NorthSeattleCommunity College (NSCC)
National Project on Assessing Learning in Learning Communities

Team Report for December 2006
Coordinator: Jane Lister Reis
December 20, 2006

A. FormUsed
NorthSeattleCommunity College’s Integrated Studies faculty have had two meetings to discuss the form and review student work. The first was a practice session at this fall’s Integrated Studies Planning Retreat, a day and a half workshopin September at an off-campus site. It was at this meeting where participating faculty were first informed of the college’s participation in this two-year project. During part of the retreat, fifteen people reviewed and discussed a sample piece of student work using the protocol. The purpose of this initial review was to give the project leadership an initial assessment of how faculty would respond to the protocol. What we learned from the trial run was how important the protocol is, and how important it is to strictly follow it. We also learned that if the protocol was not strictly followedthen faculty tended to revert back to their “paths of least resistance” which is to become quickly evaluative, even critical, of the work. The trial run highlighted the gem of the protocol which is the valuing of the work, and of the student who is the learner, as the foundation for our observation and discussion.

The second meeting was held November 30, 2006, and served as the official “kick off” of our involvement with this assessment project. We decided to use the second half of our regular monthly, two-hour Integrated Studies Planning meeting as a time to use the protocol and examine a student paper. (This decision was made after the initial conference call with Gillies. A comment was made by one coordinator that it was hard to get a lot of faculty involvement.) Ten faculty, one advisor, and one administrator discussed the student work provided using the protocol. This part of the meeting was audio-taped. At the end of the hour, participants were asked to write reflectively for ten minutes in response to question #12. These summary comments were collected, typed up, and sent back to the participants so they could read each other’s comments. (Again, this process was instigated from feedback during the conference call when one coordinator talkedabout how hard it was to get faculty to send their reflections once they had left the meeting.)
B. Team’s comments about the Overall Process of Working with the Protocol

Because of my participation in the earlier training provided by the WashingtonCenter, I was able to lead people through the protocol fairly effectively. I was aware that in the limited amount of time, I would need to be stringently efficient. My observation was that the first two parts of the protocol (Getting Acquainted and Zooming In) would need to be condensed if we were to have the ten minutes I wanted at the end of the hour for written reflection. I also knew that this shortening of the first steps of the protocol would probably work since everyone who came to the meeting had already read the paper (it was e-mailed to participants before the meeting knowing that our time might be short).
How the process worked: The protocol worked well. Faculty spent time valuing the work and raising good questions. What didn’t work well was the amount of time we ended up with (55 minutes). There was general consensus that we wanted at least an hour and a half to be able to follow the protocol and have the time remaining for a good discussion about the implications for teaching and a discussion for the protocol. Therefore following the meeting, an e-mail was sent to all Integrated Studies Committee Planning Group (ISPG) members (21 people) asking if they would be willing to meet separately from our regular monthlyISPG meeting to look at student work. So far nine faculty have agreed to meet monthly on a Friday afternoon.

Reflections on teaching: see attached comments

Reflections on protocol: we did not spend time discussing the protocol.

C. Team’s Emerging Questions:

Themes Emerging:

  • As faculty, we’re trained to be critical. This protocol gave us a value opportunity to reinforce the practice of valuing a student’s work.
  • How do we make our rubrics and expectations explicit? Or do we have preconceived, but often not explicit, frameworks (rubrics) we use to evaluate student work?
  • How is meaning generated by faculty of difficult disciplines?
  • Do grades accurately reflect a student’s learning?
  • This process of looking at student work together reminded us of the importance of having conversations among faculty of difficult disciplines.
  • Would it be more helpful to look at this same student’s initial work as well as the more “finished” piece? Without pre- and post-work, how is it possible to really value a student’s learning?

-- Submitted by Jane Lister Reis, Integrated Studies Coordinator