Summer Activities

Summer Projects Report: English 

This summer, the English Program assessed student performance from Winter/Spring ’22 WR121 classes from all departments and campuses. This is the second in a three-year cycle of similar activities, starting with WR115 and moving through WR122. Most of the project work occurred during the school year, with the summer activities being the culmination. 

The activities of the project were:

• Revising course SLOs to be more operational while maintaining alignment with OWEAC and AAOT requirements

• Creating the guidelines for the common assignment (the portfolio) and training faculty on their implementation

• Creating rubrics and scoring guidelines 

• Managing the collection of the artifacts and the creation of the tools for collecting scores

• Putting together the reading team and creating and running the training and norming 

• Managing the scoring process and then converting the scores into a format usable by IE to integrate into the campus data dashboard 

Results are currently being processed and reviewed; responses and potential impacts will be discussed and agreed to throughout the year. 

Summer Projects Report: Communication

Assessing speech presentations is a challenge due to the need to capture and store readings for later evaluation. This summer, Communication faculty worked together to divide and conquer this particular challenge:

• Debbie Hornibrook worked with the Center for Academic Support to better understand Canvas and other existing resources available to us. 

• Michele Dishong McCormack reached out to colleagues across the state to explore how other Communication colleagues are conducting assessments. 

• Based on input from the COMM 111 Assessment Subcommittee, Paul Evans created and piloted a shared speech assignment. 

• Josie Wood researched technology options (e.g. GoReact, McGraw-Hill Connect) and developed a learning module to support the assessment assignment. 

Based on this work, they are piloting assessment across 6 sections of COMM 111 Fall term 2022.

Late Summer Assessment Boot Camp

The Assessment Boot Camp was held September 7th and 8th, and it was composed of one discussion session and three workshops. The purpose of the discussion sessions was to frame our understanding of how we approach assessment as instructors and consider what has shaped our beliefs and practices. The three workshops addressed assessment as a tool for learning, effective feedback, and authentic assessments. There were 19 participants, five from Chemeketa, 13 from PCC, and one from HECC. Feedback for the boot camp series was overwhelmingly positive, and participants expressed appreciation for the opportunity to engage with faculty from another institution. 

Resources 

YouTube Series - "Six Steps for Student Learning Outcome Implementation"

Produced by COACH: California Outcomes Assessment Coordinators Hub, this series of brief informational presentations plus more comprehensive discussions can be a rich resource for programs and disciplines.

Sara Varnum Webinar - "A Student Report Tool for Actionable Assessment"

At the recent Sara Varnum Institute, biology instructor Daiju Hoshino, from Tarrant County College, Fort Worth, TX,  presented a tool he created to use digital exam data for actionable assessment. The recording is available for the next 3 months and posted to the Institute's site.