No Smoke, No Mirrors:

1. No Smoke, No Mirrors: A Practical and Collaborative Approach to the Development and Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes.

2. Presented by Dr. Maria Fraser-Molina, Dean, Arts, Sciences and University Transfer Dr. Thomas Gould, Associate Dean, University Transfer Dr. Peter Wooldridge, Associate Dean, Arts and Sciences

3. Presentation Outcomes • Participants will identify at least one strategy to help with the development of student learning outcomes. • Participants will identify at least one assessment strategy that they can recommend for use at their institution.

4. What is a Student Learning Outcome? • It is Not a competency. • It is Not an objective. • It IS a general statement of outcome for program students in specific courses, disciplines and programs. • It IS a statement of outcome that must be available to be assessed. • It IS a statement of outcome that leads to embedded assessments at the course level.

5. Where do you start? • Course level • Program or discipline level • Department level • Institution level

6. Institution Outcomes Program Outcomes Discipline Outcomes Course Outcomes Beginning at the discipline level helped remove the focus from “my course” Asking discipline faculty to work as a “team” helped them to identify common elements across their courses Where we started

7. What is our “philosophy” behind the identification of outcomes? • Student Learning Outcomes should be developed from bottom up. • Faculty in each discipline/program should generate the outcomes. • Faculty should be asked to think about the following questions: • Why does our program require specific sets of hours in specific disciplines/areas of study? • For example, what purpose does it serve to require 12 hours of humanities courses or 8 hours of science courses in the A.A. degree program?

8. Generating Outcomes Guidelines for Chairs/Directors and faculty

9. From A to Z • Chairs and Directors should meet with faculty to discuss the process. Chairs/Directors may provide as much or as little structure as they want. • Approaches to generate discussion may include • Answering open ended questions • Sentence Completion • Domain Analysis • Faculty meet without the Chair/Director to begin the work. • The first draft of Student Learning Outcomes are derived from discussions among faculty.

10. From A to Z • Once a draft has been generated, it is reviewed by program faculty and a final set of possible outcomes is determined. • The final set of outcomes is integrated across discipline areas, if necessary. • The final set of integrated program outcomes is reviewed by all constituent groups (faculty, advisory committee, administrative staff) and, once edited as needed, is adopted.

11. Student Learning Outcomes AA/AS Program Graduates

12. Students graduating with an Associate in Arts or Associate in Science degree will demonstrate the following outcomes: • Graduates will articulate discipline-specific concepts and vocabulary and demonstrate empirical and conceptual knowledge foundational to all program disciplines. • Graduates will demonstrate college-level critical thinking, argumentation, and analysis skills. • Graduates will construct purposeful and effective written essays and oral presentations (QEP) that demonstrate an understanding of rhetorical strategies and use experiential evidence and appropriately documented academic research.

13. Students graduating with an Associate in Arts or Associate in Science degree will demonstrate the following outcomes: • Graduates will demonstrate an awareness and understanding of cultural and social diversity and gain the skills necessary to interact appropriately within diverse environments. • Graduates will demonstrate an understanding of the scientific method and its application, including interpreting and analyzing scientific data, forming hypotheses, evaluating experiments. • Graduates will create a mathematical model of a practical problem and use the model to logically interpret and analyze the problem and make predictions • Graduates will demonstrate competent and relevant technology skills.

14. Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Strategies

15. How to get started • Acknowledge that assessment is a daunting task and don’t try to do everything at once • Identify someone as the “lead” person for assessment in your area • Create an assessment “team” with representation from all constituent groups • Attend presentations, workshops, etc. when possible • Bring “experts” to your campus

16. Preliminary Assessment (Pre-test) • What will be assessed? • Specific outcomes • Underlying processes • At what point will assessment take place? • Entry into the school • Entry into a program • How do you define your student cohorts? • Single vs. multiple assessments

17. Mid-point Assessment • Will mid-point assessments be taken? • Will the instrument be similar and/or equal to the pre-test? • Single vs. multiple assessments • Issues of data storage

18. Final Assessment(post-test) • What will be assessed? • At what point will this assessment take place? • Will the assessment be free-standing or embedded in a course? • What do you do with the pre/post data once you have it?

19. Durham Technical Community College – ASUT department • Pre-test will be E-write. • Pre-test will be administered to students who place into ENG 111. • Post-test will be embedded in capstone courses. • Specific disciplines will begin embedding learning outcome specific assignments (e.g. PSY 150).

20. Embedding Assessments • This is a circular process. • Data highlights areas of deficit. • Identified deficits are addressed via specific courses. • Specific assignments, units, etc. are embedded across courses to address deficits.

21. Questions? Dr. Maria Fraser-Molina, Dean, ASUT Dr. Thomas Gould, Associate Dean, UT Dr. Peter Wooldridge, Associate Dean, AS