Connecting Course Goals, Assignments, and Assessment Faculty Development for Student Success at Prince George’s Community College William Peirce

Started with General Education 1999 Attempted to assess general education by collecting and scoring course-embedded assignments from 13 heavily enrolled general education courses 2000 Added six more courses 2001 Added six more courses 2002 Dropped this method for assessing general education. Began using Academic Profile test.

Assessing Course Outcomes All departments revised their course master syllabi in half their courses to ensure that course objectives are stated as assessable learning outcomes in behavioral terms: ("After successfully completing this course, students will be able to...") Assignments, projects, and test questions addressed learning outcomes and are assessed by criteria Revised master syllabi were reviewed by the faculty Academic Outcomes Assessment Committee (AOAC) All departments did the same for the remaining half of their courses.

Department Course Assessment Plans Departments designed a five-year schedule for assessing priority courses and designed a three- semester plan for the first course to be assessed. Departments’ assessment plans have three components: –A process to ensure that all instructors, including adjunct faculty, are assessing all the course outcomes –A systematic, valid assessment of at least 60% of the course outcomes by assignments, projects, and/or tests given in all sections of the course or a representative ¼ sample in large multi-section courses –An analysis of the assessment results and a discussion by the faculty of how to improve student learning

The Year of Critical Thinking 2004 The year of critical thinking is launched Course assessment plans must now include an assessment of higher order thinking outcomes

Where Are We Now? until the end of time Departments continue their schedule of assessing priority courses, revisiting previous courses as appropriate. As of fall 2005: 434 course syllabi were rewritten with assessable outcomes and approved by the AOAC. 58 course assessments were finished. All departments have said that some component of the assessment process was useful in improving the course. 46 course assessments are in progress. Proposed new courses must include higher order thinking among their outcomes and design ways of assessing them.

Principles Guiding the Development of Outcomes Assessment 1.The primary purpose of assessment is to provide valid and reliable data to improve student learning. 2.Faculty design and carry out the assessment process. 3.Assessment is based on course- embedded tests and assignments, although additional measures may be used. 4.Assessment is not linked in any way to evaluating individual faculty members. 5.Assessment results are analyzed each semester by department faculty to improve student learning. 6.Assessment at PGCC is an evolving process, improving each year.

Challenges We Face(d) 1.Syllabi listed objectives as topics to cover; faculty didn't know how to write assessable outcomes. 2.Some courses listed only factual recall outcomes, no higher order thinking. 3."Course outcomes assessment is too much work and not worth the effort." 4.Faculty knew how to do only class assessment, and had no experience with course assessment.

Challenges We Face(d) - Continued 5. Test items did not match the outcomes on the syllabus. 6. Test items asked for only factual recall, not higher order thinking. 7. Faculty did a poor job of assessment: essays written on different topics under different conditions; faculty scoring essays did not norm themselves. 8. “Common assessment is a violation of individual academic freedom.”

Inevitable Tensions in the Outcomes Assessment Process Educational research data vs. Action research data Assessment for accountability vs. Assessment for improvement of student learning Primacy of the assessment process vs. Primacy of instructor autonomy Primacy of the assessment process vs. Need for faculty cooperation and acceptance

Workshops to Assist Faculty 1999 Virginia Anderson workshop for department chairs and faculty; 20 copies of Walvoord and Anderson, Effective Grading (1998) purchased present Workshops by various faculty members every semester on some aspect of assessment or teaching thinking during fall and spring kick-off week before classes start Two-day workshop for chairs and faculty in May on how to conduct a course assessment. PGCC Assessment handbook prepared; available online Workshop on designing rubrics to assess higher order thinking. Audio conference by Linda Suskie on teaching and assessing thinking skills.