EL CAMINO COLLEGE
Office of the Vice President – Academic Affairs
NOTES – September 14, 2009
Assessment of Learning Committee (ALC)
Present: R. Bergeman, D. Grogan, C. Gold, K. Holt, B. Jaffe, M. Kline, Kaysa Laureano-Ribas,
R. Lewis, J. Noyes, J. Shankweiler, J. Simon, J. Soden, E. Sonido, C. Striepe, K. Whitney
1. Welcome Back and Membership Changes
New members were welcomed to the committee and all were welcomed back to the 20092010 academic year.
2. Plan for Semester
J. Simon reviewed and discussed Student Learning Outcomes Timeline with committee
members. The timeline charts what needs to be accomplished through 2011, which is one
year before the College needs to show proficiency. The next step after that will be
sustainability. In order to attain proficiency, the College will have
-- established a leadership team
-- developed SLOs for all courses
-- started or continue to assess
-- developed core competencies and will begin aligning them with other processes on
campus ( program review, curriculum review).
In upcoming meetings, one topic of discussion will be selecting a core competency that the
College will assess and planning what the core competency assessment will look like.
J. Simon asked committee members to help inform faculty of the following:
-- Faculty should only use the “SLO” email address (slo@elcamino.edu) for submitting
the reporting documents.
-- Faculty should include in the “Subject” line of an email the course name and whether
it is a proposal or report.
-- Faculty who forward an email with changes or deletions should send a new document
and note in the “Subject” line and file name that it is a “replacement” for the
document.
-- SLO statements have been posted on Portal by division. As of June, no new
statements have been posted. (M. Kline will work with J. Simon to upload multiple
documents onto the Portal.)
-- Faculty who has emailed SLO statements or assessment plans will receive
notification that their document has been received.
3. Division SLO Committee Duties
One of the big tasks for the committee is to publish the assessment plan by the end of the
semester for the first core competency assessment. The committee will need to decide what
type of data is needed and what type of instrument should be used.
Tasks for the Division SLO Committees were reviewed and revised as follows:
(1) Plan a sharing/Q & A session during the Assessment of Student Learning Week (week of
Nov. 2-6).
(2) Make sure that all programs have SLOs for every regularly-offered course by December
2009 and that these SLOs are sent to slo@elcamino.edu.
(3) Make sure that the assessment timelines are being followed and make contingency plans
if they are not.
(4) Write an end-of-semester report based on the following list of questions (one report per
division):
a. Describe the progress made in writing and assessing SLOs in your area. Do you think
the upcoming deadlines are likely to be met? Why or why not?
b. What sort of dialogue has taken place around SLOs and assessment in your area?
c. Has your area put together an SLO committee to monitor the progress of SLOs and
assessment? Who is on the committee and how often does it meet?
d. What is the level of staff/faculty involvement and collaboration in SLOs and
Assessments in your area? If you are pleased with the level of involvement, what
factors do you think stimulated staff/faculty interest and participation? If you are not
pleased, why do you think staff/faculty are resistant?
e. Describe one or two particular successes and one or two particular weaknesses in
the SLOs and Assessment process in your area?
What are the overall weaknesses in the SLOs and Assessment process in your area?
What additional support does your area need in order to address those weaknesses?
(Committee wanted to separate support question to its own question.)
f. What additional support does your area need in order to address those weaknesses?
g. Have faculty in your division embraced the idea of adding SLOs to their syllabi?
What evidence do you have to demonstrate this?
(5) Start planning for the division’s participation in the core competency assessment to take
place Fall 2010. (Details will be communicated by the ALC reps.)
Members were asked to send the names of their division committee members to J. Simon and
B. Jaffe. Those who have already forwarded the names were asked to resend their email.
4. Assessment of Student Learning Week – Preliminary Plans
Assessment of Student Learning Week has been scheduled as follows for November 2-6:
Monday and Tuesday (11/2-3)
Training workshops
Wednesday and Thursday (11/4-5) Breakout sessions
Friday (11/6)
Mini-conference and general wrap-up
5. Next Meeting – October 12, 2:30-4:00 p.m., Lib 202
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