Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment
End-of-Semester Report – Spring 2008
Semester 4: Identify (Redux)
SUMMARY: According to our original plan, this semester’s theme should have been IDENTIFY. That is, according to the “three-semester plan,” all faculty should have completed an assessment cycle last semester and this semester come back to stage one (identify). However, we have found that faculty are at different stages in the process, and many are still in the midst of their first assessment cycle. Thus, this semester, in effect, encompassed all three themes—IDENTIFY, ASSESS, and REFLECT, as faculty moved at different paces in working through the Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Cycle (SLOAC). Our emphasis this semester, then, was on growing the SLO assessment program in general and continuing to train faculty.
The advent of the semester saw a huge increase in number of courses with SLOs as a result of the emphasis on SLOs during the entire Spring 2008 flex day. While the Fall 2007 semester ended with 171 courses with SLOs, after Spring flex day, this number surged to 323. By the end of the semester, 398 courses have at least one SLO Proposal, and 63 courses have assessed at least one SLO (as compared to 31 courses by the end of Fall 2007).
The Assessment of Learning Committee played a large role this semester in setting goals and establishing benchmarks for the next several years.
Conservative Summary of Progress: Spring 2008
Division / # (and %) of Courses with at least one SLO Proposal / Increase (and % Increase) over Fall 2007 / # (and %) of Courses with at least one SLO Report (a Complete Assessment Cycle) / Increase (and % Increase) over Fall 2007 / Ratio of SLO Proposals to Reports / Programs with at least one SLOB&SS / 49 (36%) / +41 (~+500%) / 9 (7%) / +8 (~+800%) / 5.25 : 1 / 2
Business* / 50 (47%) / +0 (+0%) / 2 (2%) / +2 (~+200%) / 27.00 : 1 / 2
Fine Arts / 88 (37%) / +71 (~+425%) / 10 (4%) / +6 (~+150%) / 8.75 : 1 / 1
HS&A / 83 (43%) / +31 (~+75%) / 17 (9%) / +11 (~+1100%) / 5.00 : 1 / 3
Humanities / 50 (31%) / +36 (~+250%) / 7 (5%) / +7 (~+700%) / 7.25 : 1 / 1
I&T / 38 (11%) / +26 (~+225%) / 8 (2%) / +7 (~+700%) / 4.75 : 1 / 2
Math Sci / 10 (25%) / +5 (~+100%) / 10 (18%) / +6 (~+150%) / 1 : 1 / 2
Nat Sci / 28 (32%) / +19 (~+200%) / 6 (7%) / +5 (~+500%) / 4.75 : 1 / 4
Inst. Div. Totals / 396 (30%) / +237 (+132%) / 69 (5%) / +52 (~+450%) / 5.75 : 1 / 17 Programs
* Business numbers may change once we receive information from this division.
The information above and in the report below is based on the files that have been submitted to the SLO co-coordinators, which may lag a bit behind what has happened in each division.
REPORT
I. Division Progress: This section reports the progress made in each academic division as well as in counseling and student services.
- Behavioral and Social Sciences Division: Chris Gold – ALC Representative
Department / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
American Studies / 3 / 0 / 0 / 0
Anthropology / 12 / 3 (1) / 0 / 1
Child Development / 30 / 6 / 4 / 0
Economics / 4 / 3 / 0 / 0
Education / 5 / 0 / 0 / 0
Ethnic Studies / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0
History / 24 / 24 / 3 / 0
Human Development / 6 / 2 / 0 / 0
Philosophy / 8 / 4 / 2 / 0
Political Science / 7 / 1 / 0 / 0
Psychology / 13 / 2 / 0 / 0
Sociology / 8 / 4 / 0 / 0
Women’s Studies / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0
Total / 134 / 49 / 9 / 1
This semester,BSS faculty made significant progress in writing course-level and program-level SLOs. Approximately 160 course level SLOs have been written for 77 courses in Behavioral and Social Sciences. 11 program level SLOs have been written for 5 departments. There is, however, a significant gap between the number of SLOs written and the number of SLOs reported to the campus-wide Assessment of Learning Committee. Faculty are working together to write SLOs, but only about half of the course level and program level SLOs have been reported to the campus coordinators. According to this division’s three-year assessment plan, put in place in Fall 2007, nearly every department has been conducting an assessment in at least one core course this Spring semester.
Particular successes in the area of assessment have been reported in areas of political science and psychology. In political science, all the full time faculty teaching Political Science 1 worked together to write an SLO statement and create a rubric. In Spring 2008, they all conducted assessment in their sections of the course. In addition, Political Science is assessing in 2 other courses. Eduardo Munoz has been an excellent leader and facilitator for the assessment process. In psychology, Julio Farias has taken the initiative to explore the uses of “Clicker” technology in conducting assessment and creating assessment reports. Several Instructors on the committee are excited about the possibility of using clickers to conduct assessment.
The Division still faces significant opposition to the process of assessment. It continues to be difficult to increase the number of instructors willing to engage in assessment. Many instructors still need to be convinced that their work will be personally useful, in addition to being valued by and helpful to the college as a whole. Instructors are coming to understand that they need to conduct assessment for accreditation, but they do not perceive assessment as useful beyond accreditation.
Recommendations: Given the resistance voiced by this division, and probably felt among other faculty in other divisions, it is important for the coordinators and campus-wide committee to explore ways to motivate faculty to conduct assessments in their courses.
- Business: Donna Grogan and Ollie Hadley – ALC Representatives
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Business / 49 / 18 / 0 / 0
CIS / 28 / 21 / 2 / 0
Law / 16 / 2 / 0 / 0
Real Estate / 22 / 9 / 0 / 4
Total / 115 / 50 / 2 / 4
Information about this division’s progress during the Spring 2008 semester is not yet
available. Once it becomes available, this report will be amended.
- Fine Arts Division: Harrison Storms—ALC Representative
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Art / 60 / 29 / 4 / 0
Dance / 36 / 6 / 6 / 0
Film/Video / 16 / 0 / 0 / 0
Music / 75 / 35 / 0 / 0
Photography / 13 / 2 / 0 / 0
Speech Communication / 12 / 9 / 0 / 1
Theatre / 33 / 7 / 0 / 0
Total / 245 / 88 / 10 / 1
During this semester, substantial progress was made in this division, particularly during Spring flex day. By the end of the semester, 71 new course-level SLO assessment plans and one program-level SLO assessment plan had been written. This is three times what had been accomplished by the end of Fall 2007. To date, ten course-level SLOs (Art 10ab, Art 17 and Art 18ab, and six Dance courses) have been assessed.
More and more faculty in this division are accepting responsibility for SLOs, mainly due to the appointment of a division-level SLO committee to oversee the process. This committee has met to discuss goals and the process for achieving them. Each program has produced a chart to track which courses have SLOs, and which of these have been assessed. The charts also show which faculty member is responsible for which SLOs and assessments.
In addition, substantial progress has been made when common outcomes are found across several courses. For example, Daniel Berney, faculty member in the Dance program, was able to identify the chanie turn as a common denominator in assessment for eight dance technique classes. Identifying these fundamental skills in each area has allowed faculty to make progress for multiple courses within an area.
Recommendations: This division’s strategy for setting goals and tracking progress can be used as a strong model for the rest of the campus. This division is definitely on track to make substantial progress in the Fall 2008 semester in the area of assessment.
- Health Science and Athletics Division: Kelly Clark—ALC Representative
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Contemporary Health / 4 / 2 / 0 / 0
Educational Development / 16 / 3 / 3 / 0
First Aid / 2 / 1 / 0 / 0
Nursing / 31 / 15 / 11 / 1
Physical Education / 94 / 39 / 0 / 3
Radiologic Technology / 18 / 4 / 3 / 0
Respiratory Care / 11 / 10 / 0 / 0
Sign Language / 17 / 9 / 0 / 0
Total / 193 / 83 / 17 / 1
This division continues to lead the campus in its faculty’s engagement in the assessment process.
In the nursing program, all courses, except those taught exclusively by part-time faculty, have an SLO. In addition, this is one of the only programs on campus not only to have a program-level SLO in place, but also to have assessed it and reflected on the results. Almost all nursing courses with an SLO in place have also gone through the process of assessment and reflection. This program continues to make outstanding progress.
In the radiologic technology program, faculty have also engaged fully in the assessment process. More significantly, the results of these assessments have been used to inform program improvements. For example, the faculty found that the senior students were not performing as well as expected in the exit registry exam prep course (RTEC 328). Thus, the faculty restructured the schedule to allow more study time. Last year the exam scores were again assessed and a significant improvement was noted. In addition, it was found that the students were struggling to meet the lab skills requirements each semester throughout the program. Thus, the one semester course was split into two courses, andsignificant improvements in the students’ lab skill competencies have been found as a result of this change. It should be noted that the faculty in this program are motivated to participate in assessment in order to maintain their reputation as “the best RadTech program around.” This program also continues to make outstanding progress.
In the special resources area, faculty are in the process of writing SLO’s for the remaining courses in Educational Development and Sign Language. At this point SLO’s for 9 courses have been completed and only 3 courses are outstanding. In addition, substantial progress has been made in the area of assessment: faculty who assessed during the Fall semester have worked at compiling the data and reflecting on the results; also,faculty, including part-time faculty, have collected data this semester for analysis next term. Two workshops were provided for sign language faculty to review concept and process of Student Learning Outcomes and development of a rubric for assessment across the language level courses. The SRC management team worked to develop 3 program level SLO’s for the SRC. While reporting and reflecting on assessment results has been slow, this division has achieved wide-spread buy-in among its faculty, and has strong leadership at many levels within the program.
Physical Education made great strides in creating SLO proposals, and found it particularly useful to pair SLOs for men’s and women’s teams. Plans are in place for assessing all 39 new SLO proposals in Fall 2008.
In the Athletics area at the ComptonCenter, a student learning outcome on critical thinking was done for the athletic department. The desired outcome was to demonstrate the ability to think and execute directions from the coaching staff during competition, at a high skill level. The method of delivery was team orientation meetings, team and individual practices and athletic contests. The assessment process is currently under way in the form of a performance evaluation, for both individual and team, which will be compared with the individual statistics and then team statistics.
Recommendations: Our recommendation is that they continue to make progress; this division is a model for the rest of the campus.
- Humanities Division: Rebecca Bergeman and Darrell Thompson—ALC Representatives
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Academic Strategies / 15 / 2 / 0 / 0
Chinese / 5 / 1 / 0 / 1
Communications / 2 / 0 / 0 / 0
English / 53 / 33 / 5 / 0
ESL / 22 / 8 / 2 / 0
French / 13 / 1 / 0 / 1
German / 9 / 1 / 0 / 1
Italian / 5 / 1 / 0 / 1
Japanese / 9 / 1 / 0 / 1
Journalism / 13 / 0 / 0 / 0
Library Information Science / 5 / 1 / 1 / 0
Spanish / 14 / 1 / 0 / 1
Tutor Training / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0
Total / 166 / 50 / 7 / 1*
*Foreign Languages have developed a common program level SLO
This division has experienced an increase in faculty buy-in and has made SLOs and assessments a top priority. SLOs are a consistent agenda item at department meetings, and spring and fall flex days proved to be very productive.
Substantial progress was made in the English department during this semester. SLO assessment reports have been completed for English B, A, 1A, 1B and 1C, for assessments which took place in Fall 2007 and continued into the Spring 2008 semester. These assessment sessions were widely attended by faculty in the English department, even though they were technically optional. This substantial progress was possible because of the leadership of Susan Corbin, who was given release time during the semester to coordinate the assessment efforts in these courses. In addition, assessment of these courses represents a huge step forward in the campus’ assessment efforts because of the fact that many of them are mandatory for all students; thus, these assessments have a large student impact.
This semester, ESL assessed its SLO for ESL 53B (Intermediate Writing and Grammar), thus completing its first assessments for all of its writing classes. ESL 53A was assessed in Fall 2007, and its two other writing courses, English Ax and English 1Ax were assessed in conjunction with the equivalent courses in the English program (English A and English 1A). One important outgrowth of these assessments was the decision that each full-time faculty member would be appointed “course leader” of one course in the program and oversee the assessment of course outcomes, as well as be in charge of curriculum and choosing textbooks.
The foreign language department has also made substantial progress in the area of SLOs with the finalization of its program-level SLO and assessment instrument for its level one courses in all languages to be assessed in Fall 2008. The assessment instrument is a particularly clever one, in which the outcomes for the level one courses are assessed in the level two courses. The coordinators look forward to seeing the results of this assessment.
Recommendations: The progress made in assessment in the English department points to a lesson for the campus in general: in order to make substantial progress in assessment of SLOs, appointment of faculty leadership with release time at the division level is necessary. This division also needs to address the lack of substantial progress in its smaller programs.
- Industry / Technology Division: Ray Lewis—ALC Representative
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Administration of Justice / 39 / 5 / 3 / 2
Air Condition & Refrigeration / 14 / 1 / 0 / 0
Architecture / 16 / 0 / 0 / 0
Automotive Collision R/P / 18 / 0 / 0 / 0
Automotive Technology / 25 / 0 / 0 / 0
Computer Aided D/D / 16 / 1 / 0 / 0
Construction Technology / 19 / 3 / 0 / 0
Cosmetology / 14 / 3 / 2 / 0
ECHT / 23 / 4 / 3 / 0
Engineering Technology / 5 / 1 / 0 / 0
Fashion / 28 / 2 / 0 / 0
Fire and Emergency Tech / 75 / 2 / 0 / 0
Machine Tool Technology / 18 / 4 / 0 / 0
Manufacturing Technology / 7 / 0 / 0 / 0
Nutrition and Foods / 5 / 0 / 0 / 0
Quality Assurance / 8 / 0 / 0 / 0
Welding / 12 / 12 / 0 / 0
Total / 342 / 38 / 8 / 0
Spring flex day represented a huge step forward in this division, with Compton faculty participating in writing SLOs for the Fashion and Auto Tech programs. SLOs and assessments have been a consistent agenda item at the division council meetings, with program representatives being asked to provide monthly updates on SLOs and assessments. In order to bring aboard adjunct faculty, which represent a substantial part of the division, it has been proposed that a series of Saturday workshops be planned for the purpose of training adjunct faculty in SLOs and assessments. The administration of justice program continues to be a model for this division. To date, this program has completed its first assessments for all of its courses. Ray Lewis continues to be a strong leader in this division and as a result of his efforts, many faculty members have bought in to the process.
Recommendations: This division still faces the problem of having many small programs and even more courses taught only by part-time faculty. The proposed Saturday workshops are a step in the right direction in including more adjunct faculty in the process, which is of particular importance in this division.
- Learning Resources Unit: Claudia Striepe—ALC Representative
The Learning Resource Unit made great strides this semester in working together to create 5 SLO’s that, when combined, contribute to a general program- level SLO which aims to demonstrate that “Students demonstrate knowledge of LRU (Learning Resources Unit) services.”Before spring flex day, teams corresponding to the different areas were formed and charged with the responsibility for creating SLOs and assessment methods as well as conducting the assessments and analyzing the results. Staff from both the ComptonCenter and the El Camino College main campus are included on the teams. The Compton faculty were involved as far as possible, and are kept apprised of every team’s progress when not present, so that they can re-create the SLO’s on their campus.The five areas in this unit are: Distance Education, One-on-One (Public) Services, Periodicals, Basic Skills, and Collection Development/Marketing.
To date, the teams have decided on methods of assessment, and are working to formalize these methods according to deadlines each team has established for itself. The campus Institutional Researcher Irene Graf has been included and given valuable input in the creation of these assessment methods.
In the Spring 2008 semester, the Bibliographic Instruction assessment, conducted for the first time in Spring 2007, was refined and repeated this semester.
The overall weakness in this area is the paucityof staffing. This makes it difficult for staff to set aside times for meetings to create, discuss, and assess SLOs. Additional staffing would mean a much more nuanced approach to SLOs as staff would have the time to meet and plan properly, and have the staff to conduct assessment and come to thoughtful conclusions. Right now these activities take place when staff can “spare a moment”. This also leads to some resentment of the process.
Recommendations: The Learning Resources Unit continues to be enthusiastic in response to the SLO and assessment mandate. It should be encouraged to make progress while keeping in mind the serious deficiency in personnel.
- Mathematical Sciences Division: Judy Kasabian—ALC Representative
Departments or
Programs / Number of
Courses / Number of
Courses with SLOs / Number of
Course Level
SLOACs / Number
of Program
SLOs
Computer Science / 15 / 0 / 0 / 3
Basic Skills / 2 / 2 / 2 / 0
Developmental Mathematics / 5 / 2 / 2 / 0
Mathematics for Teachers / 4 / 2 / 2 / 4
Transfer-Level Mathematics / 4 / 2 / 2 / 0
Calculus Sequence / 7 / 2 / 2 / 0
Engineering / 2 / 0 / 0 / 0
Total / 39 / 10 / 10 / 7
The Mathematical Sciences Division had not made too much progress on SLOs and Assessments during the fall semester, largely due to their plan to create new courses in anticipation of the upcoming changes in A.A. and A.S. degree requirements, which go into effect Fall 2009.