Shoreline Community College annual outcomes assessment report—2002-03

C. Current Issues/Concerns

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  General Although considerable progress has been made in attracting new faculty participants in assessment development, there remains a great deal of work to be done to complete the Shoreline Strategic Plan requirement for a well-defined assessment procedure for each course in the College Catalog.
  

In its Evaluation Report, the Commission on Colleges and Universities Evaluation Team noted that “Many of the faculty members have taken advantage of these (Outcomes Assessment-funded) opportunities, and teams of faculty have often carried out the projects. There is evidence that these assessment activities, although not part of an overall institutional assessment plan, have lead to the improvement of teaching and learning (2.B.3). These projects have resulted in some excellent data driven, outcomes oriented assessments that lead to the improvement of teaching and learning.” (p. 8)

In response to these issues and recommendations through its Strategic Planning process, the College has adopted for the 2003-05 Biennium, a major Focus Area to “Develop and implement a comprehensive assessment plan which will lead to a well documented set of learning outcomes, performance standards and related assessments.”

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  Assessment Continuity Portfolio: Case Studies of 2D Projects Linking Specific Outcomes and Alternative Assessment Practices, Mike Larson, Humanities,
  

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  Current general education MCOs are not course specific.
  
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  Current class size limits do not reflect the facility space available
  
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  Fine Arts Department, Humanities Division and budgeting issues
  
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  Lack of facility storage system for still life materials used to meet Outcome needs
  
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  Safety and Haz-Mat issues: serious need for part time studio maintenance hourlies
  
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  Lack of media technology available in the drawing studio for Lecture/Demonstration
  

• Turnover and transitioning of associate and tenured faculty respectively

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  Overuse of facilities by Community Ed and Art Clubs
  

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  Information Literacy Assessment,
  

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  Because the Information Literacy General Education Outcome is a relatively new one we see a need to increase understanding of it campus-wide. One of the aims of this project is to involve more faculty members in discussion of the outcome and to provide evidence of where students stand in regard to achieving it. Yet we’re concerned that, owing to the frequency of requests for classes to take surveys, a request to administer one more might not be greeted with complete enthusiasm.
  
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  The results of this project aside, at least one meeting of the librarians, English 102 instructors and possibly English 101 instructors to discuss information literacy would be beneficial.
  

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  Interdisciplinary General Education Outcomes Assessment Project (IGEA)
  

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  One important difficulty is that as the faculty work to integrate assessment of Gen Ed outcomes into their courses, the outcomes themselves clearly need to be revised--some in small ways, others in major ways. However, this is nearly impossible because changing them now would mean revising hundreds of Master Course Outlines and seeing each one individually through the course change process. However, NOT making changes to the outcomes means they stay less usable. It would be useful to develop new systems by which the Gen Ed outcomes could become more fluid and flexible.
  

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  The "easy" way to ensure that students meet Gen Ed outcomes as they graduate from SCC is to identify certain classes that teach to each of the outcomes and require students to take a specified number of them. This seems to be the direction that SCC is heading. However, this approach discourages performance-based assessment of student learning--the ideal way to ensure that students are learning what we say they should. The participants and manager agree that an on-going process should be developed whereby faculty and other members of the campus community regularly look at student performance of the outcomes across the curriculum. This process builds a much more solid and consistent implementation of the outcomes.
  

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  Another closely related concern raised by the participants was around Master Course Outlines (MCOs) and the process for writing and revising them to ensure integration of the Gen Ed outcomes. It is unwieldy, to put it politely. For the most part, faculty find obtrusive and unhelpful the process of adapting their course content to address most or all six of the Gen Ed outcomes. At the very least, the MCO form needs to be amended to include much more detail on how students will be assessed as they perform the Gen Ed outcomes.
  

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  Revision and Development of Outcomes and Student Assessment Tools for Individual VCT Courses
  

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  • Continuity of Instruction: The same courses are taught by different tenured faculty and associate faculty. Tenured faculty have and advise the overall philosophical view of the program and see the courses as part of the whole degree program. Associate faculty are hired for more refined expertise in a particular area. Creating a resource of outcomes and assessment strategies and tools will help create continuity in the instruction and development of these classes.
  
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  • Program Assessment: The VCT program continues to explore expanding the creation of certificates of completion for modules of related study without watering down the two year degree options. This assessment project will provide a framework for portfolio assessment at a program rather than just a course level.
  
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  • Resource and space needs: The articulation of outcomes and assessment activities will help define the space and resource needs of the facility and coursework. They will also help to define appropriate use of program facilities as contract classes and just-in-time training.
  
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  • Updating of MCOs: Dialog and review of outcomes and assessment strategies will aid in revising and rewriting out-of-date MCOs.
  

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  Assessment and Coordination of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program
  
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  Because the program is still in a ‘rebirth’ phase, many faculty are teaching these interdisciplinary courses for the first time. Therefore, there is still the need to create more assessment tools and to continue with professional development workshops.
  
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  Running the program successfully is a difficult and time consuming job. Because so much time and energy is needed to manage the program(administrative work), not enough time is available for the coordinator to focus on pedagogical concerns.
  
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  Interdisciplinary instruction requires classroom that are flexible and suited for group work. Most of our courses are being taught in lecture halls. This makes interdisciplinary instruction very difficult. With Carol Henderson’s support, one classroom is being created for the 2004-2005 academic year which will be a very helpful addition. For now, interdisciplinary instruction is struggling to find adequate classroom space.
  

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  Assessing Humanities Outcomes in Developmental English Courses
  

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  Faculty desire more time for ongoing discussions regarding outcomes and assessments, specifically the examination of student work
  

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  Faculty recognize the need for compensation for part-time faculty to attend outcomes and assessment meetings
  

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  Faculty are concerned that outcomes and assessment theory and methodology are not valued throughout programs, divisions, and the campus at large.
  

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  Nursing Process Papers Rubric
  

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  There is a complex set of assessments required for our nursing accreditation.
  

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  We must do a survey of employers regarding satisfaction with our graduates’ performance. While a survey has been designed we have not been able to get adequate response from our clinical agencies. They do not keep records based on the school the student graduated from. We cannot ask about specific graduates because that infringes on their privacy. We are considering whether a different type of survey is needed and how we might get a better response.
  
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  Similarly, we must do a survey of graduates. We discovered that the Professional Technical office did a survey last year without consulting us. It did not contain some of the information we would like to have. Response rate again was very poor. We would like to try a survey using email. Compiling results is also a time consuming problem.
  
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  We do many assessments of texts, clinical sites, and other aspects of our program. Currently those are all hand scored. This again is a time consuming endeavor and we do not really have a means to aggregate data for more sophisticated analysis. We would be greatly helped by being able to make our assessment forms machine graded and be able to statistically analyze responses.
  

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  Essential SkillsProgram: ESL Rubric Development Project
  

In future quarters, the federal Department of Education will require Washington State Basic Skills programs (which include ESL) to implement a standardized assessment test. Although we will be required to use this test to report our students’ progress to the State Board, many of us teaching in this program feel that the test will not fit all of the particular goals of our program and students. Therefore, it is essential that we have the rubrics for our own assessment activities. By their nature, the rubrics can be used to score work of various types, making them a perfect additional measure of student progress in the program.

D. Budget Summary

APPENDIX A

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