Learning Assessment Committee Minutes
Harford Community College
August 28, 2012 Time: 10-12am
PRESENT:
Sheila Allen Nicole Hoke-Wilson Kenneth Jones Gina Calia-Lotz
Madelyn Danner
Bill Ekey
Miriam Huddleston
Judy Grimm
Supawan King
Valerie Swain
Rob Frank Chris Jones
Action Items in Bold.
Avery Ward
I. Approval of June minutes—item VI. Change to clarify that listed members were scheduled to go off LAC but elected to remain. Otherwise approved.
II. Schedule for Fall 2012—Members update schedules in GW by Thursday, August 30, so dates can be selected for fall meetings. Avery suggested first Fridays as optimal times.
III. Assessment Support and Assistance – Valerie gave overview of her role in IRPE and her skills. LAC brainstormed ways to disseminate information about using Valerie’s services for assessment projects or when embarking on national accreditation activities.
IV. Review Proposed Goals for 2012-13—
Goal 1.1—LAC members be available to consult when course revisions are being prepared.
Goal 2.2—Deans are confident that SLOs on course syllabi are consistent. (See item VI, below.) Need to attach SLOs to course descriptions in catalog. (This process was underway before Lisa Rainey left.)
Goal 2.3—Continue to investigate student evaluation of SLOs
Top priorities should be 2.1, 2.2 and 3.1/3.2 (Valerie can assist in assessment of general education program)
Goal 4.1—LAC provide leadership in expanding Expo to be more inclusive and campuswide
V. Review Timeline for Prerequisite Pilot
Bill reminded LAC of IR’s examination of courses and correlation with Accuplacer scores. IR will prepare recommendations based on data with estimates of number of students that might be affected by prereq changes.
This data may assist in coming up with a “lowest common denominator” score. LAC discussed need for streamlining CWG process. Extent of change effects workload and timeline through CWG. Rob will investigate to see if streamlined process for prereqs only can be used for the pilot. Questions: For pilot, only Accuplacer prereq score being added? Or other prereq considerations, like courses? Course content changes should not occur initially so that valid comparisons can be made. Only prereq variable should change. There would be value in cleaning up Curriculum Forms to update. Timeline for beginning pilot in Fall 2013 dictates that preparation needs to occur by the time students can register (late March/early April).
Bill to meet with A3T group prior to next LAC meeting.

VI. Update on Student Learning Objectives per Division—Sheila worked on ETS to assure consistency. STEM, BCAT, BSS, VPAA also reviewed and assured consistency. Nursing had
“leveled” objectives in accordance with NLN accreditation request (this clarifies how courses within Nursing build on each other). HUM also has reviewed/updated SLO on syllabi.
VII. Student Evaluation of Course Outcomes – Continue Discussion: Rob shared a form that measures student evaluation of whether or not Student Learning Outcomes were instructed and assessed. This form was created by Rob and subsequently reviewed by Valerie.
A potential problem with such a form is that the student responses may not accurately reflect what was instructed. Ken noted that VPAA is moving toward student entrance and exit interviews to gather student opinions as to what was learned: SLOs could be incorporated in these interviews. The committee decided that faculty should use these evaluations as needed then bring back ideas to the committee. Additionally, the committee decided that it should investigate how other institutions use these evaluations. This item will be revisited during the
December meeting.
VIII. Adjournment at 11:10 a.m.
Items for next meeting
Meet w/ Gen Ed committee
Update from Bill concerning prerequisite pilot information
NOTE: Valerie to update membership on website.
Committee Members
Sheila Allen
Gina Calia-Lotz
Madelyn Danner
Bill Ekey
Rob Frank Chris Jones
Judy Grimm Kenneth Jones
Nicole Hoke-Wilson Supawan King
Miriam Huddleston Gene Popiolek
Valerie Swain
Avery Ward