FAQs: Assessment of General Education at CMU
Why is assessment of General Education being implemented now?
At CMU, assessment already occurs at the program and department level;
general education must also be assessed for the same reasons that program and
department level assessment is occurring. Assessment is necessary to ensure that
the student learning outcomes for all UP Groups and competencies are being met
and for accreditation purposes. The point is to improve student learning, above
all else.
What, exactly, is being assessed? Am I being assessed as a faculty member?
The student learning outcomes (or SLOs) of the UP subgroups and competencies
are being assessed, not individual courses or faculty. The identity of faculty
members, students and courses is protected because faculty redact that
information before submitting student work for assessment. Furthermore, since
faculty will only submit a small percentage of student work examples it is
impossible to arrive at a valid assessment of individual faculty or courses.
How are courses selected for assessment?
All courses from each UP subgroup, and all competencies, will be assessed on a
rotating basis. Two groups will be assessed each year (i.e. Year 1: Subgroup I and
IV; Year 2: Subgroup II and III). The assessment of competencies will be
embedded in this assessment: that is, if your course is both a Subgroup IA and
Writing Intensive course, the work you submit will be scored twice – once with
the IA rubric, and once with the WI rubric. Faculty will not have to do anything
extra if their courses meet both a subgroup and competency requirement.
When will my course(s) be assessed?
The tentative calendar is as follows:
2015-2016: Subgroups IA (fall) and IVC (fall); Subgroup IB (spring)
2016-2017: Groups II (fall) and III (spring)
2017-2018: Groups I (fall) and IV (spring)
2018-2019: Groups II and III
2019-2020: Groups I and IV
The cycle repeats itself from this point forward. Faculty whose courses will be
assessed will be notified at the beginning of the semester prior to the one in
which they will be asked to submit student work (i.e. beginning of summer
session for fall assessment; beginning of the fall semester for spring assessment).
This is done in order to give faculty time to think about what assignment(s) they
will use and submit for assessment.
What is my role or responsibility in General Education assessment?
Faculty members should implement assignments in their courses that address
the SLOs of their subgroup in some way (either directly or indirectly). Faculty
will collect a small number of ungraded samples of those assignments and
submit them to the General Education Office. In addition to the student work,
faculty should submit a detailed answer key or rubric that explains what a good
answer or response is, as opposed to a mediocre one. This will help faculty
assessors in the scoring of student work. Do not just send the rubrics or keys you
develop for assessment. Please submit the student work and the rubric that you
used to grade the work.
The SLOs for all subgroups and competencies can be located here:
https://www.cmich.edu/office_provost/AcademicAffairs/gened/gened_secur
ed/Pages/proposals.aspx
What happens to the student work that I submit for assessment?
The student work is checked in and if there is any identifying information on any
of the work, it is removed. The submission will also be checked for an answer
key to the assignment; if one is not included, the faculty member will be
contacted to provide one. The work is then numbered and entered into a
spreadsheet. Faculty will be sent an acknowledgment email once their
submission is received and checked in.
How will the student work I submit be assessed?
At the end of the academic year, assessment workshops are held where faculty
assessors score all submitted student work against rubrics developed for each
subgroup and/or competency. These faculty assessors come from the subgroups
being assessed, and they use submitted answer keys to the assignments in their
scoring. The scores are entered into a spreadsheet, and analyzed. Outcomes are
reported to the General Education Committee, the Assessment Council and the
campus community via the internal general education website.
How many assignments should be submitted?
If one assignment incorporates all of the SLOs of the subgroup, one should be
submitted. If no one assignment incorporates all SLOs, faculty should submit
multiple assignments, indicating which SLOs each addresses. If faculty assess
only some of the SLOs in their class (i.e. they do not assess all of the SLOs of their
subgroup SLOs in their class), they should submit the assignment(s) which
addresses the most SLOs of the subgroup. Faculty should also remember to
include an answer key that explains the assignment(s) and defines what (to
them) is a good versus a mediocre piece of work.
I teach multiple sections of one course. Do I have to submit student work for
all sections? (Or: there are many faculty who teach sections of one of my
courses. Do all faculty have to submit student work?)
The answer to both questions is yes. If you teach multiple sections of one general
education course, you will be asked to submit work from each section. If many
faculty teach sections of one general education course, all faculty will be asked to
submit work from their sections. This is because the goal is to assess whether or
not students are gaining competency in the SLOs of the subgroups; thus, samples
of student work are needed from all classes regardless of who teaches them.
What types of student work are appropriate for assessment?
The most important consideration is that the assignment requires students to
demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the SLOs that are being
assessed. Assignments that ask students to demonstrate their understanding
through analysis, synthesis, critical thinking and the like are more conducive for
assessment purposes than assignments that require only recall or recognition.
Examples of assignments that may be appropriate include (but are not limited to)
essays, lab reports, mini-research papers or quantitative problems for which the
student’s computational work is shown.
What types are inappropriate (and why)?
Multiple choice, short answer, matching and group assignments do not provide
enough detail or independent work for the faculty assessors to score competency
levels. However, if these are the only types of assignments that are used in a
course, and faculty cannot create or implement any other type of assessment,
they should submit them for assessment.
What if none of my assignments address the SLOs of my subgroup (or only
address one or two of the SLOs)?
In this situation, the faculty member should consider either re-tooling an existing
assignment or creating a new assignment that addresses all of the SLOs. The
point is to get an overall “snapshot” of how the subgroup (and/or competency)
is working; this cannot be achieved if faculty are not covering all of the SLOs in
their courses. Faculty should also remember that, unlike courses in a major or
minor where all program SLOs are addressed over numerous courses, general
education courses should be designed to “stand alone” since students are
required to take only one course from each subgroup.
In a multi-sectioned course that is taught by more than one faculty person, one
suggestion is for all faculty to design one assignment that they all give at the
same point in the semester. This would help to ensure that there is some
consistency between sections of a course in the teaching and assessment of SLOs.
Departments that have many general education courses may wish to design
assignments for each class that can be used for assessment purposes. These, of
course, are just suggestions; faculty should submit work that they believe best
reflects an understanding and mastery of the SLOs of their subgroup.
Why can’t course grades be used for assessment? This would mean that
student work would not even need to be collected.
There are many studies that show that course grades do not provide the same
insight that a course assessment does. The problems, which are the same
problems associated with using multiple-choice tests for assessment, are as
follows:
 Grades give a global evaluation but do not provide sufficiently detailed
information about which course outcomes students are mastering well
and which are giving them trouble.
 Because many factors contribute to an assigned grade, it is almost
impossible to make inferences about what a student knows or can do
solely by looking at that grade. Grades often reflect performance on
multiple concepts.
 Grades sometimes are based on more than mastery of course content: for
example, participation, attendance, or bonus points might be included as
part of an overall grade.
 Grading standards often vary widely among different instructors and do
not indicate the same degree of mastery of course outcomes. One
instructor’s “A” might be another instructor’s “B.”
 What a faculty person is trying to assess in his or her particular
assignment for a course can be different from the broader student learning
outcomes of the subgroup of which the course is a part. A student might
do very well on a class assignment, but score poorly on assessment of
SLOs (or, the opposite might occur).
How are students selected for assessment?
Instructors whose courses are being assessed will be given specific directions on
how to randomly select students for assessment. Typically, the instructor will be
asked to select students from their alphabetical class list at a set interval (i.e.
every fourth student). Sampling methods may change as more assessment of
general education occurs.
Are students informed of their participation in assessment?
No, students whose work is selected are not informed of their participation or
treated any differently than non-selected students. The identity of students is
protected because faculty redact any identifying information from the student
work before they submit it for assessment. You may wish to include a brief
statement about assessment on your syllabus such as: “work products submitted
by students to fulfill course requirements may be used by the university to
evaluate its academic programs and general education requirements.”
What happens if I don’t submit student work for assessment?
All courses in the General Education curriculum are re-certified every seven
years. If student work has not been submitted for assessment purposes, the
course will not be re-certified and will be removed from the curriculum. If
faculty do no submit their courses for recertification, their course will be
removed from the curriculum.
I’d like to be more involved in assessment. Are there other opportunities for
faculty to participate in the assessment of General Education?
Please email the director of general education for information on how you can
get more involved in assessment.
Is general education assessment here to stay?
In short, yes. Assessment of general education is critical to the university’s
mission and for accreditation purposes.
If I have further questions, whom can I contact?
The Director of General Education at directorgened@cmich.edu.