Chuck Sekafetz, Electronics Technologies Program Chair

We use a rubric to rate how well a student understands core concepts taught throughout our program, and the data we get from using this rubric helps us see how students are progressing.  This works well for our program, meeting what our industry expects in knowledge and skills. Working together as a team, we review the data, on both a general and discrete level, and make quick changes throughout the term to mitigate any area of knowledge that may need help - even if we would still consider that assessment data “acceptable.”

For example, during the middle of a recent term we saw that students were having trouble running specific tests on a dial-operated oscilloscope, and did not seem to have a strong understanding of the terminology needed to communicate about those tests.  We promptly made changes to our course material to counteract that decline and shore up that knowledge for next year’s students. 

This was a great response to the assessment data, and our changes meant students would be exposed to the core concept again and have to demonstrate it as well. We felt happy with our progress. That was until the following year. While general assessment results were within an acceptable range, we did not see the level of increase we expected, given our changes the previous year. We once again dove into the discrete data. What we saw both hurt us and made us laugh.  The area we shored up the previous year was in the best shape it had been in years; however, another area dropped, not to an alarming value, but enough to make us want to address it.

Throughout the year as we concentrate on one area, another can regress. This spurs us to make changes to address this drop - only to see some other aspect diminish the next year. That is how we play Assessment Whack-a-Mole. Assessment data helps us produce students with strong knowledge, and helps us troubleshoot our curriculum for each group of students. We need to realize that our efforts are not futile with the little assessment data changes that we see.  We need to make those changes, and also be ready for the after-effect - and not become disappointed when our assessment data reiterates for us that student learning is never just a straight path but waxes and wanes with each class and year.