaGuardia? • The Outcomes Assessment Plan • Timeline of Assessment • Lessons Learned • Moving Toward Change • Our Next Steps • Discussion • Questions and Answers

3. LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

4. LaGuardia’s Context • 16,000 + matriculated students; 14,000+ non-matriculated • 59% female; 41% male • 60% are foreign born • 49% are 23+ in age • Number of native languages: 124 • 52% attend full-time • 161 countries of origin from Madagascar (1) and Qatar (1) to China (698) and Ecuador (694)

5. LaGuardia’s Context, cont’d • 57% of students enter with a high school degree; 9% with a GED; 37% as transfer students • 56% of entering students need developmental math; 34% of entering students need developmental writing, 32% of entering students need developmental reading

6. The Outcomes Assessment Plan • LaGuardia’s Outcomes Assessment Plan • 10 years old • Collect baseline, midpoint, and capstone data • Use ePortfolio to collect artifacts at benchmark points • Assess through Periodic Program Review

7. Assessment at LaGuardia • Seven Core Competencies: What We Value as Educators • Critical Literacy (Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking) • Quantitative Reasoning • Oral Communication • Information and Research Literacy • Technological Literacy

8. Outcomes Assessment at LaGuardia is designed to: • Assess institutional effectiveness • Assess student growth over time and use resulting data to improve our pedagogies and programs • Provide additional data to the college beyond standardized test scores and IR data • Assess student achievement of programmatic competencies • Assess student achievement of general education core competencies

9. Rethinking Assessment at LaGuardia

10. Assessment Timeline • Core Competencies Proposed & Approved • ePortfolio Begins (Research Team, Pilot) • Development of PPR Process • Middle States Accreditation Visit • 2001 • 2002

11. Assessment Timeline • Development of ePortfolio Assessment 1.0 • Rubrics Developed, Faculty Trained to Use Rubrics • Center for Teaching & Learning Seminars weave ePortfolio & Core Competency Training • College-Wide Assessment Leadership Team Developed • 2002-2004 • 2002-2007 • 2002-present • 2005

12. Assessment Timeline • Research for New ePortfolio System Begins • Wide-spread Depositing begins, ePortfolio Mini Grants Support PPR Process with Revisions Based on PPR • Change in Assessment Leadership • 5 Year PPR Calendar Established, Core Competency Grids Aligned with Major Developed • Capstone Seminar Developed, Capstone Specific ePortfolio Templates Developed • 2006 • 2007-present • 2008

13. Assessment Timeline • Work with Program Directors Begins, Development of Assignments Specific to Core Competencies, Development of Assessment Website • Development of ePortfolio Assessment 2.0, Programmatic Competencies Developed • Benchmarking Readings, Middle States Self Study • 2009 • 2010 • 2011

14. The Assessment Arc

15. The Assessment Process • As part of the 5-year Periodic Program Review, a sampling of student ePortfolios are reviewed • Student work from the ePortfolios is assessed utilizing the faculty-developed rubrics for each core competency

16. Using the ePortfolio • Site for collecting student work • Makes work accessible to faculty for classroom assessment purposes • Makes work accessible anonymously to programs for Program Assessment • Connects the assessment process and the classroom • Provides flexible data: by course, by program, by competency—can be aggregated in a variety of configurations • Involves students in the process of • reflection • self-assessment

17. Lessons Learned

18. Missing from the Process: • No institutionalized method for looking at artifacts • ePortfolio, excellent for showcasing, not great for assessment- clunky • PPR review process onerous and confusing • No faculty buy-in

19. New Changes (2008-present) • Harnessed the power of Program Directors • Designed Programmatic Matrices • Worked to develop Programmatic (Major) Competencies • Developed strategy for reading artifacts: Benchmark Assessment • Instituted 5 year calendar for PPR • Changed ePortfolio system • Created Assessment Website with rubrics, grids, calendar

20. Program Directors • Powerful group of campus leaders • Charged with relating assessment information to their colleagues • Worked because Assessment was to happen in the major • Have developed grids, implementation plans, general competency assignments, and data collection plans

21. Sample Program Timeline

22. PPR Calendar

23. Accomplishments • Grids from almost all programs • Identified courses for assessment data collection • Developed and/or revised assignments connected to Core Competencies for assessment

24. Partnering with the Center for Teaching and Learning • Mini-grant program allows programs to follow up on recommendations in the PPR • Core competencies and development of assignments have been threads in CTL seminars • The new capstone seminar helps faculty to build Capstone ePortfolio assignments appropriate for the discipline that also showcase integrative learning, learning over time, and key learning in core competency areas • Faculty discuss and create ePortfolio specific assignments

25. ePortfolio And Assessment at LaGuardia

27. ePortfolio and Outcomes Assessment • Over 15,000 artifacts in the Assessment Area • Expecting 30,000 deposits this academic year • 7 Core Competencies: • Critical Literacy (Critical Reading, Writing and Thinking) • Quantitative Reasoning • Oral Communication • Research and Information Literacy • Technological Literacy

28. Students had to save their work to a collection area first.

29. Students had to choose what kind of competency they were submitting correlated to the course type.

30. Students had to choose what kind of competency they were submitting correlated to the course type.

31. Students labeled their artifact and added any notes or reflections.

32. Students now log in and the core and program competencies are pre-loaded by course. For students, after log in, it’s an easy set of clicks to submit assignments for the core and programmatic competencies.

33. Faculty can easily track student submissions at a glance, ensuring that students submit the required work for program and core competencies.

34. Program Director Report

35. Program Specific ePortfolio Templates Emerged from PPR Process and External Input (Education, Nursing, Business, Fine arts, pt)

36. Nursing HR Directors were interested in students’ philosopy statements, community service, and a reorganization of coursework that showed student skills in specific areas.

37. Sequencing Assignments and the Curriculum • Physical Therapy sequenced assignments for skills (specifically around research & writing) across their courses culminating in the capstone course • PT was also the first program to use ePortfolios as part of their external accreditation

38. Quantitative Reasoning

39. Oral Communication

40. General Education and Programmatic Competencies

41. Organization of Academic Work by Student Priority

42. Technological & Digital Literacy

43. Moving toward Change

44. Feedback Loop

45. New ePortfolio Architecture

46. A Basic ePortfolio Becomes Capstone

47. ePortfolio Challenges • Orienting and training faculty and students on the new ePortfolio system and the new ePortfolio architecture • On-going faculty development for ePortfolio and the assessment process • Highly transient student and faculty cohorts making cultural shift difficult; Distinguishing between the assessment and curricular uses of ePortfolio

48. Assessment challenges • Continuing to emphasize a culture of assessment after Middle States • Overcoming a fear of assessment • Evaluating and redesigning core competencies in light of: AAC&U’s work with high impact practices, essential learning outcomes, and liberal education; integrative learning we see in ePortfolios; pressures contemporary events put on the curriculum such as diversity, global citizenship and ethics

49. Questions?

50. Contact • J. Elizabeth Clark, Ph.D., Professor of English • lclark@lagcc.cuny.edu • Marisa A. Klages, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English and Director of Outcomes Assessment • mklages@lagcc.cuny.edu