A Student's Guide to HALP
What is HALP?
This stands for the Humanities Assessment-Longview Project. Longview is seeking to
learn how will students can identify and apply the approaches used in the humanities for
understanding works of art, music, or literature after a semester or more of practice.
Assessing large groups of students enrolled in humanities classes at Longview will give
us a sense of how Longview students are doing as a whole.
Why Participate?
We make your participation easy, in making this assessment a regular feature of your
course. You need simply pursue this paper as you would any other test or quiz in this
class. We ask that your follow the general instructions. You will gain extra information
on your skills in interpreting humanities works beyond the grade you receive in the
course.
For a larger perspective, assessment is becoming a regular feature of higher education.
All accredited colleges and universities are now required by their states and accrediting
bodies to find out how will our students are learning. We can the use this information to
determine if we need to find additional ways to help our students learn more effectively.
Assessment is designed ultimately to improve the teaching and learning at an institution.
MCC is responsible for assessing our students' academic achievement, for making this
information public, and for using assessment data to improve our teaching. Students are
responsible for participating in assessment projects and for putting forth the best efforts,
so we have an accurate picture of their learning. Your participation is crucial to our
endeavor, and we appreciate it.
How will I be graded for this essay?
Your instructor will provide us with this set of essays after the end of the semester, after
using them in figuring grades for the class. Your essay will be read independently by two
faculty evaluators, who will score it according to the rubric provided to you. Neither
reader will know the score the other reader has given, nor will they have any information
that identifies your as the writer. If the two scores differ by more than one point, your
essay will be independently read by a third evaluator. The scores are then averaged and a
single score ranging from 1 to 4 will be reported to you and to your instructor. A report
form will be provided to you that explains your score.
Scores of 3or 4 indicate competent performance on this outcome: a score of 2 is
borderline, and 1 is unacceptable as competent work.
Your student ID number will allow us to access information that may influence your
performance. For example, students who have completed 40-60 hours of classes may
have had more practice at critical thinking skills that might improve their performance.
We can better analyze our data if we have the ability to look at he context of these scores.
Your student number helps us to collect this aggregate data; it will not be used to trace
you personally. Your name will never appear in any research reports, nor will your score
ever become part of any of your student records.
What if I get a 1? Should I be concerned?
Not necessarily. This data is gathered to provide a picture of Longview students'
performance as a whole on humanities courses. You should consider such factors as the
number of humanities courses you have taken, your abilities in taking essay tests, and
other variables when evaluating your performance.
Where can I learn more?
Anne Dvorak, English
Cathy Hardy, Music
Jim Smith, Art
Instructions for the essay:
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You will receive the prompt at least one week before the first draft is due
You will complete the first draft and present it to the instuctor and or class for
feedback
You will turn in a final draft during finals week
You should write around 3 typed pages # 12 font size
You should write on only one side of the page
The paper should be double spaced
You must have your student ID number and class number at the top of the first
text page.