Assessment Report
Institutional Learning Outcome
Written and Oral Communication
2/28/2013
Written and Oral CommunicationILO:
Students will demonstrate the interactive nature of communication involving speaking, writing, listening and reading. Evidence will be the student’s ability to make a clear, well-organized verbal presentation employing appropriate evidence to support the arguments or conclusions and to write a clear, well-organized paper using documentation and quantitative tools when appropriate.
Definition: Learners express themselves clearly and concisely to others in logical, well-organized papers and/or verbal presentations using documentation and quantitative tools when appropriate. Learners listen, understand, debate, and use information communicated by others.
You should be able to demonstrate proficiency in the following areas:
a) Writing
b) Listening
c) Speaking and/or Conversing and/or Debating
d) Interpersonal Interactions
Planning: On August 23, 2012, during the campus Flex Day, faculty divided into groups to discuss campus wide/cross discipline assessment of LAMC’s seven Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs). A group that included representatives fromvarious disciplines met to discuss development of the Written and Oral Communication ILOassessment. The group examined and discussed the ILO, a sample rubric, andideas on how to assess it.
Multiple meeting regarding the assessment and joint rubric occurred to assure that all represented departments had a say in the final wording of the rubric.
Assessment Method: A common rubric was developed which included the criteria for assessment and the weighting scale (point value) for each criterion.
The rubric had four criteria:
- Voice Projection
- Vocal Delivery
- Eye Contact
- Gestures
- Rate
- Flow of Speech Personal Response
The ILO team sent multiple invitations soliciting voluntary participation from each department and instructor that taught a class that had identified Written and Oral Communication in their curriculum process. Each participating instructor in the ILO assessment was to select or modify an existing assignment from his or her class to use for the assessment. Once the assignment was evaluated by the instructor, they logged into the online SLO system to describe the assessment method, enter data, and any initial analysis or resource requests.
We had participation from multiple departments and instructors. We held our first two face-to-face meetings on 11/27/12 and 12/4/12. We also worked on the ILOs over e-mail. Once the instructors had entered the data, the individual reports were collected and the criteria were tallied across the board.
Result averages:
- 82% Voice Projection
- 78.2% Vocal Delivery
- 78.4% Eye Contact
- 77.9% Gestures
- 80.6% Rate
- 76.5% Flow of Speech
We met twice to discuss the assessment and results and most participants met at least once. In attendancefor some or all of our meetings were: Pat Flood, Deborah Paulsen, Juliet Wallace, Margie Long, and Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez. Some of the issues discussed at our meetings were:
•Students need more general knowledge
•Margie states that counseling needs to encourage students to take more speech. Students stand to gain from exposure to voice and articulation
•Do we need to judge more of the content students bring?
• We discussed the value peer evaluation as part of oral presentations
• Overall the average of Voice Projection was the highest of all criteria at 82%
•Overall the average of Flow of Speech was the lowest of all criteria at 76.5
•We discussed revising the Written and Oral Communication ILO
•The best idea for assessing classes was discussed
•CNN is a good source for students to observe speakers communicating effectively
•Final list of participants for the Written and Oral Communication ILO include: Introduction to Philosophy, Logic in Practice, Introduction to Sculpture, Introduction to Acting (2x), Intermediate Acting, Introduction to the Theater, Oral Communication I (x7)
•Discussed the possibility of a placement assessment for speech