(ALL UNIVERSITY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ASSESSMENT)
Presented By: Sarah Blackstone, Gail Corbitt, Chuck Worth
CSU Chico

Joint AAHE/WASC Assessment conference in Glendale, Fall 2004
Team was chosen by director of Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
 Widely representative of the campus
 Purpose of the conference was to plan a project in assessment
 We roughed out a plan to bring the campus up to speed in program assessment and to make assessment a part of our 5-year program review process
 More importantly, the individual members gelled into a team
 Currently a team of 10 —6 from the original team

What are the critical success factors for assessment or assurance of learning?
Break into small groups and generate a list
Build the group list from the nominal groups

Team returned to campus and the President created AURA.
 Our charge was to assist the campus in the assessment of student learning outcomes.
Conducted a review of current program assessment
 97% of departments reported having student learning outcome statements, and 86% reported they were actually assessing these outcomes
 AURA collected the existing student learning outcomes for each program and found that much of the selfreporting was in error.
AURA began development of a set of definitions, a web site, and a series of assignments for departments to complete.

The importance of a common vocabulary
 Program mission
 Goals? Objectives? Outcomes?
 Student learning outcomes
 Course alignment matrices
 Direct vs indirect assessment methods
 Embedded assessment techniques
 “Communication is essential. Get everything up on the web.” – Jerry Pritchard

Philosophy…why we assess…
 What do we value?
 “Tell students what you value. Don’t keep it a secret.”
–Amy Driscoll
 Use best practices (AAHE handout)
 Doing the right thing right!
Intentional curriculum
Reflective departments
Culture of evidence

The importance of a timeline…(handout)
They want it when?!?
“Most of us don’t have to assess every objective in every objective in every student every year!
Assessment should be meaningful, manageable, and sustainable .” –Mary Allen
No more than six (6) statements of student learning outcomes (SLOs) for each of your baccalaureate degree programs.

Who’s in charge?
Where will it live?
What will it look like?
What must it contain?
Who will maintain it?

Prompt feedback is very important to continued success
Feedback is not policing, did not want to fall into the submit, resubmit, and submit some more syndrome.
Faced with the Mission, Goals, and SLO’s for over 60 programs we needed a reasonable way to help departments establish meaningful, manageable, sustainable assessment
 Each member of AURA took responsibility for the reports from their own college
 In very large colleges, a second AURA member helped review the reports
 The college representatives then met with department members to discuss their reports and made suggestions for improvement

Program Mission and Goals
Student Learning
Outcomes
(measurable)
Curriculum
Recommendations for Program
Improvement
Assessment of
Student
Learning

The Outcomes/Course Alignment Matrix
Stage 1 – Ensuring a
Cohesive Curriculum
In which courses are which outcomes introduced,
practiced, mastered?
Course SLO 1 SLO 2 SLO 3 SLO 4
151
177
201
Stage 2 – Developing an
Assessment Plan
What student artifacts can be used to measure progress?
277
340
I
P
P
M oral presentation
I
P
I
I
P
M
477 P term paper

Fund it and they will come!
Sources that AURA has tapped…
CELT
WASC
VPPRA (Academic Program Review)
Hide

Important to develop a proposal form that ensures focused work on assessment
Needed to allow enough flexibility for departments to request the kind of help they really needed
Needed a form that was brief, to the point, and allowed the committee to quickly review and fund proposals
All members of AURA read and scored the proposals
All departments receiving funding completed a report of their activities to AURA in February
06

At each stage of the process —from listing goals and SLO’s to establishing a assessment plan, college representatives have been reviewing reports from departments and providing feedback
AURA has held several internal workshops to review work already completed and provide help with assignments recently given

Use existing course assignments to measure learning outcome performance
Develop scoring rubrics
Engage a variety of evaluators , as deemed appropriate
 Course instructors
 External evaluators
Other faculty
External stakeholders
Other students

Started Fall 2002
Now in use since Fall 2004
Allows for different reviewers, rubrics, work samples (like refereed publication review – double blind)
Builds enterprise repository for visitation teams, re-assessment (example GE and Business), etc.
http://steps.cob.csuchico.edu
(choose CSU
Chico and view training materials – can’t sign in)

80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
MECHANICS ORGANIZATION PROFESSIONALISM P-STRUCTURE S-STRUCTURE WORD CHOICE
Superior
Acceptable
Needs Improvement

90.00%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
Fall 2004 Scores (%) by Selected Majors
Superior
Acceptable
Needs Improvement
BADM MBA

www.csuchico.edu/vpaa/assessment

GE Assessment
 Working with existing committees —WASC,
GEAC, Faculty Senate
 Establishing a plan of action
 Setting up steering committees
 Establishing SLO’s
 Engaging the faculty
 Collecting work samples
 Evaluating work samples
 Reporting to the campus

New Academic Program Review
 Assessment is key component of 5 Year Reviews
(accountability is the other)
 Assessment as continuous and cumulative
 Follows WASC CFRs pertinent to assessment with a focus on —
Program mission, goals, outcomes…alignment
Processes established for assessing SLOs
Importance of documenting the process
 FYR is now consequential…which makes assessment consequential.

Establishing a culture of evidence on the campus
Establishing a yearly reporting cycle
 Delivered to and reviewed by the Dean of the
College
 Used as a major component of a completely redesigned 5-year review process
Doing ourselves out of a job
 Moving responsibility for assessment to the colleges
 Moving support for assessment into the Center for
Teaching and Learning