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Quarterly Communication: Fall '23
Quarterly Communication: Fall '23
Kick-Off Edition
Results! Spring Learning Outcomes Assessment Surveys
Results! Spring Learning Outcomes Assessment Surveys
Almost half of our academic units (24/51) responded to the LOAC Learning Outcomes Assessment Progress Survey late last spring. We asked about progress with developing and implementing outcomes assessment, and using results to modify teaching and learning strategies:
Most respondents (20/24) reported they had learning outcomes ready or almost ready; slightly fewer (17/24) had assessments ready or almost ready.
Many respondents (18/24) had set up reporting systems , and nearly as many (17/24) had conducted assessments.
Slightly fewer respondents (15/24) had reviewed assessment results within their unit, and fewer (13/24) had made changes in response to results or (12/24) reassessed student learning after making changes.
Coupled with results from our April faculty-wide survey, LOAC members now have a clearer picture for how we can best support faculty with their assessment work this year.
Everyone seems to be getting in the groove with planning outcomes assessment.
Working out the kinks to get more students assessed and results collected is more complicated. LOAC can strategize to help.
Faculty could also use more support figuring out how to best use assessment results. LOAC can explore that too.
Our faculty-wide survey in April indicated a wide range in levels of faith in outcomes assessment as a helpful tool for refining a unit’s approach to teaching and learning. LOAC has explored how it might help their peers identify assessments that they can have more faith in, and that are worth their time exploring.
We’ll be planning out projects that respond to these results during Kick Off.
Creating and Assessing General Education Outcomes
Creating and Assessing General Education Outcomes
This year, LOAC members will write General Education Outcomes for Chemeketa, an accreditation requirement, and design a pilot system for assessing them. Students who come through general education classes — and most of our students do — would be assessed on these outcomes through some kind of exam or other tool. The goal is to make these outcomes and assessments meaningful and useful to general education faculty, supporting teaching and learning. The project is detailed in this white paper.
If choosing these outcomes and a pilot for assessing them sounds like fun, you’re in luck! There are open positions on LOAC this year. Contact our new chair Nolan Mitchell if you are interested in joining.
Solid Support for Assessment
Solid Support for Assessment
LOAC is also interested in long-term, stable support for outcomes assessment work. Currently a faculty member is granted release time to support the work, but this release is subject to review each spring. LOAC wants to ensure that faculty and deans have ongoing support for integrating learning outcomes assessment into teaching and learning. This year they will be working on a proposal for designating responsibility for monitoring assessment to ensure it is worthwhile for faculty and students.
And finally, for Kick-Off inspiration for designing meaningful and useful outcomes assessment, read on for our latest Assessment Stories Almanac entry from Eric Jensen in Physics...
Learning About Learning in the Lab: Physics Outcomes Assessment
Learning About Learning in the Lab: Physics Outcomes Assessment
Erik Jensen, Physics Faculty
While there are many excellent outcomes assessments available to measure learning in physics lectures (such as the Force Concept Inventory), there is no general agreement in the physics education community on what should be taught in the lab, best practices for instruction, or how to measure student learning. In the fall term of 2022, I piloted an assessment with a small group of PH201 (General Physics) students to better understand what they are learning in our physics labs.
Based in part on the results of these assessments, my colleague Herbert Grotewohl and I have modified the lab curriculum. The main change we are implementing this fall is that we aren't trying to teach students everything - uncertainty, spreadsheets, graphs, scientific writing conventions - at once. We are scaffolding these concepts in such a way that we are slowly introducing them over the course of the year.
For the 2023-2024 academic year we plan to assess lab learning for all 200-level physics lab students to gauge the extent to which our changes are helping students learn these concepts.
About the Learning Outcomes Assessment Committee at Chemeketa:
Faculty-led LOAC works with college departments and committees to design
guidelines, processes, and infrastructure to support manageable, meaningful, useful
outcomes assessment and results, shaped by faculty to support teaching and learning.
View past LOAC news:
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