Our Journey Toward Faculty and
Student Ownership of GE
Assessment
WASC ARC 2014
Pepperdine University Demographics
• Seaver College (Undergraduate)
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43 majors
8 academic divisions
128 units to graduate
42% of students are out-of-state
• General Education Program
• 63-64 units
• International Programs
• 7 campuses
• over 60% of students participate
Where the Journey Started
• WASC visit September 2012
• AAC&U Institute on GE Assessment
June 2013
Burlington, Vermont
• Do not plan to revise the GE Curriculum
• Do plan to develop an effective Assessment Plan
Where We Are
Consensus Building and
Implementation of Assessment
• Developing a faculty-driven
assessment plan for our GE
Curriculum
• Envisioning an even more
effective GE assessment
program after learning
assessment practices at
other institutions
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How We Can Help
Our Areas of Expertise
Team Building
Faculty Development
Programs in Assessment
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Project Goals
Assistance with the assessment of:
Core Competencies
GE Requirements which involve more
than one discipline
Sequential, stand-alone GE
Requirements
Four Semester Programs
GE and the International Programs
Junior Writing Portfolio
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Profile
Seaver College
Located in Malibu, CA
Liberal Arts College
3,000 + students
43 Bachelor’s Degrees
8 Master’s Degrees
58% Residential Students
We want to do a better job of what we’re doing!
Constance Fulmer
Brad Griffin
Associate Dean
Teaching and Assessment
Associate Professor
Theatre
Candice Ortbals
Thomas Reilly
Julianne Smith
Associate Professor
Political Science
Associate Professor
Asian History
Associate Professor
English
Garrett Pendergraft
Assistant Professor
Philosophy
GELI Team Members
Vermont Team
Constance Fulmer, Associate Dean of Teaching and Assessment
Candice Ortbals, Associate Professor of Political Science
Garrett Pendergraft, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Tom Reilly, Associate Professor of Asian History
Julie Smith, Professor of English
Additional GELI Team Members
Jenine Clements, Executive Assistant, International Programs
Lincoln Hanks, Associate Professor of Music
Loan Kim, Associate Professor of Nutritional Science
Melinda Raine, Associate University Librarian
Valerie Skinner, Assessment Coordinator
Student Members: Thomas Yee, Kelly Okerson, and Shelby McDaniel
Conferences Attended by GELI
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Critical Thinking and Information Literacy
Lila Carlsen
Candice Ortbals
Melinda Raine
Constance Fulmer
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Assessment 101
Garrett Pendergraft
Julie Smith
Connie Fulmer
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Quantitative Reasoning
Loan Kim
Connie Fulmer
Conferences Attended by GELI
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Meaning, Quality, and Integrity of the Degree
Tom Reilly
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Assessment Workshop Sponsored by Point Loma
Lila Carlsen
Julie Smith
Connie Fulmer
General Education Program
- 64 or 65 units required
- half of 128 units required for graduation
- developed by the faculty in 200-2002
- only minor changes since 2006
General Education Program
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First-Year Seminar
English Composition
Junior Writing Portfolio
Writing-Intensive
Requirement
Speech and Rhetoric
Research Methods/
Presentation Skills
Mathematics
Foreign Language
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Christianity and Culture
Western Culture
American Experience
Non-Western Cultures
Fine Arts
Literature
Laboratory Science
Human Institutions and
Behaviors
GE at Seaver College Before Vermont
• Aligned with University mission:
Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the
highest standards of academic excellence and
Christian values, where students are strengthened for
lives of purpose, service, and leadership.
GE at Seaver College Before Vermont
• Aligned with Institutional Learning Outcomes.
• Scaffolded throughout the students’ four years
at Seaver—including upper division courses.
• Addressed diversity in all courses; however, the
American Experience courses were designated
“diversity” courses.
GE at Seaver College Before Vermont
• Focused on the Core Competencies:
Writing: Freshman Composition or other
First-Year Writing Courses, Junior Writing
Portfolio, and a designated Writing Intensive
Course in each major
Oral: Communication 180 and a course in each
major which focuses on Presentation Skills
GE at Seaver College Before Vermont
• Focused on the Core Competencies:
Quantitative Reasoning: a Mathematics class and a
Laboratory Science
Information Literacy: First-Year Seminar,
First-Year Writing class; First-Year Seminar and a
course in each major with an emphasis on Research
Methods
Critical Thinking: throughout the courses—
where our emphasis in assessment is beginning
GE After Vermont
The faculty in each area of GE were asked to:
• rethink their Learning Outcomes;
• think about the primary focus of each course;
• place the course appropriately on the Venn
diagram.
Learning Outcomes for
Knowledge, Skills, and Perspectives
• The student who completes each course that emphasizes knowledge will
be able to demonstrate an introductory understanding of a body of
knowledge in a specific discipline and of the ways of thinking about that
knowledge. This may provide a foundation for future study and/or a
framework for relating that body of knowledge to an overall
understanding of theoretical and real life issues.
• The student who completes each course that emphasizes skills will be able
to demonstrate an increased level of competency in evaluating WASC’s
core competencies critical thinking, written communication, oral
communication, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and other
skills such as moral/ethical responsibility, acquiring language skills, or
appreciating artistic, musical, or theatrical performance.
• The student who completes each course that emphasizes perspectives will
be able to demonstrate habits of mind characterized by open-mindedness
and empathy toward local and global communities through a transformed
awareness of self and others.
The Initial Placements
• Knowledge, Skills, and Perspectives
First-year Seminar (primarily skills)
Religion 101 and 102 (primarily knowledge)
Religion 301 (primarily skills)
Literature courses (primarily knowledge)
Western Heritage
The Initial Placements
Knowledge
Fine Arts (also skills)
Laboratory Sciences (also skills)
History (also skills and perspectives)
Sociology
Psychology
The Initial Placements
Skills
Economics (quantitative reasoning)
Composition (writing)
Speech (oral communication)
Mathematics (quantitative reasoning)
Foreign Languages (writing and oral)
French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek
The Initial Placements
Perspectives
Non-Western Cultures
Political Science
Emphasis on Critical Thinking
• Each area of GE will complete an assessment of
Critical Thinking by May 15, 2014.
• Each major will complete an assessment of
Critical Thinking by May 15, 2014.
Assessment of Critical Thinking
To encourage the assessment of Critical Thinking,
the GELI team offered two workshops:
For those assessing GE on November 20, 2014,
attended by 28 faculty members
For those assessing the majors on January 29, 2014,
attended by 31 faculty members
Assessment of Critical Thinking
1. State the definition of Critical Thinking which applies to
your GE area or use this definition:
Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive analysis
and evaluation of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events for or against a claim or point
of view.
2. Collect data from an appropriate assignments and assess
it using an adaptation of the AAC&U VALUE Rubric for
Critical Thinking.
3. Describe the process you used to establish inter-rater
reliability.
4. Be sure to include students in the assessment process
and three or more faculty members.
What next?
• Develop an assessment plan for each area—
knowledge, skills, and perspectives.
• Assess each of the five Core Competencies
What next?
• Consider a way of assessing the role that cocurricular activities play in enriching the GE
curriculum.
• Consider a way of assessing the role that high
impact activities have in enriching the GE
curriculum.
What next?
• Make sure the assessment of summer courses is
consistent with the assessment of traditional
semester-long classes
What next?
• Make sure the assessment of GE courses taught in
our International Programs is consistent with the
assessment of GE courses taught on campus
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Florence, Italy
Heidelberg, Germany
Lausanne, Switzerland
London, England
Shanghai, China
Washington D.C.
What next?
• Continue to embed Information Literacy into the
first-year experience, research intensive classes, and
capstone courses.
• Create additional online Information Literacy
modules.
• Assess information literacy via pre- and post-tests,
quizzes, bibliographies, and resources used in papers
submitted to the Junior Writing Portfolio.
Questions?