AGENDA ITEM BACKGROUND
TO: GOVERNING BOARD
DATE
FROM: PRESIDENT
May 6, 2013
SUBJECT:
Annual Report on Student Learning Outcomes
REASON FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION
INFORMATION
ENCLOSURE(S)
ITEM NUMBER
Page 1 of 5
H.11
BACKGROUND:
Since the last Governing Board Report on SLO assessment, the College has made substantial progress in
institutionalizing student learning outcomes, an effectiveness measure that improves learning and
teaching. Several challenges have also arisen from this process which the College has made plans to
meet.
The campus’ SLO efforts are monitored by the Outcomes Assessment Committee (ARC), a campus
oversight group composed of representatives from Administration, the Faculty and Student Senates and
the classified and faculty unions. ARC analyzes the SLO assessment results produced each year and
writes an annual report to track campus progress. The report includes:
Summaries of the SLO assessment work in Instruction, Student Services, the Library and
Administration.
Commendations for outstanding assessment work or progress.
Recommendations to meet any emerging SLO assessment challenges.
Progress made on the recommendations.
This Board Report includes highlights from the 2011 and 2012 ARC reports and several new
developments. The full reports are posted on the SLO website at
https://sites.google.com/a/cabrillo.edu/student-learning-outcomes/annual-reports.
Further and more in-depth background is provided in the chapter on Student Learning Outcomes and
Program Planning in Cabrillo’s Self Evaluation Report of Educational Quality and Institutional
Effectiveness for Reaffirmation of Accreditation. This chapter details the college’s SLO efforts over the
last ten years.
Progress on SLO Assessment:
1. SLO Survey: To gather data for our Accreditation Self Evaluation Report, ARC undertook a survey
to explore the SLO experiences of different parts of the campus in December 2011. The results showed
that knowledge about Cabrillo’s SLO process is high and, more importantly, is considered valuable. Out
of 211 respondents:
81% agreed that SLO assessment provides a way to look at how well students are mastering
course material or learning from a library or Student Service encounter.
Administrator Initiating Item:
Kathleen Welch, Vice President, Instruction
Academic and Professional Matter
If yes, Faculty Senate Agreement
Senate President Signature
X Yes  No
X Yes  No
Final Disposition
87% agreed that SLO assessment provides an opportunity for useful dialog about how to
improve teaching and learning.
The survey also corroborated the major challenges identified by ARC in its various annual reports:
Full time and adjunct faculty participate in SLO assessment at different rates.
Instruction, Student Services and Administration are in different stages of SLO assessment,
facing different challenges and training needs.
An in-depth description of the survey results can be found on the SLO website:
(https://sites.google.com/a/cabrillo.edu/student-learning-outcomes/)
Since the 2011 survey, so much progress in SLO has occurred that ARC is undertaking another survey
in May. The results will be analyzed and shared in early fall 2013.
2. Student Services: Student Services has met the recommendation from our last Accreditation Team
visit which asked them to “develop and implement student learning outcomes and measurements for all
its departments, collect and analyze the data, and link the results to planning and program
improvement.”
Toward this end, each Student Service department has:
Written SLOs.
Assessed them.
Written program plans.
The plans, the SLOs and the assessment results are posted on the Student Services website:
(http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/studserv/StudentServicesProgramReviewsandSLOs.html).
In addition, to improve on the work that has been done, Student Services has:
Adopted a common template for program plans.
Instituted a departmental annual report.
The common template and the annual report ask departments to link SLO assessment results to
improvement plans.
3. Administration: This area of the college, which includes all departments in Administrative
Services, administrative and division offices, the Planning and Research Office and departments in the
President’s component, has struggled to define its role in SLO assessment. Many departments found it
hard to define how exactly their work actually affects or improves student learning.
To solve this dilemma, administrative departments have adopted a new effectiveness measure,
Administrative Unit Outcomes, which describe what the users of a particular department can do, know
or understand after an interaction with that office. An AUO is not an administrative unit goal. Instead, it
captures how the department’s services enable others to improve student success.
Almost all departments have now written AUOs, and some have been assessed for the first time. The
SLO website will soon list all AUOs across the campus. For now, they can be found on the following
websites:
The Instruction Office
http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/instruction/
Student Services
(http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/studserv/StudentServicesProgramReviewsandSLOs.html0
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Administrative Services
(http://www.cabrillo.edu/internal/adminservices/indexASProgRevs.html).
These websites also post assessment results for the AUOs that have been measured.
4. Instruction: SLO assessment is most robust in this portion of the college, an institutionalized
process that is a regular component of departmental business. Departments assess course and certificate
SLOs and our college core competencies (the Core 4) on an on-going basis, part of the program planning
process.
Assessment results are submitted with program plans and annual reports and form the basis for goals and
recommendations for program improvement. Many departments report that the dialogue that emerges
from discussing SLO assessment results has enriched their departmental work and, more importantly,
improved teaching and learning. Program plans, with the attached SLO assessment forms, are posted on
the Instruction Office website at http://www.cabrillo.edu/services/instruction/
Instruction has moved to a new stage of the SLO assessment process: quality assurance. Since SLOs are
now institutionalized, part of the fabric of Instructional daily life, work has shifted to analyzing in-depth
where the process succeeds and how it can be improved. Four major challenges have been identified and
the Council on Instructional Planning and ARC are working hard to meet them. The challenges and their
proposed solutions are detailed below.
5. SLO Proficiency Report: The campus completed a proficiency report on SLO assessment for the
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) in October 2012. The report
described the college’s progress on each aspect of the ACCJC’s proficiency rubric. It highlighted the
college’s achievements and also identified its challenges and its efforts to meet them. The report is
posted on the SLO website: (https://sites.google.com/a/cabrillo.edu/student-learning-outcomes/
Challenges for SLO Assessment
1. Adjunct Participation in SLO Assessment
The Outcomes Assessment Review Committee has noted in each of its annual reports that adjunct
faculty are not participating in SLO assessment at the same rate as full time faculty. The SLO survey
confirmed this finding:
Of the 110 faculty who responded, only 46% of adjunct faculty had assessed course SLOs while
fully 84.7% of full time faculty had done so. Similar numbers were repeated when faculty were
asked about Core 4 assessment.
20% of the adjuncts responding had not participated in any SLO assessment activities at all.
In addition, adjunct faculty reported that their primary means of training in SLO assessment was from
their program chair. Full time faculty, on the other hand, received the bulk of their training from flex
workshops and the SLO coordinator.
Solution: Better Program Chair Training
ARC accounts for the differences between adjunct and full time faculty experiences primarily due to the
shift from start up to institutionalization of the SLO process. Before, the SLO coordinator was the
primary trainer of all faculty. Now program chairs have become the transmitters of that information. Yet
many are new to the position and sometimes the college; they have not all received training in Cabrillo’s
SLO assessment methods and processes, nor in how to organize and schedule it.
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The college is meeting this challenge by:
Providing flex workshops about SLO assessment specifically for program chairs.
Creating a portion of the SLO web site and a handbook especially for program chairs.
Continuing to train deans in SLO assessment so that they may better assist their program chairs.
Offering a flex workshop for program chairs of small departments (those with only one or two
full time faculty) to brainstorm how to better involve adjuncts in SLO assessment.
2. Timely Completion of SLO Assessment
ARC’s annual reports and a new SLO Tracking Tool created by PRO to gather statistics for the ACCJC
Proficiency report show that not all departments are completing their assessment work in a timely
manner. The Tracking Tool revealed that only 61% of courses offered in the last three years had been
assessed; seventy-six percent of certificate SLOs had been measured. All of the Core Four had been
completed.
Solution: Intensified Assessment; Tools and Training to Help Program Chairs
Instruction is working to meet this challenge by:
Asking departments to assess the SLOs in any course offered this semester that has not yet been
measured. This will increase our assessment percentage by 10-12%. The same effort is expected
to take place next fall as well.
Creating or purchasing an electronic tool for assessment reporting, so that program chairs (and
the Vice President’s Office) can more easily see what SLO assessment has been accomplished
and what yet needs to be done.
Identifying struggling departments and having them work individually with the SLO Coordinator
to schedule, discuss and report SLO assessment.
Providing specific training in course and certificate level SLO assessment through the SLO web
page and/or in flex workshops.
Continuing to tweak program planning instructions to make all expectations (including SLO
assessment) clearer.
Changing the Program Discontinuance Matrix so that departments now earn points for
submitting their annual report, which also includes submitting SLO assessment results.
Undertaking a dialogue with Deans, the Council of Instructional Planning, the Faculty Senate
and the Outcomes Assessment Review Committee to brainstorm other methods to ensure full
compliance with college SLO standards.
3. Reporting of Assessment Results
When Instruction’s SLO assessment process was created in 2003-2004, the SLO reporting forms asked
program chairs to summarize department data in a narrative format. Members of ARC were concerned
that though some departments reported numerical results as well, it wasn’t required.
Solution: Pilot Project
Following Cabrillo’s shared governance processes, ARC brought this idea to the Faculty Senate who,
after much debate, approved a pilot project to include numerical reporting that commenced in 2012.
Eight total departments volunteered to participate. The Senate will carefully monitor to see if this
addition to the Assessment Analysis form “takes away” from the dialogue that is such a rich part of the
current process.
4. Digitalizing SLO Assessment Reporting
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Currently, all SLO assessment reporting occurs through downloadable Word documents. Each
department is expected to fill out at least one of these almost every semester. Once a year, they are
submitted to the Vice President of Instruction’s Office as part of the department’s annual report and are
submitted again when the department completes a program plan every six years.
This makes it difficult to keep track of who has completed assessment and what departments are
outstanding. Gathering data for ACCJC report is also made difficult.
Solution: Going Digital
After debating the merits of creating a home-grown system to address this need, the college is currently
exploring purchasing CurricUNET’s SLO assessment module for the reporting and storage of SLO
documents. The program will automatically keep track of what has been assessed and what needs to be
done. It may be possible to design it to also assist program chairs with the planning of an assessment
schedule as well. A decision will be made by mid-May.
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