CHAPARRAL

Report from the Senate

I think/hope that by now we all know that SLO stands for Student Learning Outcomes, and is not the acronym for San Luis Obispo or an e-mail misspelling of a word that means reduced velocity. Now I have three points to update us all on the latest developments.

First, the Senate would like to thank the SLO Task Force for the work that it has done to move us along the road to developing our SLOs. The responsibilities before them were not small or insignificant. They have completed the preliminary work in the SLO development process, and the Senate at the February 3 meeting approved their report. By the time you read this article, the text of the report will be posted on the Senate website.

Highlights of the report include the purposes of developing SLOs, including “to establish for each discipline the knowledge, skills, abilities, and aptitudes that a student has attained at the end (or as a result) of his or her engagement in a particular set of collegiate experiences.” SLOs further involve us in establishing evidence of accountability, measurement and evaluation of what students learned and whether they learned what we hoped they would.

In other words, the key purpose for SLOs is to set standards and then to provide feedback to the faculty so that we can improve our teaching and provision of services. As the task force report states, the second reason for developing SLOs is so that “faculty can determine their own assessment learning and avoid having standardized assessment instruments or practices imposed by outside agencies, as happened in K-12 districts statewide.” Thus far the only pressure that the California community colleges have faced with regard to assessment comes from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, and fortunately the ACCJC has stated that learning outcomes need to be developed at the local level. Each college needs to develop its own, and the administration at Glendale Community College has agreed that each discipline needs to assume this responsibility.

Many disciplines, whether they recognize them as SLOs or not, already have a strong set of student learning outcomes in place; these standards and assessment tools simply need to be identified for reporting purposes. At this point, most of our courses already have listed exit standards which specify what faculty want students to have learned by studying a particular discipline or engaging in that work activity (counseling, library workshop or class). Some disciplines have moved beyond establishing these standards and are already discussing how to accomplish these goals. Still others are asking if they are indeed accomplishing the goals and if not, what they might do to accomplish them.

What is critical about this work is that it is to be done by all members of the discipline. It is not sufficient to say that I have my exit standards and know how to accomplish my goals. We need to work together to develop common outcomes and then to examine our current measures of assessment to determine how well they work and what might be improved.

The report also offers a tentative timetable for moving us along. On April 5, Dr. Robert Gabriner will discuss these new accreditation standards at the faculty meeting, and in the afternoon he will offer extended comments on SLOs to the Master Planning Committee and the Senate. Dr. Gabriner, the Dean of Research, Planning, and Grants at the City College of San Francisco, has extensive knowledge on these topics and should be invaluable in helping us to get the ball rolling on our campus (or perhaps I should say he will help us to move further down the SLO road.)

There will be some time at the faculty meeting to address questions. In addition, the Senate also plans to use the electorate meeting this spring to focus on this topic. At this time the date is being set, and as soon as we know we have a room, we will let you know.

A third point about SLOs is that we can develop only a tentative schedule for our work.  While some disciplines may quickly complete the work assigned, not all will move at the same pace. Thus the Senate has asked the SLO Task Force to continue its work and each year in the spring to offer a plan for the following year. This will allow us the flexibility that higher education demands.

Let me end by reminding you that the SLO Task Force report is posted and may be worth looking at. It includes a bibliography of sites that are useful for obtaining an overview of SLOs and seeing how other campuses are implementing SLO and for developing assessment.  By April 5, the SLO Task Force will have launched a preliminary website featuring SLO terminology, frequently asked questions, links to SLO departmental samples from other schools in California and around the nation, and more. If you would like more information, contact Denise Ezell. &

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