EL CAMINO COLLEGE
Office of the Vice President – Academic Affairs
NOTES – 4 June 2007
Assessment of Learning Committee
Attendees: K. Clark, N. Freeman, D. Goldberg, D. Grogan, O. Hadley, L. Kjeseth, M. Kline, R.
Lewis, D. Maruyama (CEC), J. Simon, H. Storms, C. Striepe, D. Thompson
I. Information/Announcements
A. Strengthening Student Success Conference – J. Simon will check if a block of registration
spaces can be placed on hold prior to payment. Attendees will be requested to make his/her
own flight and hotel reservations and be reimbursed after the conference.
B. Committee members will share their knowledge by holding workshops or working one on
one in his/her division or area. It was suggested that an event be held during the fall and
spring semester. Suggestions include:
 SLO fair for one week
 Hold event on library lawn.
 Provide a time when people can share about their assessment.
 Keynote speaker. Possibly find a speaker at the Strengthening Student Success
conference in October.
 Flex credit.
II. Student Learning Outcomes & Assessment Philosophy/Principles/Policy
The Assessment Philosophy Statement will become part of the language in faculty orientations,
faculty evaluations, contract negotiations and a number of other ways. It will be presented to the
Academic Senate and Board in the Fall. It was reviewed for editing and discussion. Some
points of discussion were:
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It was mentioned that SLOs, assessments, and the resulting data need to be part of any
budget and resource decision.
In addition, SLOs and assessments are not yet part of program review. SLOs and
assessments need to become a part of this process, and it needs to be reported what time
and resources were needed to complete SLOs and assessments so that resources may be
allocated to complete the process.
The purpose of assessing learning outcomes is to make improvements to programs. This
will lead to growth of programs and enrollment. Thus, language needs to be inserted that
expresses the benefits of this process.
In divisions where there are few faculty in any one program, could programs be
combined? For example, could programs that lead to a certificate be combined into one
program?
This process needs to include staff as well as faculty.
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Much of the resistence to this process is a result of fear of using this as punitive way to
evaluate faculty. There needs to be language to assuage this fear. It needs to be made
clear that SLOs and assessments will not be used in any punitive way in faculty
evaluations.
Rather, SLOs and assessment will be part of faculty self-evaluation. The faculty member
can look at assessment results and reflect on his/her own teaching practice and
improvement of this practice.
The accreditation agency’s mandate on SLOs leaves institutions a lot of latitude as to
how to implement the SLO process.
As we begin this process, faculty are asked to identify one outcome to follow through on.
They should not start another one without finishing a complete cycle on their first SLO.
SLOs should go through complete cycle and process.
#4 is too descriptive. Remove “A new cycle of assessment cannot begin until this final
stage is complete.”
III. Other
A. Meetings – the 2007 fall semester meetings will be September 10, 24; October 8, 22;
November 5, 19; December 3 from 2:30-4:00 pm in Library 202.
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