Describe How the Results of the Program Pathway Assessments Are Being Used in Your Department

Describe How the Results of the Program Pathway Assessments Are Being Used in Your Department

Describe how the results of the program pathway assessments are being used in your department to improve student learning. Specify any of the elements of the pathway assessment improvement plan being implemented in your area.

Academic Resource Center

As noted in the Foundational Skills Pathway Assessment, students were not meeting the learning program outcome for Habits of Mind. In response to this, the Academic Resource Center has implemented a module into tutor training, which is specifically focused on training tutors on how to integrate lessons on essential academic skills (habits of mind) into the tutoring sessions. The other notable finding of the Pathway Assessment indicated that programs within Foundational Skills are not providing enough explicit instruction on critical thinking and reading skills. To address these two findings, the Academic Resource Center has included additional workshops into the schedule to focus specifically on these topics.

Anthropology Department

Anthropology is part of the General Education/Transfer Pathway. Since the college was lacking a SLO coordinator and did not move forward with implementing the improvement plan, the department has also not done much in this area. The main recommendation from the report was to provide students with more opportunities to practice the outcome skills. We plan to discuss this as part of the implementation of eLumen and as part of the professional development activities centered on Anthro 101 and 121.

Art Department

Program pathway assessments help the Art Department better assist students to develop their portfolios and course load to transfer to accredited art schools and four-year institutions. Program pathway assessments also enable the Art Department to provide an art program that not only prepares students for transfer, but to also gain skills to work in the field of fine and applied art such as art exhibition installation, curatorial practices, graphic design, etc.

Business Administrative Department

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Biology Department

Anatomy 1: The major emphasis is communication. We will continue emphasizing usage of correct anatomical terminology.

Biology 3: Biology 03 has a major emphasis in reasoning skill, which was emphasized in SLO 1 and SLO 2. We need to spend more time engaging students and relating the subject to everyday situations. We also have to provide students with activities that will promote critical thinking and problem solving and mostimportantly to share results and lessons learned with colleagues to promote student learning.

Biology 6: We are satisfied that the SLOs are being met by our Biology 6 students. To improve effectiveness, we have better coordinated lecture and lab topics in cell biology and will continue emphasizing the importance of cell structure and function in both the laboratory as well as the lecture.

Biology 7: The major emphasis of Biology 7 with respect to the program outcomes is global awareness. The students will increase their scientific literacy and

develop a greater awareness of global species diversity.

Program Assessment

Biology 22: The major emphasis of Biology 22 with respect to the program outcomes is global awareness. These assessment findings suggest that students have a limited ability to apply predictive models to tide pool visitation along the Southern California coast, and to any other coastal intertidal area they may be visiting. These skills are applicable to coastal areas anywhere in the world.

Biology 33: We are continuously updating course content presented in class and student knowledge testing to better reflect the overall program outcomes.

Biology 40: We will continue to emphasize the importance and rigor of lab reports and proper analysis of data.

Biology 46: We will continue to emphasize the genetic basis of disease.

Biology 97: We will continue to emphasize reading and oral communication of scientific articles.

Biotechnology 1: Biotech 1 has a major emphasis on communication and minor emphasis on global awareness. More emphasis will be placed on how effectively students communicate the social and global impacts of bio manufacturing and its products in the daily lives of global communities.

Biotechnology 2: Biotech 2 has a major emphasis on communication and minor emphasis on reasoning skills. More time will be utilized stressing the importance of an effective laboratory report as well as how data is analyzed, interpreted and communicated to peers in the workplace.

Biotechnology 3: Biotech 3 has a major emphasis on reasoning skills with a minor emphasis on communication. Only half of the students met this SLO successfully; therefore, more time and emphasis will be spent on the value of communicating results garnered from scientific experiments, stressing the importance of an effective report, as well as how data is analyzed, interpreted and communicated to peers in the workplace.

Biotechnology 5: Biotech 5 has a major emphasis on reasoning skills and minor emphasis on communication. Students were able to communicate data gathered, from the use of various laboratory equipment used for environmental monitoring, and were able to analyze, interpret and document the results appropriately, and therefore, have met the SLO.

Biotechnology 6: Biotech 6 has a major emphasis on communication and a minor emphasis on reasoning skills. Students were able to communicate the value of quality control processes within the manufacturing sector. More time will be spent having students assess the quality of products generated given data sets from these processes.

What can we do to promote the improvement of students' critical reasoning skills?

Engage students with more, and more targeted, opportunities to learn and practice higher order reasoning skills across all GE/Transfer subject areas. Provide students with regular opportunities to learn, practice and build skills in evaluating information, comparing and contrasting elements presented, analyzingarguments and ideas, providing support for positions taken and applying theories and concepts learned to solve problems and gain new understanding.

Recruit faculty and students to develop and conduct pilot projects that address higher order reasoning skills. Share the results and lessons learned with colleagues.

Communicate with other faculty leaders involved and invested in the improvement of learning outcomes across the Foundational Skills and Career Technical Education program pathways. Exploit opportunities for useful collaboration, as all three programs highlight reasoning skills as a core learning outcome.

What can we do to promote the improvement of students' communication skills?

Engage students with more, and more targeted, opportunities to learn and practice those communication skills that show the greatest room for improvement: (a) use of correct sentence structure, verb tense and other grammar mechanics; (b) effectivevocalics and eye contact; (c) organizing and expressing ideas clearly and without difficulty through speaking; and (d) comparing, contrasting and otherwise analyzing information that is read or heard. Recruit faculty and students to develop and conduct pilot projects that address these communication skills. Share the results and lessons learned with colleagues. Communicate with faculty leaders involved and invested in the improvement of learning outcomes across the College’s other program pathways. Exploit opportunities for useful collaboration, as all three program pathways identify effective communication skills as a core learning outcome.

How can we improve students' global awareness?

Engage students with more, and more targeted, opportunities to assess how the world is shaped by global processes and how their own lives are impacted by these processes. Recruit faculty and students to develop and conduct pilot projects that have students connect their own lives to global processes. Share the results and lessons learned with colleagues.

How can we better promote students' social responsibility & personal development?

Engage students with more, and more targeted, opportunities to (a) learn about, practice contributing to and acting responsibly toward the larger community; (b) learn about and practice taking the most appropriate and ethical action when faced with a morally or ethically challenging situation. Recruit faculty and students to develop and conduct pilot projects that explore and address students' social responsibility and personal development. Share the results and lessons learned with colleagues. Communicate with faculty leaders involved and invested in the improvement of learning outcomes in the College’s other program pathways. Exploit opportunities for useful collaboration, as all three program identify aspects of social responsibility and personal development as core learning outcomes.

Microbiology 20: Have students do multiple case studies to apply knowledge of pathogenic microbes. Have students perform and interpret microbial identification tests all semester.

Physiology 1: We will continue to emphasize the collecting, recording, and interpreting physiological data.

CAOT Department

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Child Development Department

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Chemistry & Physics Department

N/A

Communication Studies Department

* Communication skills are paramount to our discipline. We did not identify issues with the core communication courses, but we did feel that the Communication skills of the ESSL students were being compromised. To address this we asked for new computers and software and made the face to face courses co-requisites with the lab courses. The ESSL courses have had increased success, but the enrollment numbers have been down. We are not sure as of yet, if the decrease it due to the co-requisite or a decline in the population that traditionally takes the ESSL courses.

* One area of concern was the library having Communication Studies resources available. We negotiated with the library and they have gotten Communication Studies Academic Journals. This will increase both the communication

* Recognizing the need for more Global Awareness, we have decided to offer more Intercultural Communication courses.

* We have been considering offering more Interpersonal Communication courses. This will increase the social responsibility and personal development.

Counseling

N/A – Instructional Counseling courses lead to no specific pathway or program completion.

Continuing Education Department

1. The Foundational Skills Program Assessment Report and its findings have been shared and will continue to be shared in small and easy to understand chunks with the Continuing Education Department faculty and staff. To better communicate the Pathway assessment, all Continuing Education faculty (fulltime and adjunct) are encouraged to attend the Foundational Skills committee meetings and contribute to the implementation of the program pathways. Both full-time faculty are regular members of the committee, and two adjunct faculty have begun participating in the committee and workgroup the meetings.

2. Greater emphasis is being placed on reading and speaking skills. They will both be assessed in future cycle three. As advised by the campus SLO committee, cycle two must be complete by Spring 2017, and cycle three will begin immediately after.

Cooperative Education

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English Department

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Earth Science Department

The results are being used differently depending on the disciplines. Some instructors will change the emphasis on certain topics. In the case of the geologyassessment which relies heavily on map and data collection, the class location was changed to the computer lab to allow students to use the computers and GIS to accurately produce maps for the project. Some faculty will break up the assessment tool into achievable blocks or modules that can be assessed as the semester progresses so that students can get feedback. Several of the Earth Science disciplines (Geology, Oceanography, Geography, and Environmental Science) use the Mastering series from Pearson which incorporates test questions using Bloom's Taxonomy and specifically includes higher order reasoning questions.

The Geology SLO project requires students to collect data and apply their geologic knowledge to their personal environment and social community.

Emergency Services Department

All course assessments are shared with all instructors in their respective disciplines via department staff meetings and weekly discussion groups with concerned faculty. Based upon group discussion and instructor consensus modifications are made to existing course work, whether it be via curriculum additions or subtractions, changes to test questions, and/or medians as to the dissemination of the course work. There is an ongoing data gathering and assessment process that is based upon a SLO Alignment Grid which instructors follow. This is reviewed and reinforced at department meetings. All department meetings are documented by a designated note taker and the meeting notes are disseminated after the meeting for all to reference and implement in their instruction.

Foreign Language Department

The results of the GE/Transfer Program Pathway Assessments have:

  • Stimulated discussion of how our course SLOs need to align with the Pathway SLOs.
  • Led us to revise the SLOs for our Level 1 and Level 2 courses.
  • Led us to revise some of the rubrics used in our assessments.

The Department needs to further discuss these assessments to address specific elements of the improvement plan.

Health Science Department

The two program CTE pathway recommendations the RT department is focusing are:

1. Creating more opportunities for CTE students to practice their program-SLO-related skills;

The RT students are evaluated after every clinical rotation on their critical thinking, technical and communication skills This way the students are given multiple opportunities to receive feedback throughout the program with improved inter-rater reliability instead of just focusing on grades and technical knowledge. The clinical competency evaluation includes patient care and assessment skills as well as professional behavior and communication skills with patients and staff. In addition, LAVC is participating in the LAH3C healthcare career pathway. We will focus on early entry students to give themopportunities to learn basic healthcare skills and competencies before they enter in the RT or RN programs.

Program Assessment

2. Bringing students into the assessment process and calling upon them to engage more actively in the evaluation of their own work

The RT students are evaluated for competencies in the lab and in the clinical settings. These competencies were revised to include a student self-assessmentalong with the instructor assessment for each competency. The RT program also provides computerized Self-Assessment testing to prepare for the NBRC board examinations.

In 2013, revisions were made identifying CTE SLOs within Clinical Evaluation Tool. The clinical competencies in the Clinical Evaluation Tool were referenced to the appropriate Career Technical Education Outcomes to validate that students in the Nursing Program are being prepared to achieve the goals relative to Employment, Communication Skills, Reasoning Skills, Professional Behaviors, and Technical Skills.

HHLPS Department

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Journalism Department

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Kinesiology Department

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Library Department

N/A

Mathematics Department

Program pathway assessment data supports the math department’s movement to simplify the pathway allowing for greater student success and retention.

Media Arts Department

The program assessment results are being used to improve student learning outcomes by creating a methodology for implementing best practices; sharing resources (such as videos and guest speakers); and braiding grant funds with institutional resources to create better methods for aligning classes along a comprehensive pathway. This can also take the form of better integration with counselors to ensure students follow the recommended course pathway as it can insure completion within a reasonable time frame based on course availability for those classes that are not offered every semester. These methodologies are shared with partner institutions, particularly those involved with LA HITECH so that better alignment is assured between partner colleges and high schools.

Using the funds available through the CCPs and CCCCO DSN grants, a program of professional experts available for classroom visits, curriculum development and revision, and internship procurement has been added to the plan to maximize assessment results. While these outside grants have sunset dates, it is the department’s plan to have a core of their recommendations already in implementation.

Music Department

The aforementioned modifications to piano and guitar courses serve as an initial impact on our department. Because of the investment of existing yet inadequate recording equipment, the department is producing results that are much more reliable and speak to outcomes more effectively than a pre/posttest or other conventional methods of assessment.

Philosophyand Economics Department

Our department does not make use of program pathway assessments. The majority of students in both Economics and Philosophy are taking courses with the objective of transferring to a 4-year university.

Psychology Department

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Sociology and Ethnic Studies Department

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SSD

N/A

Technology Department

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Theater Arts Department

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Virtual Valley Department

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