Issue

02 October

2011

Assessment MCC DISTRICT ASSESSMENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE

This Issue Student Outcomes P. 1

Calendar P. 2

Cohorts P. 2

The Gen Ed Outcomes P.2

District

Assessment

Coordinating

Committee

Cynthia Sexton-Proctor Chair

Faculty

PV

Felipe Leon, Philosophy PV

Greg Sanford, History

Mary Svoboda-Chollet, Education MW Mary Ann Blitt, Foreign Lan-guages Cynthia Proctor,, Physics Jill Kingsbury, Economics LV Tammie May, Sociology Cindy Herbert, CSIS Eric Sullivan, English BTC Tim Gill, Welding BR Lisa Bonneau, Biology Kim Glackin, Psychology George Green, Math Student Services

Dachia Scroggins, Counseling PV Tracy Curry, Learn. Specialist MW Jim McGraw, Counseling, LV Karen Moore, Dean of Student Dev. and Enrollment BTC Jared Rinck, Library BR Deans of Instruction

Al Dimmitt, PV Mindy McCallum, MW Linda Nelson, LV Tom Wheeler, BTC Cheryl Carpenter Davis, BR Administrative Center

Kristy Bishop, Director Tristan Londre, Director Faculty Resources

Steve Reinbold, Biology , LV Diana Grahn, English , LV Pat McGovern, History, LV Administrative Center Resources

Melissa Giese, Research Analyst Paul Long, Vice Chancellor Fran Padow, Director Leo Hirner, Director Rich Higgason, Director

Cynthia Sexton Proctor and Kristy Bishop Bring

Second Assessment Expert to MCC in 4 Months

A Days Work at the MCC In-service

Dr. Cia Verschelden addressed the MCC Inservice on Tuesday about “Student Outcomes: How do You Know They Got It?” She then conducted two workshops with faculty, staff and administrators. Dr. Verschelden is a Vice President of Academic Affairs of Highland Community College. She has spent most of her career teaching and conducting assessment at Kansas State University. She also works with Higher Learning Commission as an as-sessment consultant. In this position she is cur-rently advising the Chicago Community College system about evaluating student learning. She came to MCC as part of the HLC speakers program which makes experts knowledge affordable. In her keynote, Dr. Verschelden argued that the point of assessment is to improve student learning. She proceeded to draw the outlines of a challeng-ing assessment program that would identify the key learning outcomes for MCC students and link them to data generated by assessing them.

Through out she emphasized the importance of having a conversation at each stage of the pro-cess and through that conversation both defin-ing educational outcomes and methods of achieving them. Following lunch Dr. Verschelden conducted a session on “Approaches for Measuring Out-comes.” In the conversation she guided the group through class, program, and institutional levels of assessment and appropriate measures for each. The discussion focused a variety of different rubrics and how they could be applied in different situations. Her afternoon concluded with the second workshop for Cohort 1 where she worked with faculty in designing rubrics for discipline assess-ments. Dr Verschelden’s expertise was well suited to the task of developing rubrics by which to assess the disciplinary outcomes the faculty had generated at their first meeting. The work will be deployed in classes next semester.

Student Outcomes – How Do You Know They Got It?

Gen Ed Outcomes List P. 3

P. 4

P. 6

Outcomes & Learning

Noel Levitz

MCC ASSESSMENT CALENDAR

FALL SEMESTER November 11 Cohort 1 Meeting November 10 District Assessment Coordinating Committee December 8 Semester Review SPRING SEMESTER Jan—May Cohort 1 conducts As-sessment February 9 District Assessment Co-ordinating Committee February 17 Cohort 2 Meeting March 8 District Assessment Coordi-nating Committee March 23 Cohort 2 Meeting April 12 District Assessment Coordi-nating Committee April 13 Cohort 2 Meeting May 10 Semester Review

THE COHORT SCHEDULE Cohort #1 – Fall 2011

Biology Economics

Engineering Foreign Languages

Physics Cohort #2 – Spring 2012

Chemistry Geology/Geography

History Philosophy Psychology

Sociology/Anthropology Cohort #3 – Fall 2012

Art English Library Music

Political Science Speech/Theatre

Cohort #4 – Spring 2013 Business/Accounting

Computer Science Counseling

Math Physical Education

Reading

Progress on the General Education Outcomes And a Call for Help

By Cynthia Sexton Proctor At last Thursday’s DACC meeting, we discussed how to finalize the new General Education Outcomes, attributes, and rubrics. We are at a point where we need to agree on a final draft so that the 1st Cohort can finish plans for their assessment projects this spring. Also, we want to start using them so we can decide over the next few years whether they reflect what we expect our students to know and be able to do by the time they transfer or receive certif-icates and/or certificates. At the meeting we set up three committees to work on each of the three outcomes. Greg Sanford, Felipe Leon and Dachia Scrog-gins volunteered to work on the General Education Outcome and rubric for Critical Thinking. Quite a bit was accomplished on this task at the Summer Symposium, so this task looks to be very close to completion. I know that all of you are very busy, but if you would like to work with Greg, Felipe and Dachia or if you know someone who has a deep and abiding interest in Critical Thinking, please, let Greg, or I know so that we may have a proposal ready for our DACC meeting on 11/10/11. By the way, he promised piz-za to everyone who helps. Tristan Londre and Jared Rinck enthusiastically volunteered to work on the Information Literacy Outcome and rubric. The discus-sions at the Summer Symposium were fruitful here as well, It looks like that work may be close to completion. We need to de-cide if we still want to use the VALUE rubric from AACU and/or the Delaware Tech rubric or some combination thereof. Both are already 4-point rubrics. Again, if you would like to work with Tris-tan and Jared or if you know someone who has a deep and abid-ing interest in Information Literacy, please, let Tristan, Jared, or I know so that we may have a proposal ready for our DACC meeting on 11/10/11. Finally, Anne Dvorak has put a tremendous amount of work into the Communications Outcomes and Communications Rubric. This is the most complex outcome and Anne has worked on editing the attributes in response to the suggestions on the Gen. Ed Survey. Anne may be leaving our group for the Herculean task of working on ZBB, but she has graciously volunteered these revised out-comes and rubrics with which we may work. Linda Nelson also volunteered to work on the outcomes, attributes and rubrics for Communications. Please, let Anne, Linda or I know if you would be interested in helping to work on these as well.

Proposed & Revised Learning Outcomes

Last Spring we moved forward on reviewing the General Education Outcomes. This fall Kristy Bishop con-ducted a survey of faculty about the outcomes. We are now in the process of providing a final review on each of the campuses before sending them back to the District Assessment Coordinating Committee. After the final approval we will need to begin replacing the old the Outcomes on the Course Information Forms.

Critical Thinking -

Description The student will be able to evaluate and apply information gathered from observation, experi-ence, reflection, reasoning, or communication. Attributes · Evaluate the validity, soundness, and cogency of an argument. · Analyze and synthesize information from a variety of sources and apply the results to re-solve complex situations and problems. - Defend conclusions using relevant evidence and reasoned argument.

Information Literacy —

Description The student will be able to access and apply information from multiple sources, evaluating the accuracy and credibility of each, with ap-propriate documentation Attributes · Extract information from a variety of sources, using appropriate technology to ac-cess and manage the information efficiently · Evaluate information for its currency, rele-vance, bias, and accuracy · Document sources appropriately, and be able to articulate the legal and ethical impli-cations of information use · Interpret and apply information embedded in text, real-life situations, tables, or graphs

Communications - (REVISED)

Description Students at MCC are encouraged to develop their communicative abilities orally, visually, in writing, and in various media/technologies. Effective com-munication involves writing, speaking or communi-cating using language appropriate to the audience, technology, and purpose. Receptive skills: Listening, Reading a Text or Me-dia Students should be able to: - Demonstrate understanding of context of materi-al, including cultural framework, audience, and purpose of communiqué. - Determine main idea and significant details; - Analyze and interpret the parts of a communiqué to comprehend the relationship between them and to deepen understanding of the meaning.

Productive skills: Speaking, Writing, or Creating Visual Media Students should be able to: - Use knowledge of audience expectations and context to shape a communiqué; - Create an effective controlling idea; - Develop the controlling idea using appropriate and effective details; - Organize material coherently into a meaningful whole; - Synthesize and integrate ideas of their own with those of others; - Document or reference sources in a format ap-propriate to the medium of communication.

Having More Fun than Most People Can Stand First Cohort Disciplines Work on Outcomes

PHYSICS Discipline Outcomes

Analyze physical phenomena by correctly applying relevant conservation laws.

Analyze physical phenomena by correctly applying Newton’s Laws.

Given an experimental scenario, critique the method and results based on accepted scientific method and principals.

Relate course topics to personal experience and soci-etal and environmental issues.

General Education Outcome Information Literacy

-Interpret and apply information embedded in text, real-life situations, tables, or graphs.

From left: Cynthia Proctor, Audry Battrum, Dean-na Synder, Anne Nienhueser, DJ Box and John Hawkins

FOREIGN LANGUAGE Discipline Outcomes MDHE First-semester Foreign Language outcomes

Write lists, very short messages, post cards, and sim-ple notes.

Write simple sentences describing myself and others using memorized phrases on familiar topics such as self, family, and immediate surroundings.

Supply basic personal information, such as physical information and preferences, in simple forms.

ACTFL Proficiency Standards Novice-

MidWriters at the Novice-Mid level are able to copy or transcribe familiar words or phrases, and reproduce from memory a modest number of isolated words and phrases in context. They can supply limited

From left: Chad Montuori, Mary Ann Blitt, Emi-ly Armstrong, Carol Kuznacic, Diana Grahn, and Anne Dvorak

information on simple forms and documents, and other basic biographical information, such as

names, numbers, and nationality. Novice-Mid writers exhibit a high degree of accuracy when writ-ing on well-practiced, familiar topics using limited formulaic language. With less familiar topics, there is a marked decrease in accuracy. Errors in spelling or in the representation of symbols may be frequent. There is little evidence of functional writing skills. At this level, the writing may be difficult to understand even by those accustomed to reading the texts of non-natives. GENERAL EDUCATION OUTCOME: Communication Productive skills – Logically organize and develop ideas into a meaningful whole

BIOLOGY Discipline Outcomes

Use the scientific method to develop and test hypotheses and to draw defensible conclusions.

Evaluate scientific evidence and argu-ment.

Describe and apply current theoretical explanations of the nature, organization, and evolution of living systems.

Explain how human choices affect the earth and living systems.

General Education Outcome Critical Thinking Students will write about the cell or character-istics of life in response to an article or other information we supply. The answers will be graded with a rubric. Terry Davin had an ex-ample of this and we will decide on the specif-ic content at the next meeting

From Left: Larry Reichard, Stephen Reinbold, Kenneth Snell, Patricia Munn, Keet Kopecky, Lisa Bonneau, Shari Hardin, Lavon Tonga, Greg Loftin, Gene Fenster, Terry Davin, Tom Wheeler, Scott Quinton, and Cammie Snow.

ECONOMICS Discipline Outcomes Economics 210 (Macroeconomics) Allocation of resources

Scarcity Choice Allocation

How markets work Demand Supply Equilibrium/Price

Measuring Macroeconomic Variables and the Business Cycle

Gross Domestic Product Unemployment Inflation Expansion or Growth Recession or Downturn

Money, Banking and Interest Rates Functions of money Types of money supply Debt and the money supply Demand for Money Equilibrium Interest Rate

Aggregate Demand Consumption Function Investment Function Government Expenditures Net Exports

From left : Jill Kingsbury and Hossein Bahmaie

General Education Outcome— Information Literacy - The student will be able to define scarcity and explain the implications for the allocation of resources and decision making by individuals, firms, and the government. - The student will be able to describe how a market works and employ the market model to explain how price is determined. - The student will be able to access and apply information on macroeconom-ic variables and the business cycle including Gross Domestic Product, Unem-ployment, and Inflation. In addition, the student will be able to evaluate the accuracy and credibility of each measurement. - The student will be able to explain the functions and types of money. - The student will also be able to demonstrate knowledge of how commercial banks work, how money is created, and how interest rates are determined. - The student will be able to describe the four components of aggregate demand and explain the significance of each component for the national economy.

ENGINEERING Discipline Outcomes

Design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as eco-nomic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability.

Engineering 113 - Design Project Rubric

Apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering to solve engineering problems. Engineering 229 Statics Test question

Use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice to model physical phenomena.

Engineering C++ and Matlab Homework Assignment

Express knowledge of contemporary issues. Engineering 101 – Research paper Rubric

Engineering students shown on the MCC Website page describing the Engineering curriculum. They are clearly get ready to benefit from the new disciplinary outcomes as well as the General Education Outcomes.

Office of Institutional Research and Assessment Kristy Bishop Shares Plans for the Noel Levitz Assessment

Kristy Bishop laid out the plan for administering the Noel Levitz Assessment at the October DACC meeting. The Instruments to be administered are:

SSI – Student Satisfaction Inventory IPS – Institutional Priorities Survey – version for community colleges - online

Research Question To determine the level of student satisfaction of current MCC students. To assess personnel perceptions on items that parallel the Student Satisfaction Inventory

The assessment will be administered between March 19 – April 20th, 2012