Meeting July 26th

Yesterday we looked at the structures for monitoring and nurturing assessment that were showcased in chapters of our Maki book and we discussed the aspects of the structures that might or might now work at Palo Alto College. We talked about the Program Review Committee and how it might be a good starting point for a committee to monitor and nurture assessment at PAC. One thing that we all agreed upon was that for faculty to embrace and have pride in the assessment work that we are doing, that this committee most focus on opportunities to improve and that assessment efforts must be faculty driven. We felt that faculty should serve to make a contribution to their profession. We are going to look at several other models today and do some more thinking about a structure to monitor and nurture assessment at PAC.
We also looked at assessment efforts at sister colleges and compared our efforts to theirs to appreciate the different approach.
Brian shared resources that he found about assessment -- some nice guidelines from other institutions that will help us. A final thought was that assessment should never be used for faculty evaluations.

Student Connection Session

Our sessions the last two days have been VERY productive!
Summer II faculty reviewed the products from summer I for general education assessment and program assessment and made some valuable suggestions that have been implemented on the Spring Report, Key Assignment Cover Sheet, Faculty Guidelines, Program Assessment Template.
We had a wonderful discussion today with a group of students about the Teamwork competency. Together we generated a list of suggestions that is bound to help as we re-think this competency and how it should be assessed as well as create faculty guidelines for teamwork.
Next meeting we are going to begin discussing some models for monitoring Gen Ed Assessment and Program Assessment from the Maki book.

Catching Up on the Last Two Weeks!

Since my last post, we have had 4 meetings -- July 5th, July 6th, July 13th, and July 14th.
First I want to summarize the July 5th and July 6th meetings.
These two meetings the Summer I group scrambled to look at a lot of issues related to assessment work and make some decisions. The July 5th meeting we made some concrete decisions about the format of the Curriculum Maps and really specified exactly what they would map for degrees and certificates. We also clarified our thinking about Program Assessment and the kinds of support documents needed to pull off Program Assessment during the next academic year. Finally we started thinking about General Education Competency issues and we ran out of time. The July 6th meeting we settled on a template for Program Assessment Plans/Reports. We did some thinking about the front end of Fall 2011 semester and the messages that we needed to give faculty. We especially talked about how important it will be to have positive messages. We compiled a list of positive statements about the value of the Curriculum Map initiative and a similar list of positive statements about the value of the Key Assignment initiative. We looked at a draft calendar for merging all the assessment efforts -- Program Assessment, Gen Ed Assessment, Program Review, Unit Planning, Curriculum Maps, Key Assignments, High Risk Course Action Plans -- and we talked about how the different assessments supported each other. Finally, I gave my 'Reading Assignment' report on the Lumina Foundation's Degree Qualification Profile. The outcomes for Associate Degree students might be helpful for us to review as we revise our Gen Ed Rubrics. A BIG Thank You! to the Summer I group!

The next two meetings were workshops by Dr. Judith Boettcher. July 13th she provided us with a framework and best principles and practices for online and blended learning. This workshop featured three PAC faculty sharing thier experiences as they worked with Dr. Boettcher to revise their online courses. July 14th Dr. Boettcher focused on building community in courses and the use of teamwork as one of the community building strategies to deepen the learning experience. This workshop will help natural science, English, Government, and Speech faculty design their online courses to address Teamwork! The most wonderful thing about Dr. Boettcher's workshops was the way she synthesized all the information she knew about helping students learn and then continuously got feedback from us to see what we understood. She customized the content to our ZPD! It was fun to watch her in action and I learned a lot! It was nice to see her affirm in her workshop all the national experts we have brought to PAC recently to help the faculty: Linda Suskie, Barbara Millis (Dee Fink), Ginny Anderson, and Elizabeth Barkley.