Action Plan

Faculty and Staff use their disciplinary expertise and training to plan student experiences that contribute to meaningful learning consistent with our mission, vision, values, and purpose. During this periodic planning time, we consider what we want our students to learn, and we develop course, program, and institutional learning outcomes to reflect those goals. Learning outcomes are reflected in our course syllabi, our program plans, and in our institutional College Learning Outcomes (CLOs). We develop teaching approaches and assessments that correlate with our learning outcomes that will demonstrate to us and our students if the learning we hoped for has occurred.

Teach

The core of our institution is the time we spend with our students instilling in them and in ourselves the Benedictine values that we hold dear. As we teach in the classroom, online, and in co-curricular experiences, we remember that the student learning outcomes we developed are central to the student experience. We collect assessments in the forms of student work and indirect measures that allows us to evaluate student learning.

Measure

In order to maximize student learning, faculty and staff spend time analyzing the assessments collected to understand how well students have met the learning outcomes we have developed. At the co-curricular and course level, we may use direct measures such as exams or writing samples and indirect measures such a student feedback. At the program level, all program instructors work together to analyze student work from a selection of courses and possible indirect measures such as surveys or completion data to measure success in our program level student learning outcomes. Institutionally, we analyze direct measures from collected student work and indirect measures including NSSE and Boynton surveys to determine how well we are meeting our College Learning Outcomes (CLOs).

Reflect

The time that we take to reflect upon our students’ work and their learning makes a huge impact on future CSS students. This reflection is central to our assessment process and a natural part of teaching and learning. At the course level, instructors reflect on the collected and measured data both individually and as teams in multi-sectioned courses. Programmatically, we take time to consider our students’ progress towards our student learning outcomes, updating our learning outcomes as our fields change and grow. As an institution, our CLO committee monitors our progress towards achieving our institutional outcomes and makes recommendations for change. As we complete our reflection, the assessment cycle repeats with plans for improvement and planning.

Resources

Reflection is followed by planning and improvement. Action plans are created at the course, program, and institutional level to help our students achieve greater gains. As we consider our plans, we consult with our Center for Teaching and Learning, the Director of Assessment, our disciplinary professional organizations, and other resources to create achievable plans for change.