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Hello, everyone--

The upcoming NEASC accreditation review will use new standards with institutional effectiveness now being the major focus. (The next review will be conducted this spring.) All college staff are involved in this process.

For those of you new to the NEASC process, don’t worry as a presentation is coming in November which will explain more about NEASC and institutional effectiveness. To prepare for this review, the Lead Planning Team requests a list of your assessment tools (ie., how do you evaluate and measure individual and/or departmental performance?). This inventory will identify our evaluation baseline and highlight all the great practices currently in place, as well as to further develop our institutional effectiveness model.

Please submit your descriptive list to your dean or department head by Monday, November 14th who will then forward it to the Lead Planning Team.

Thank you.

Donna Sohan

Chair, Lead Planning Team

QVCC Assessment Inventory
Summary of Faculty Submissions

TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. Assessment of Student Learning
  2. Assessment of Student Academic Success
  3. Assessment of Instructor Performance/Course Evaluation
  4. Program/Department Evaluation:
A. ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING
  1. Pre and post content non-graded tests
  2. Quizzes and Tests
    1. Standardized Tests where available/appropriate
  3. Homework Assignments
  4. Portfolios
    1. Collections of work
    2. specific in-depth content area
  5. Papers
    1. Subject Essays
    2. Research-focused
    3. Based on supplemental material to assess analytical skills
  6. Group work geared to assessing ability to apply concepts
    1. Problem solving
    2. Written documents and oral presentations
  7. Projects/Activties
    1. Ex. student "news" project (collection of news related to discipline area
  8. Participation Records
    1. Instructor maintained
    2. Student participation self-assessment
  9. Presentations
  10. Case studies, journals and papers.
  11. Course-embedded assessment
  12. Classroom discussions
  13. Peer assessment of student work and performance in study groups
  14. Competencies-outcome based assessment of student skills
  15. Design of sequential assignments based on Bloom’s taxonomy, for measuring competency levels of students’ critical thought
  16. Student Progress Reports/Performance surveys
  17. Classroom observations
    1. Ex. If everyone is staring off into space or all clammed up when I ask a question, then I need to try something new.

Specific assessment approaches:

  1. Learning Assessment: A variety of problem sets and quizzes are administered prior to exam. Also, have an informal Q&A session at the end of presentations as well and request students to write subject matter that they would like further clarification (submitted without their name to promote responses).
  2. The assessment tools I use include unannounced quizzes, writing prompts, responses to e-mails, Q & R in the classroom, papers and revisions, and announced quizzes and tests.
  3. I use a staggered approach to learning. This allows me to ensure that students break the chapters into manageable chunks and shows me what the students are struggling with and where I need to tailor the rest of the discussion on the chapter (I enable learning to grow through the course of many assignments. 1) Brief conceptual questions at the start of each chapter ensure that students are reading the material, 2) lecture, 3) review assigned homework, 4) in-class exercise with the material 5) quiz on the subject matter to prepare students for the exam)
B. ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT ACADEMIC SUCCESS
  1. For assessing students’ transfer of skills between courses in the English sequence, informal monitoring among members of the English faculty of particular students between developmental and college-level courses and between ENG 101 and Intro to Literature
  2. Track proficiency in next course in sequence (Did I prepare students for the next course?)
  3. For assessing the applicability of writing instruction in students’ areas of major academic and career concentration, regular review and revision of the college graduation research paper requirement
  4. Monitor transfer rate of students to four-year schools
  5. Monitor employment rate of students in fields related to academic study.
C. ASSESSMENT OF INSTRUCTOR PERFORMANCE/COURSE EVALUATION
  1. Student evaluations
    1. Standard surveys (provided to instructors by LSD)
    2. Instructor designed mid-course evaluations
    3. Feedback from students via classroom technology such as the Vista discussion board
  2. Self evaluations
    1. Assessment of success in teaching course goals
      1. Rubric measurement
  3. Peer evaluations
    1. Regular "ten-minute teaching session" peer feed-back assessments of classroom teaching
      1. Assessed areas include: rapport and methods
    2. English faculty members: paper-norming sessions with adjuncts and full-timers to assess consistency of grading.
  4. Supervisor evaluation
    1. Dean's classroom evaluation./assessment of teaching (contractual requirement)
    2. Meetings with adjunct staff to discuss curricular goals and strategies
  5. Annual proposal of "additional responsibilities" and subsequent reporting of year's activities, with explanation/evaluation of success
D. Program/Department Evaluation:
  1. 3 year Faculty Development and Review Process self-assessment
  2. Annual reporting of Center for Teaching activities, to demonstrate how time and money were spent for the CFT program.
  3. For the LAS and GS programs: Institutional data on degree enrollment and completion rates, to assess effects of changes in degrees and evaluate the promotion and advertising of them (particularly of information concerning differences between the two degrees)
  4. For the CPL program: Ad-hoc interviews with students, the instructor, and portfolio committee members to assess various components of the program, particularly the effectiveness of the various procedures each constituency has to perform
  5. 5 year discipline self-study
  6. Surveys used with students, graduates and employers
  7. Program growth profiles:
    1. Track and compare #'s of new students entering program
    2. Track and compare #'s of students transferring
      1. i. Four-year schools
      2. Two-year schools
    3. Track and compare #'s of students enrolled in specific courses
    4. Track and compare # of discipline-specific courses offered
    5. Tracking of student employment in field of study
    6. Tracking the number of majors by area of concentration per semester
  8. Review by various Advisory Committee members to ensure progress toward curricular goals

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