Module 3

Developing Improvements and

Building Institutional Capacity

Cycle ofAssessmentImprovement

ChooseImprovement

TakeStock

NormStudentLearningOutcomes

NormAssessments

IDENTIFY,IMPLEMENT,EVALUATE,

IMPROVEMENTS

BuildInstitutional

Capacity

Implementand

AnalyzeAssessments

Creating SLOs that sit on shelves

(“bindering”)

≠Improvement in student learning

outcomes

Step 5: Create Improvement Plan

• Collectively identify patterns of weakness in student learning

• Allow time to reach consensus about “why” and about changes/ improvements to address gaps

• Collectively distribute specific tasks and locations for piloting improvements

Potential improvement areas

• Improvements in instruction• Improvements in curriculum/ content• Improvements in student support• Changes in motivation and

engagement of students???

Instructional Improvement

• More active forms of learning, including projects, applications, simulations

• Decreased use of lecturing• The importance of socializing students• Alignment between values/ desired goals of

program and pedagogy/ assessment procedures

• • may also improve motivation and engagement of students

Curricular Improvement

• Interdisciplinary connections (increases relevance)

• Learning communities or linked courses (increases “community”)

• Infusion of applications into liberal arts or infusion of math/communication skills into career-technical courses

• • interdisciplinary connections may improve student motivation and engagement

Appropriate improvements

• Students don’t connect what they learn in one course with the content/concepts of another course: link courses

• Developmental students don’t connect learning activities with their own goals: contextual courses

• Students who are placed into math or English courses can’t do the required work: re-evaluate placement instrument

• Technical students don’t have necessary basic skills: contextual courses, or infusion of academic material into technical content

ACTIVITY: CURRICULAR IMPROVEMENT

• Describe previous curriculum reform endeavors on your campus. What gaps in student learning were these changes to address? What data did you collect and analyze? How effective was/ were those curriculum reform(s)?

• Which curriculum improvements seem promising to meet the learning gaps you’ve identified?

• Student services decentralized: create connections to disciplines, departments

• Student services centralized: one-stop shop

• Student services faculty engaged in teaching, rather than marginalized

• How does student services contribute to student learning outcomes?

Student services improvement

ACTIVITY: IMPROVING LEARNING VIA STUDENT SERVICES

• Describe previous reforms in student services on your campus.

• What gaps in student learning were these changes to address? What data did you collect and analyze? How effective was/ were those student services reform(s)?

• Which student services revisions seem promising?

Improvement in Student Motivation and

Engagement

• Difficult to address directly• Often results from improvements in instruction,

curriculum, or student services. See Engaging Schools, National Academy of sciences.

• Better student understanding of what college is for and what learning is may increase motivation

• • Many efforts to “fix” students contradict the CCC mission

Moving from data to improvement

• Where will your campus target its initial efforts?– Which program areas?– Which target populations?– Which aspects of curriculum,

instruction, student services?• Which strategy(ies) are aligned with

those improvement goals?• Which strategy(ies) appear to offer the

best benefits copared to costs?

Evaluating Improvement Strategies

• Improvement strategies are aligned with student learning gaps

• Baseline data provides comparison• Collaboratively author and

collectively accept new outcomes, learning activities, curriculum/ student services reform

• Collect data on effectiveness of improvement strategies

Cycle ofAssessmentImprovement

ChooseImprovement

TakeStock

NormStudentLearningOutcomes

NormAssessments

Identify,Implement,Evaluate,

Improvements

BUILDINSTITUTIONAL

CAPACITY

Implementand

AnalyzeAssessments

A Collective Commitment to Assessment for Learning

Includes:

• Structures, processes, decisions, channels and forms of information

• Resources and support- human, financial, technological

• Campus practices that manifest an institutional commitment

Building Capacity: GOVERNANCE

Student Assessment Learning Team assures that:- faculty, staff and administrators use and act on

interpretations of assessment results to improve student learning

- Interpretations of assessment results are channeled into short- and long-term institutional planning and budgeting to focus institutional decisions and planning on student learning

- Institution- and program-level educational practices evolve based on what is learned from cycles of inquiry

Building Capacity:PEOPLE Resources

• Assessment Coordinator may have partial release time

• A team of faculty might receive stipends

Building Capacity:TIME Resources

• Departmental planning time — availability and agenda!

• Planning faculty non-instructional time carefully

• Common use of overloads

Building Capacity:TECHNOLOGY Resources

• Web-based information sharing• Campus interdepartmental

communication systems — availability, ease of use, faculty facility with use

• Cheap & easy: poster paper

Building Capacity:CAMPUS SUPPORT Resources

• Structure of jobs- how overloaded are faculty? Adjunct faculty?

• Professional development — another comment on “flex days”

• Hiring practices

Resources: Explicit and Abstract

• Explicit: directly tied to SLOAC (faculty release time; conferences)

• Abstract: have less relationship to $$; can’t be “purchased”– Collegial culture supported by CEO/CIO– Positive experiences with collaboration– Coherence vs. Christmas ornaments– Stability - of personnel, vision,

resources

An Institutional Cycle of Learning about Learning

• Reach consensus about methods to sample student population based on what a program wants to learn

• Identify occasions to collect evidence through student assessment

• Score, analyze results• Collectively interpret and make

decisions about improvement strategies• Re-enter the assessment cycle to

evaluate efficacy of improvements

Anticipating Barriers for SLOAC

• Have faculty been involved in designing each aspect of SLOAC?

• How similar is SLOAC to what is currently being practiced?

• Is the assessment process respected?• Can faculty begin small and move to

larger efforts?• Is the initial plan simple?• Does the faculty believe SLOAC has

advantages over the status quo?• Are results readily apparent?

Speaking Truth to Power

Two-way communications with those responsible for accountability systems: WASC; state government; federal government (VATEA, WIA).

Speaking from positions of strength.