Learning Evidence Team
Sub-group on Communicate
November 2, 2005
West Campus 9-110
In attendance: Kurt Ewen, Suzette Dohany, Melody Boeringer, Aida Diaz, Helen Clarke,
Pat Nellis.
Charge from LET: review communications rubrics across disciplines from a variety of
internal and external sources and relate them to the Valencia College student core
competency of Communicate. The purpose is to present a proposal to operationalize the
Communicate competency for assessment of student learning.
Agreements that this sub group came to:
Our goal is to create rubrics and other tools for assessment of communicate
These tools will be understandable to lay teachers (non-communications faculty)
These tools will also be understandable to students
They will be useful to teachers across the college
The tools will reflect the 4 levels of student development that were employed in
the THINK rubrics
The current Communicate indicators are too weak to form the basis for
assessment
Among the documents reviewed were rubrics for communication (oral, written, reading,
listening) from Alverno College, King’s College, and sundry other colleges. Special
attention was paid to the Valencia SPC 1600 outline and rubrics for informative and
persuasive speeches, as well as the ENC 1101 exit criteria (CLAST 6 point rubric).
Though discussion, a list of communication characteristics was distilled from these
materials. As listed below, these characteristics are common to both oral and written
communications (unless otherwise noted):
Effective communication takes embodies these characteristics:
Connect with audience
Clear purpose
Coherency (support and development)
Organization (structure)
Ethical
Appropriate conventions (clarity)
Verbal expression (tone, word choice, style)
Context
Delivery (oral only)
Creation/use of media (oral only)
The group has committed to regular meetings over the next few months to create
appropriate assessment tools.