Instructional Council
Outcomes Alignment Project
Update
May 20 2014
Purpose of the Project
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, our regional accrediting body,
requires that colleges have published learning outcomes at the course, program and
college level. The outcomes at all levels need to be in alignment and transparent to
students.
In doing this work for accreditation, we hope to create meaningful assessment
strategies at the program and college-wide ability levels that inform faculty on student
learning needs.
Where we have been
South Puget Sound CC faculty members have a long history of writing course learning
outcomes and assessing college-wide abilities. This historical work has created the
foundation for the current needs of the college to meet NWCCU accreditation
standards.
Where we are now
New accreditation standards (adopted approximately 3 years ago) have changed and
now require that colleges provide written outcomes at the course, program and college
levels. The new standards also call for evidence that these outcomes are being
assessed in a strategic manner and that the results of the assessments are being used
to improve learning. This is a more elaborate standard than any previous requirement
in accreditation.
Given that we already have college-level abilities and course learning outcomes, we
began our work this winter to create program level outcomes defined differently than in
the past. Programs are now defined as the professional and technical certificate or
degree or by four distribution areas in the Direct Transfer Agreement: Communication,
Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Sciences/Quantitative Reasoning.
Because we have a NWCCU visit scheduled for October, we need to have the programlevel outcomes completed before faculty leave for the summer.
In addition, the Instruction Council passed modified criteria that will be used to assess
the strength of courses and syllabi and their alignment with program and college-wide
ability outcomes. These criteria will be used once the IC Course Review committee
establishes a cycle for course review.
Important Information:

Individual courses do not need to include 5 college-wide abilities.

Decisions have not been made about how program outcomes and college-wide
abilities will be assessed. There is a great deal of flexibility in ways to assess
learning at the program and college-wide ability levels.
o As a hypothetical-- programs may assess their outcomes through a
collection of student work. They may only be required to assess the
strongest college-abilities (maybe 2 per program) associated with their
program.

Program outcomes should incorporate all five abilities in ways that are
appropriate to the program. Program outcomes do not need to address all suboutcomes associated with each college wide ability and do not need address
every college-wide ability at level 4 in the rubrics.
o For example, the Natural Science/Quantitative Reasoning program area
may address most, if not all, sub-outcomes to the critical thinking and
computation college-wide abilities in their program outcomes. And they
may seek to help student reach level 3 or 4 on the rubrics in those areas.
However, Natural Science/Quantitative Reasoning may only address one
or two sub-outcomes associated with Ethics, Multicultural Awareness and
Communication in their program outcomes and help students reach levels
2 in those areas.
What is left to do?
 The IC Course Review committee will establish a cycle for course review. The
committee will provide a proposed cycle no later than November 1, 2014 to be
vetted to the faculty. The review cycle will be adopted by IC no later than
February 1, 2015. Faculty involved in the first cycle of course reviews will have
at least one quarter’s notice to prepare for the review.

The IC Program Review committee is working on a proposal (or multiple
proposals) for processes that will be used to assess program outcomes and
college-wide abilities. The processes that will be developed should be
meaningful to faculty about student learning and provide evidence of student
learning. The program review committee will have a proposal for assessing
program outcomes and college-wide abilities no later than December 1, 2014 to
be vetted to the faculty. The final document will be completed by mid-March
2015. Programs will be notified of the cycle for assessment in spring 2015.

It is critical that faculty provide input and feedback as these proposals come
forward. Your contacts will be your representatives on the Instructional Council.