For the first fifteen years of my teaching career, I never once thought about course assessment, let alone program assessment. Course outlines were very short. They included the name and course number for the course, the number of credits assigned to the course, the textbook used, and a list of topics from the textbook’s table of contents. “Assessment” consisted of how many quizzes, tests, etc. would be assigned and how the final grade would be determined. My syllabi were also short. Students were told what textbook to buy, when each topic would be covered, the homework to be assigned, and approximate dates for tests. How the final grade would be determined was copied from the course outline. Then everything changed for me.
In 1986 the Vice President for Academic Affairs asked Doug and me, the two most recent recipients of the college’s Teaching Excellence award, to attend a conference on assessment in Chicago. We did not expect to get much from the conference, but we went with an open mind. There were so many different presentations that we decided we would attend different sessions and then compare notes. For several days we attended sessions all day, then ordered room service and met for two to three hours in the evening discussing what we learned and what it meant for our college. We left the conference with a new appreciation for assessment, and in my case, with a desire to get my college aboard the “assessment bandwagon”. The big takeaway for me was that we needed to move away from a focus on inputs (for example, what the instructor was doing) to a focus on outputs (what the students could do as a result of their coursework). If this were a made-for-TV movie, the college would quickly recognize the value of a focus on the assessment cycle and make major changes rapidly. In fact, it took over ten years for significant change to occur.
Looking back, I am amazed at how much of what I learned at the conference is still valid today. Creating student learning outcomes (SLOs) for each course that align with what the students will need in their daily lives and in their career as well as with the program learning outcomes changes the focus to what students have learned rather than how many topics were covered or which text was used. This makes it easier for instructors to provide feedback to students and for them to alter practices that are not working. It also encourages instructors to reflect on what is happening in the classroom, leading to a continuous improvement initiative. When my college required that all course outlines include between 5 and 7 student learning outcomes, we discovered three things. First, writing a good, measurable student learning outcome was not easy. Second, that many of the initial student learning outcomes were not focusing on big ideas and instead dealt with procedures or skills that would never be needed outside of the course.
They were not focusing on high-level thinking. Third, many of the assessments we were using did not assess the extent to which students were learning what we said we valued in the SLOs. So, the college mandated that every course outline include sample assessments that collected data on what students were learning. In my case, I learned that, despite a strong emphasis on problem solving, my students could not solve problems they had never seen before. A change to more group projects focused on solving problems they had not seen before and including more problem solving in assessments resulted in more students who could solve problems new to them. I also moved away from being tied to a textbook and from focusing on grading. I now do as little grading as possible and focus on formative assessments that give both me and the students feedback on their learning.
Everything said above about course assessment also applies to program assessment. At my college, program assessment was very weak for most of my time at the college. Every five years the department chair and dean would look at data from colleges where our graduates transferred and from employers of our graduates. Changes were rarely made to the program. Each program should have program learning outcomes (PLOS) that describe what students will know and be able to do when they complete the program. The SLOs in the program courses should be aligned with the PLOs. Program courses should be sequenced to ensure that the program outcomes are being met. Assessments have to be designed and data collected to determine the extent to which program graduates meet the desired outcomes. This data should be analyzed and changes made to the program.
A focus on program assessment resulted in a very significant change at my college. For many years the general education core curriculum consisted of lists of courses under different categories. Students were told to “pick 1 course from column A, 2 from column B, 1 from column C, 3 from column D, and 1 from column E.” Most students looked at general education as courses they had to get through in order to get to the real courses in their program. Advisors struggled to justify the need for a general education core. A committee was created to look at the core. The members decided to replace the distribution lists with a set of general education outcomes. A general outline of the outcomes was created. Different departments were responsible for writing each final outcome. Anyone could submit a course to the department to be included as meeting the outcome. If they could justify its inclusion, the course was listed as meeting the outcome. The process was very contentious and I lost several friends as a result of promoting this transformation. After several years almost no one wanted to go back to the old approach. Students, advisors, instructors, and administrators could point to the general education outcomes as the rationale for having a general education core.
There is much more that you can learn about course and program assessment, but I hope I have convinced you of the value of these processes. The course assessment cycle and the program assessment cycle can be used to continuously improve student learning.
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