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CHABOT COLLEGE TITLE III INITIATIVE
Focused Inquiry Group (FIG) to Investigate
Core Issues and Practices in the Assessment of Student Learning
FIG Proposal:
Assessing Global and Cultural involvement across the College: Fall 2009
Name of FIG Leader(s)
Carolyn Arnold
Division or Department
Institutional Research
Phone
723-6965
E-mail
carnold@chabotcollege.edu
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Which of the Title III Comprehensive Development Plan Goals does this FIG address?
Increase success and persistence in developmental courses.
Increase success and persistence in courses supported by learning support
services.
Develop student learning outcomes and appropriate assessments at the
course, program and college level.
Maintain and increase enrollment by increasing persistence.
Narrative describing your proposed inquiry project.
What is the problem at the heart of your investigation?
Global and Cultural Involvement (G&ÇI) is one of our College-wide Learning Outcomes (CLOs).
During 2008-09, a FIG developed ways of assessing the CLO of Critical Thinking across
disciplines, using 2 common rubrics.
In contrast to critical thinking, which most faculty feel that they are teaching in their classes, only
28 courses were listed as having SLOs that assessed Global and Cultural Involvement. In
addition, there are about 100 other catalog courses, in a wide range of disciplines, whose titles or
content indicate that global or cultural involvement is being taught in some way.
This FIG addresses the problem of assessing Global and Cultural Involvement at Chabot across
disciplines and across the campus. This FIG would develop a way to determine the type and
amount of Global and Cultural Involvement that is being learned by Chabot students in any
courses that claim to teach it. In the process, we will identify how many Chabot courses in which
this CLO is being taught and how much is being learned, so that the faculty can determine
whether more of a focus on this CLO is needed across the curriculum. This is an example of
“faculty collaboratively examining evidence of student learning to analyze patterns of student
strength and weakness and develop responses.”
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How have you arrived at these questions?
The Fall 2007 student survey showed that 74 percent of Chabot students believe that they have
made some or a lot of progress in “understanding diverse philosophies, cultures, and ways of life”
at Chabot and 70 percent have made some or a lot of progress in “becoming informed about
current issues that affect the US and the world” at Chabot. This project is designed to use
faculty assessment of student levels of global and cultural involvement in a range of courses to
validate the students’ sense of learning in this area. In addition, this project will develop common
rubrics to use for this CLO and discuss assessment results and what they mean for the teaching
and learning of global and cultural involvement at Chabot.
What are your plans for investigating these issues?
Plans - tasks
Details/comments
1) IR will identify and recruit instructors who are The courses, and the instructors teaching in
teaching courses that include these themes.
Fall 2009, have already been identified.
2) Instructors in this pilot group will identify or
Since most of the SLOs and content areas are
develop a G&CI student learning outcome for
about awareness rather than involvement, part
their course, and identify an assignment in
of the discussion will be to determine a range
which to assess G&CI.
of acceptable types of SLOs in this area. In
addition, faculty involved in Service Learning
will help articulate SLOs related to involvement.
3) Instructors will develop common rubrics with This will take place in a facilitated discussion
which to assess their diverse SLOs.
group. This will be the most challenging part,
unless there are rubrics from other colleges
that have already been developed.
4) Instructors will assess their students by the
end of the semester, and enter their data into
eLumen.
5) The group will meet at the end of the
This discussion will include an evaluation of the
semester to discuss their results. They will
process of developing common rubrics, the
discuss both the aggregate and individual
usefulness of the rubric content, and
results, and what this means for the teaching
recommendations for the use of these rubrics
and learning of G&CI in their courses and at
to assess this CLO in the future.
Chabot.
6) During the end of semester meeting, the
group will plan how they will share their
experiences and insights during the next
semester to help other faculty assess G&CI or
other college-wide learning outcomes.
Who will be involved?
The FIG leader, Carolyn Arnold, is the faculty Coordinator of Institutional Research, and is on the
SLOAC committee. She has been researching various ways of assessing college-wide learning
outcomes, and has been instrumental in training staff to use the District assessment software, so
that assessments of course-, program- and college-level student learning outcomes can be
recorded for the college and discussed among faculty.
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The faculty will be recruited from among the courses with G&CI SLOs, and courses with G&CI
titles or content.
FIG Leader: Carolyn Arnold, Institutional Research
Potential FIG Participants (those teaching Fall 09 courses that include G&CI SLOs or content)
Christina Milner-Rose Anthropology
Ameena Saeed
Anthropology/Sociology
Diane Zuliani
Art & Humanities
Debra Howell
Biology
Janice Novak
Business
Dmitriy Kalyagin
Business
Catherine Pinkas
Business
Noureddine Lalami Business
Donna Gibson
Chemistry
Jason Ames
Communication Studies
Christine Warda
Communication Studies
Hilal Ozdemir
Early Childhood Devel
Shoshanna Tenn
English
Julie Segedy
English
Irene Plunkett
English
Mark Salinas
Ethnic Studies
Zakia Isad
Ethnic Studies
Diana Kuo
Chinese
Roger Zhang
Chinese
Carren Parrish
French
Mario D'Onofrio
Italian
Yoshiko Clark
Japanese
Francisco Zermeño Spanish
Ilva Salmanca
Spanish
Janet French-Rafael Spanish
E. Anderes Solomon Geography
Myron Gershenson Geography
Donald Plondke
Geography
Mark Stephens
History
John Parente
Humanities
Keary Kensinger
Humanities
Christine Gillis
Nursing
Charlotte Lofft
Nursing
Zahra Mofidi
Nursing
Patricia Shannon
Philosphy
Vallejean Dale
Psych Counseling
Carey Harbin
Psych Counseling
Ramon Parada
Psych Counseling
Sadaf Ashraf
Psych Counseling
Richard Dinwiddie Religious
Julie Wulferdingen Religious
Nanette Dadzie
Sign Language
Michael Cheung
Sign Language
Susan Tong
Sociology
Ann Le Pell
Theatre Arts
How do you intend to organize the Inquiry, and what do you think it will cost?
The group will meet three times – the first two early in the semester - once to discuss the SLOs and
identify the range and common themes in the SLOs; a second time to clarify and discuss the use of
the rubrics in the assessment process. Then, near the end of the semester, they will meet a third
time to share and discuss their assessment results. Each faculty member is responsible for
developing or using an assignment or test that demonstrates a global and cultural involvement SLO
in their class, and helping to develop or choose a rubric to assess it. This may involve individual
meetings with the FIG leader as needed. They will then assess their students and either enter their
data into eLumen, or provide both individual and aggregated data to the FIG leader in time for the
late-in-the-semester meeting. During this meeting, the group will discuss their individual results
and the aggregated results, what the results mean for estimating the status of the learning of
global and cultural involvement at Chabot, and what, if any, steps need to be taken to improve that
status.
They will also start planning how they will share their experiences so that they can help other
faculty use these rubrics or develop others to assess global and cultural involvement. In addition,
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they will share how they developed the rubrics, so they can help their colleagues assess other
college-wide learning outcomes during the following semester Flex day activities.
Budget
FIG Leader Stipend: $563
Faculty Special Assignment Rate of $46.92
Hours billed for participation in pilot based on following work expectations Hour limits
• Developing assessment package of SLO/Assessment activity/rubric:
2
• Attending 2 meetings to discuss SLOs and rubrics
2
• Entering assessment results in assessment software (2) or sending in data (1) 1-2
• Attending the last meeting to discuss the results
1
• Writing up experience/results
1
• Planning/participating in Spring 2010 Flex Day training activities
2
Total potential hrs/faculty:
9-10 hrs
Total potential $$/faculty:
Up to $469.28
Total Budget:
Fig Leader Stipend:
10 faculty x $469.28=
Total Budget:
$563
4,693
$ 5,256