Shoreline Community College
ANNUAL OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT REPORT—2003-04
Assessment Liaison/s Phone Email
Jim James 206-546-6949
Pam Dusenberry 206-546-4626
A. Highlights of Major Assessment Activities/Project
For the fifth year, a major portion of Shoreline's Assessment allocation was dedicated to faculty assessment development efforts through an RFP process coordinated by the Institutional Effectiveness Committee. Remaining funds supported the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Assessment and Research, the Assessment Liaison.
For 2003-04 funds were awarded to 7 faculty projects (5 new and 2 continuing) representing the Humanities Division, Intra-American Studies and Social Science Division, Library/Media Center, ESL and the Work Skills Assessment Center.
· Professional Development Retreat: Crossing Disciplines, Neal Vasishth, Humanities, , Tim Payne Intra-American Studies and Social Science Division, .
· Assessing Information Literacy in ESL Courses, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services,
· WorkKeys Assessment for Dislocated Workers, Cindi Price, Work Skills Assessment Center,
· Information Literacy Online Tutorial Assessment, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services,
· Revision and Development of Outcomes and Student Assessment Tools for Individual VCT Courses, Dick Davis, Humanities,
· Critical Thinking / General Intellectual Abilities Evaluation Project, Pam Dusenberry, Humanities,
· Information Literacy Assessment, Joanna Tillson Library/ Media Services,
B. Examples of Educational Improvements Made/Actions Taken
· Professional Development Retreat: Crossing Disciplines, Neal Vasishth, Humanities, Tim Payne Intra-American Studies and Social Science
o Faculty attended professional development workshops where they had the opportunity to share teaching strategies, their course outcomes and methods of assessment. These workshops, such as the one entitled “Grading on the Same Page,” also allowed faculty a chance to step back and see how those outcomes and methods of assessment fit in relation to each other and in relation to Shoreline’s general course outcomes. Here are some examples of workshops that helped with pedagogical growth: “Shoreline’s Surefire Classroom Practices,” “Inductive vs. Deductive Learning” and “Teaching Obstacles.”
o Faculty had formal and informal time to get to know one another as people, not just as instructors. This was invaluable time devoted to developing person to person relations. The following workshops were instrumental in community building and improving the collegial climate amongst faculty at Shoreline CC: “Getting to Know You,” “Interacting with Deaf Colleagues and Students,” “Be the Rock, Be the Tree: An Exercise in Reflection,” “Conversation Café, Gamin' and Goofin',” “Playing to Learn, Global Team Trivia Game!,” and “Giving Back and Looking Forward: Group Reflection.”
o In the workshop entitled “Four Hands on the Steering Wheel: The Art of Team-Teaching,” new Interdisciplinary Studies teams and faculty with interest in making teams were able to learn team teaching strategies from faculty experienced in Interdisciplinary instruction. Interdisciplinary assignments were created in the session.
o Faculty developed unity in purpose and direction and discussed ways for maintaining it during the school year. This was accomplished in the following workshops, “Hot Faculty Issues,” “Conversation Café,” and “Giving Back and Looking Forward: Group Reflection.”
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix A.
· Assessing Information Literacy in ESL Courses, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services
o Team participants learned about information literacy and discussed ideas for incorporating it into their classes. At least one team member created a new assignment focused on Internet searching for her Level 3/4/5 ESL classes.
o Team participants indicated that they are now more aware of the information literacy concepts that may be included in their regular classroom activities and assignments and will make a point of assessing the information literacy outcomes as well as the other outcomes inherent in those assignments and activities..
o Surveys given to ESL faculty indicated that faculty wanted more workshops for their students. In response, the ESL liaison librarian who participated on the team created a series of workshops for ESL students on the SIRS social issues database and offered it through the ESL Technology Center. She plans to continue offering these workshops
o The ESL librarian also plans to offer workshops on information literacy skills for faculty in the division. This also is a result of the survey. If faculty are more comfortable with these skills themselves they will be more likely to incorporate them in their classes.
o The team has created a website with sample information literacy assessments that can be shared and used with other faculty members. We did this in the hopes that such an “assignment bank” would make it easier for faculty to include and assess these skills in their courses.
o The team created several grids that show which information literacy outcomes are appropriate to each level of ESL. Next to the information literacy outcomes, the grids list the corresponding ESL learning outcomes which are currently listed in the ESL Curriculum Guides and course MCO’s. Hopefully, these grids will demonstrate to faculty that many of these outcomes ALREADY are being incorporated and that it would not take much more work to assess for these skills.
o The team plans to present our findings and suggestions to the department faculty meeting in the Fall as a follow-up to this project. We would like to seek additional assessment funding to offer faculty workshops on how to integrate information literacy into their curriculum. We would like to offer small stipends for faculty to participate in these workshops.
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix B.
· WorkKeys Assessment for Dislocated Workers, Cindi Price, Work Skills Assessment Center
o Students able to present to employers a Workplace Skills Certificate documenting their skills
o Students able to identify skills sets and improve the skills via the use of Key Train in their chosen occupational field
o Employers receive meaningful evidence of work skills
o CES staff are able to guide students in career choices and training based on WorkKeys scores
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix C.
· Information Literacy Online Tutorial Assessment, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services
o The tutorial is linked from the library’s main page so it is now easily accessible to students
o The assessment portion is expanded and is interactive, to give students responses to their answers.
o An questionnaire of this tutorial has been added and allows students to submit their answers online.
o Faculty members from English, CEO and Science have been identified who will pilot the tutorial in Fall 2004 or Winter 2005.
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix D.
· Revision and Development of Outcomes and Student Assessment Tools for Individual VCT Courses, Dick Davis, Humanities
o Prior assessment projects provided interaction with full-time and associate faculty. Through this interaction outcomes/assessment information for visual communications courses were developed, revised and published on line as well in printed format. The goal of the overview/ review of the outcomes for each of 15 courses was to have teams of instructors participate in the reviews and develop commonly agreed upon outcomes for each course. Documents were designed and published on-line for use by the teams. Much of the process was accomplished on-line with minimal meeting time. When discussion meeting were held they required less time to complete. The various groups involved had advanced information to use to apply to problems within the outcomes developed The import of on-line meeting was that it allowed our associate faculty, who have other career obligations to participate without impact on their daily work schedule. The group interaction and group evaluation of courses provided us with outcomes for each course as well as the ability to identify “cross course” outcomes. The cross course outcomes are ones that appear in most if not all-individual course outcomes within the program. This overlap of outcomes became the foundation for the development of assessment tools that evolved. From the developed outcomes for each of the 15 courses we then (as a group) created two sets of assessment questions. These sets were based on input from industry, industry standards and as identified by our full and associate instructional staff. These questions are grouped in two distinct areas of learning that the VCT (visual communications technology) program identified as being essential for student success. The two areas are: skills and concept/idea development. From the list of assessment questions for each course the teams developed/created sub sets of questions that can be administered, evaluated and tabulated. This will give a clear indication of how students perceived their learning in each individual course and how they felt they did in regards to the identified cross course outcomes as well. Through the evaluations we were able to determine how well instruction was doing in our goal to cover the identified outcomes in each course. Courses were identified by number. There was no reference to instructors. That allowed more freedom and removed instructor evaluation from the process. The final project in the series was to assess each course through the year using the assessment question sets and correlate the findings to determine which of our identified outcomes were being met and which were not according to the students. An outcome that was not anticipated in the development of the projects using this assessment process was for us to identifying which outcomes are realistic for a specific course and which outcomes for student learning cannot be achieved in a specific course or series of courses.
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix E.
· Critical Thinking / General Intellectual Abilities Evaluation Project, Pam Dusenberry, Humanities
o Faculty workgroups such as used in this project are extremely effective at increasing participants’ familiarity with General Education Outcomes (GEOs), at improving the teaching and learning of GEOs, and at improving the evaluation of student achievement of the GEOs. Indeed, such groups directly lead to better student achievement of the learning outcomes this college has deemed most important.
o Washington State University’s Critical Thinking Scoring Guide provides a good base for the evaluation of students’ critical thinking abilities. The WSU scoring guide addresses the first and third sections of the General Intellectual Abilities GEO. The middle section of GAI deals with interdisciplinary learning which is not addressed by the scoring guide.
o Faculty used current assignments to evaluate their students’ critical thinking abilities. They made some adaptations to teaching, to assignments and to scoring guides which they felt improved their students’ performances.
o The development of criteria used in evaluating critical thinking helps faculty make their expectations clear to students. Faculty participants believe their students produced better work as a result of knowing the criteria beforehand. The use of a scoring guide or rubric is an important component in teaching and assessing student achievement of learning outcomes.
o While all faculty measure their students’ learning, gathering examples of assignments, scoring guides and student work provides evidence of student learning.
o The evidence of student learning that is gathered in a process such as this one can be taken to programs as models of assessment. A group of faculty within a program could use this approach to gather evidence of student learning of one or a set of outcomes. Evidence gathered in this way could be linked to program improvement efforts.
o Additional project detail is contained in Appendix F.
· Information Literacy Assessment, Joanna Tillson Library/ Media Services
o Report not yet received—will be forwarded at a later date.
C. Current Issues/Concerns
· General Although considerable progress has been made in attracting new faculty participants in assessment development, there remains considerable work to be done to complete the Shoreline Strategic Plan requirement for a well-defined assessment procedure for each course in the College Catalog. Continued emphasis on progress in this area is reflected in a Strategic Focus area for 2004-05. Shoreline Outcomes Assessment Reports were a major exhibit for the successful Focused Interim Visit from a Commission on Colleges Evaluator in Spring, 2004.
· Professional Development Retreat: Crossing Disciplines, Neal Vasishth, Humanities, Tim Payne Intra-American Studies and Social Science
o This was the first faculty retreat in over 15 years. We all discovered how productive and beneficial it was for our pedagogical growth. Faculty were obviously hungry to learn from each other and we discovered a need for the institution to do more in this area.
o More effort in community building on campus is needed, not only amongst faculty, but amongst all Shoreline employees, staff, administration and faculty. We need to find ways of accomplishing this and assessing it.
o The retreat was a great opportunity to think out of the box. Many new ideas were discussed. We need to develop strategies and create time for implementing these ideas at Shoreline CC.
· Assessing Information Literacy in ESL Courses, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services
o Our survey showed that faculty in the ESL department view assessing for information literacy to be “one more thing” that they have to do in addition to their regular curriculum. Many are not aware that they ALREADY incorporate many of these skills into their classes and that devising simple assessments does not have to be difficult or terribly time-consuming.
o Faculty also are not aware of the general education outcomes in general and how they are to be implemented. For example, none of the ESL faculty were aware that, in its response to the colleges accreditation self-study, the accrediting team specifically asked that information literacy skills be incorporated and assessed in curriculum across campus. There is the perception of a lack of leadership by the college administration in this area. Repeatedly, we were asked, “Is the college going to require this?”
o Many faculty are not comfortable teaching a number of the information literacy outcomes, and so it would be important to offer professional development workshops so they can hone their own skills. This cold pose a challenge to library faculty in terms of time and workload. Faculty also need to be more connected to services that can supplement their own teaching of these skills, such as the library and the ESL/GED Technology Center.
· WorkKeys Assessment for Dislocated Workers, Cindi Price, Work Skills Assessment Center
o Lack of integration of the WorkKeys system into instruction
o Lack of requirements for students to engage in Key Train to increase their skill level based on their WorkKeys scores
o If a second year of funding is made available, a concerted effort to improve communication and education about the WorkKeys system between business, SCC faculty, and staff will be a primary goal.
· Information Literacy Online Tutorial Assessment, Elena Bianco, Library Media Services