Assessment

Each year, the JCCC Office of Outcomes Assessment requires the English Department to assess at least one of our courses to determine how well students are fulfilling a specific General Education Student Learning Outcome. Typically, we assess courses on a three-year rotation:

Year 1: Composition I

Year 2: Composition II

Year 3: Literature courses

When we assess courses, we must collect student work from all of the sections in that course. As an example, let’s say that we’re assessing how well students in our Composition II courses master this Student Learning Outcome: “Access and evaluate information from credible sources.” To assess that outcome, we will collect research papers from every section of Composition II, and we will submit those papers to the Office of Outcomes Assessment, which will then randomly select samples for full-time department members to score with a rubric. Collecting and scoring the writing samples are just two steps in a year-long assessment review for a particular course. Below is a timeline of the work involved with assessment:

1. The English Department Assessment Committee will meet to determine the course and the specific student learning outcome that will be assessed. Over several meetings, the Assessment Committee will develop a rubric that will be used in the scoring of the writing samples. The committee will also create a student survey to further assess understanding of the outcome.
2. Once the rubric has been constructed, emails are sent to all faculty teaching that course to remind them to collect a specific paper and to provide their students with the assessment survey. These email reminders will be sent throughout the semester.
3. At the end of the semester, all the papers are numbered and submitted to the Office of Outcomes Assessment. That office will randomly select a certain percentage of the samples for faculty to score.
4. If the writing samples are collected in the fall, typically, full-time department members will meet during spring professional development days to score the essays with the rubric developed by the Assessment Committee. When this scoring takes place, the focus is only upon the students’ mastery of the general education outcome. We are not assessing individual classes or professors.
5. Once the essays have been scored, the department Assessment Chair analyzes the results and writes an assessment report that will be included in the English Department’s annual Program Review.
6. The Assessment Chair will also make a presentation to faculty, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses on the outcome that was assessed. Often these meetings entail some discussion of solutions to help students improve.

Since most English faculty teach ENGL 121 and/or ENGL 122, almost 100% of the department will participate when those classes are assessed because instructors are responsible for distributing student surveys and collecting essays for assessment. If you’re teaching a class that will be assessed, realize that participation is not optional but required for both full-time and part-time faculty. While only a few faculty will actually score the essays, all faculty teaching the course must give their students the survey and provide copies of the requested student work.