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“OK, I’ve Written my SLOs, so Now What am I Supposed to Do?”
by Alice Mecom, SLO Chair
Well,
first of all, let’s hope it was a “we” who wrote those SLOs, but in any
case, it is now time to run the
assessment loop.
In order
to fully implement student learning outcome assessment cycles by the
year of our accreditation in 2010, our campus has developed and is
following a
SLOAC implementation timeline.
The timeline states that by the end of the fall 2007 semester,
each department and service unit is to choose one of its SLOs for one of
its courses and services and to implement its assessment.
After the assessment is given, we must look at the results to
determine how well our students achieved the stated outcome.
We then record the results of our students’ learning and describe
a plan for addressing any pedagogical changes or needs.
This
activity is called the
assessment loop.
Without performing assessment loops, there is no reason to have
written our SLOs in the first place.
“But I already do this.
We’ve been doing this for years.”
Here’s
what’s different.
Accreditation is asking that we use assessment loops to reveal data
about students who are enrolled in a course or participating in a
service, taking the assessment results from all the sections and
compiling them into one report representing the course and/or service.
These reports, which do not reflect individual instructors, can
then be used for program assessment.
In order to do this, instructors who teach courses with more than
one section and all service providers offering the same service will
have to come together in agreement on:
1. What
the desired outcomes of the course or service are
2. What
the criteria are for measuring whether the student has achieved the
outcomes
Would
most of us argue against the value of agreeing on what we want our
students to achieve and what criteria we should use to determine their
level of achievement?
Wouldn’t we agree that both our students and we ourselves would benefit?
Think of the improved teaching and learning, think of the
improved effectiveness of prerequisites, think of the improved
communication with Generation ME– give those students the outcomes and
criteria from Day One and deflate their unfounded arguments for the
grade they think they should get at the end of the semester.
“But how is my academic freedom preserved?”
The
individual instructor has the freedom to choose:
1. His
or her own teaching methods and strategies
2. The
student activities that he or she assigns
3. The
ways in which he or she assesses the students’ abilities and knowledge
4. His
or her own additional SLOs to personalize a course or service.
We are not
asking that the assessments affect your grading.
The assessments provide the course instructor with information
about the success of the students, their needs, and in some cases, the
program’s needs. This
information will be reported in program review and in other college
planning so that the college itself can meet accreditation requirements.
The college must show that it bases its budgeting, staffing, and
facility decisions on student needs, those very needs that are revealed
in
your assessment loops.
The assessment results do not have to be reflected in the grading
of your students, but they do have to be provided to the college
planning committees and to the Office of Research and Planning.
“How do I do the assessment?”
Decide
how you and those teaching your course or providing your service can
compare evidence within your sections on an agreed-upon SLO in order to
come up with an aggregated report for the course or service.
There is
no limit to how to do this, but some common methods include:
1. Standardized
options – common in vocational and technical areas
2. Embedded
questions that people agree to include in quizzes, surveys, exams, etc.
Our physical scientists and mathematicians at GCC are exploring
this option.
3. Rubrics
that list the agreed-upon criteria that the group has adopted.
Rubrics serve as a measuring tool for a student activity to find
out if a student has achieved an outcome.
Rubrics
look like grids with the criteria listed along one side and a scale
along the other. The person
doing the measuring checks off how well the student meets each
criterion.
For example:
Outcome:
The student will be able to write an essay in Standard American
English
Criteria:
In order to show the ability to do so, the student must have a
thesis statement, supporting paragraphs, correct sentence structure,
etc.
Outcome:
The student will be able to create a Web page
Criteria:
The student must include the use of links, appropriate layout,
correct file storage, etc.
Outcome:
The student will be able to apply for a job
Criteria:
The student must have a professional resume, interviewing skills,
cover letter, etc.
The
instructor can then choose any student activity, i.e. a presentation, a
group project, an online assignment, or an essay.
He or she uses the course criteria to evaluate the students.
Faculty can come together either while doing the assessments or
after they are done and compare the student learning results that their
common rubrics reveal. They
can then put together a summary of those results for the course or
service as a whole. Our
English and Visual and Performing Arts divisions, along with the
Sociology Department, are experimenting with rubrics.
“Do you have anything on a website to help us do
this?”
Go to
www.glendale.edu/program/slo,
and look for the Assessment Reporting Form on the left side of the page.
Use this form to record your
assessment loop, send it to Ed Karpp in the Office of
Research and Planning at ekarpp@glendale.edu.
Also, click on the toolbox icon for more supplemental materials.
Let me know of your progress at amecom@glendale.edu so that I can
keep our
campus inventory chart
updated.
Fun interactive assessment websites for
instructors:
Teaching Goals Inventory:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi/
VARK Learning Styles:
http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp
Classroom Assessment Techniques:
http://www.flaguide.org/
Rubrics:
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/
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