Assessments

1. Assessments Lake Tahoe community college Sara Pierce Spanish instructor

2. WHY??? • We are already assessing our classes! • We have templates to make this process very easy! • Putting what we already know on paper!

3. Process driven from Accreditation • In 2005-2006 we were visited by the Accreditation Team and were mandated to create Student Learning Outcomes for all courses. Our Accreditation Self-Study started last year! This year we are being visited by the Accreditation team! Time to get moving…. • We finished creating these for ALL courses three years ago. • Now it’s time to assess these courses. • The assessment process is a multi-faceted process including the following: • Mapping our Core Competencies to our Program SLOs • Mapping our Program SLOs to our Degree/Certificate SLOs • Mapping our Program SLOs to our course SLOs • Assessing our course SLOs

4. TracDAT 2010 • New software purchased last year to keep track of our assessments. • Will show the mapping our CORE competencies to our department/program Student Learning Outcomes to our class SLOs. • We will be implementing this software SLOWLY this year!

5. What does this mean for assessing? We will continue to assess our classes with the old templates, submitting to slo@ltcc.edu faculty members will be asked to pilot this software this year. Our goal: to have adjuncts and/or department chairs enter the assessing information directly into the software. This software will track our progress and stages of the assessment process.

6. LTCC Core CompetenciesWhat do we want every student to obtain from LTCC? • Communication • Students will communicate effectively, which means the ability to: read, write, listen, & speak and/or converse. • Critical Thinking and Information Competency • Thinking critically is characterized by the ability to perform: analysis, computation, research, and problem-solving. • Global Awareness • Demonstrate a measurable understanding and appreciation of the world: scientific complexities, social diversity and civics, and artistic variety. • Personal Responsibility and Professional Development • Self-management and self awareness, social and physical wellness, and workplace skills.

7. Assessment Schedules • We have asked that each department submit an Assessment Schedule, outlining what courses they will assess each quarter. • Each department is responsible for submitting their own. • Be realistic and submit often! • Accreditation will look at these and check our progress. • Our goal is to have every class assessed (at least) once in three-year period. (Fall 2008 - Spring 2011) • This did not happen but we made significant progress. Let’s keep it going.

8. How do we assess? Assessing guidelines: • Fill out the template with your SLOs. (See course outline)

9. Approved methods of Assessing SLOs: • Input the approved methods into the template. • Take these directly off your Course Outline:

10. Choosing method to assess outcome! • Choose your method that assesses each outcome. Choose from the list on your template. • For example: I chose the Maya Web Lesson to assess SLO 1. • SLO 1: Compose one evidence-based paper and discuss the culture and peoples of a Spanish-speaking country that reflects information learned and personal reflection. • These methods of assessing SLOs can change every quarter you teach the class.

11. Complete the boxes for student understanding! • Fill in the areas for mastery, some understanding or no understanding with the number of students that fall into each respective category. Please DO NOT represent students that did not complete the assessment.

12. Narrative for each SLO • Write a brief narrative describing EACH outcome of EACH SLO. Please answer these questions in your narrative: Were you satisfied with the outcome of this SLO? Why or why not? Do you have any recommendations in the future to improve student learning for this outcome? If not, what worked well? Anything else you want to add? • Example: SLO #4: This SLO was addressed with a written final exam including short answer and essay portions. While the majority of students performed at an above average level, I would very much like to improve the performance of students who performed at an average level. While we completed many practice activities, most were oral language activities. I plan to create more activities to prepare students to successfully perform in writing. I plan to improve the quality of my review sheet to better prepare students for the exam. I would also like to include an in-class pre-test so that students have practiced the material in writing and have an opportunity in areas of weakness to focus their review for the exam.

13. Budget Recommendations • If there are some budget recommendations tied to improving your Student Learning Outcomes, write them in the designated space. • This will help us justify purchases in the future (even though there is no money now). • SLO #1: The Mystery of the Maya DVD. $35.00 • SLO #2: None • SLO #3: None • SLO #4:None

14. When are they due? • Due the Friday of the second week of the following quarter. • Submit to slo@ltcc.edu • Email pierce@ltcc.edu if you have any questions or call 541-46602, x255 • All templates are available at http://www.ltcconline.net/pierce/Assessment%20Stuff/Assessment.htm • Remember, we SHOULD already be assessing our classes. Let’s just put it on paper!