LEARNING OUTCOMES COUNCIL
November 13, 2014 Minutes
To Be Approved – January 22, 2015
Co-Chairs:
Present:
Absent:
Recorder:
Berta Cuaron, Wendy Nelson, Marty Furch
Berta Cuaron, April Cunningham, Sarah De Simone, Kelly Falcone, Erin Feld, Marty
Furch, Adrian Gonzales, Michael Gilkey, Cheryl Kearse, Naomi Lowe, Susan Miller,
Norma Miyamoto, Michael Mufson, Wendy Nelson, Rocco Versaci
Daniella Ashburn, Michelle Barton, Melinda Carrillo, Brooke Crawford, Robert
Deegan, John Harland, Mollie Smith, Brian Stockert
Marti Snyder
The meeting was called to order by LOC Co-Chair Wendy Nelson at 2:07 p.m.
1. Approve Minutes 10/23/14
Minutes approved unanimously.
MSC Miller, Harland.
2. Announcements
Berta announced that IPC approved the timeline for Program Review and Planning and training will begin
next week. Deans will have division meetings to discuss the process, and an email announcement
regarding the approved timeline will go out tomorrow.
Michael Mufson announced two concerts – two 2 jazz bands Friday night, chorale groups Saturday night.
Additional information for concerts is available at palomarperforms.com
Marty mentioned that she and Wendy have been working with departments to update SLO data by
November 21 to meet Accreditation reporting deadlines.
Cheryl Kearse encouraged SLO facilitators to take action in CurricUNET. We are nearing the end of the
curriculum cycle and for a new course to be effective for Fall 2015, it must be on the Curriculum
Committee agenda for December 3 for course approval. If courses are not on the December 3 agenda,
they will not be effective until Fall 2016.
3. General Education Presentation
Marty summarized the November 7 presentation by Dr. Moreno of CSULB in which he discussed the
connection between General Education and Student Equity. LOC members shared some of the
memorable highlights including:
- Comparison of what most of GEs do and what employers want and how the two are aligned.
- Recognition of GE curriculum being invaluable to our students and still a means of exploration for
students.
- GE can level the playing field for student equity and diversity.
- Consideration of alternative models for GE by grouping courses thematically (integrative learning),
faculty collaborations, restructuring GE checklist to create clear pathways to graduation through
themes.
-
GE gives students the open doors that students have not yet considered.
Need to reinforce GE and convince students that GE is relevant.
Encouragement of students to explore through GE.
LOC members discussed various ideas to reduce student confusion and increase student success by using
revised, thematic general education advising guides to better identify easy to follow pathways to help
students meet transfer and graduation requirements.
4. GE versus Institutional outcomes – Part 2
Currently, Palomar has considered GE and ILO outcomes to be the same. There are four broad
Institutional Learning Outcomes, which can be met through coursework, programs (including GE), cocurriculars, such as service learning and internships, and instructional areas such as library, tutoring
services, and counseling.
All of our courses should map to at least one of the institutional outcomes.
- GE Program outcomes are essentially a subset of our institutional learning outcomes and goals.
In order to assess the GE Program separately from Institutional Outcomes, we would need to change the
way we assess or the way we disaggregate the data. The questions for LOC are:
-
Should we continue to assess institutionally and aggregate the data to assess GE?
How should we distinguish GE outcomes from ILOs?
Should we change the model to assess GE by looking only at course connected to GE strands?
LOC members suggested that we use the data that we currently have compiled using ILO
assessments and including IR&P to determine that validity of using such a method.
We have assessed 100% of our GEs and 25% of our ILOs. We should now consider assessing other ILOs.
LOC members came to a consensus to assess Intercultural Communication in Spring 2015.
5. GE/ILO Assessment Timeline 2015-2018
This item will be addressed at the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:33 p.m.
Next Meeting: January 22, 2015
2:00-3:30 p.m.
AA 140