A User-Friendly Approach to
Streamlining the Collection and
Analysis of SLO Evidence
Dave Karp
&
Tom Vitzelio
Embedded
Assessments
What is Embedded Assessment?
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Take place in a class or a group of classes
Determines whether students are learning
pre-established learning outcomes
Take advantage of pre-existing student
motivation to perform well
Assess what is actually taught
Types of Course-Embedded
Assessment
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Exams
Research Papers and Projects
Performances
Field Experiences, Lab Reports and
Internships
Pre/Post Comparisons
Student Portfolios
Capstone Evaluations
Advantages of Embedded
Assessment
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Student motivation is high because the assessment
activity is part of a course activity
Costs are reduced because incentives are unnecessary
It usually does not require additional student time as it
is part of the curriculum
It is faculty-driven and thus, more likely, to be used for
improvement
Because it’s linked to the curriculum, it’s more likely to
identify specific curricular needs/deficiencies
Feedback to faculty is usually quick
Disadvantages of Embedded
Assessment
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Faculty commitment is absolutely
essential, but can be hard to get
Faculty resistance to the process may
be substantial
Achieving agreement among faculty on
an assessment approach across courses
is a challenge
Usually there are no comparable data
SLOs Assessment vs. Grades
Identified Learning Outcomes
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Student 4
Student 5
Learning
Outcome
Average
Spelling
3
4
1
2
3
2.6
Grammar
2
5
3
2
5
3.4
Punctuation
4
5
2
3
4
3.6
Structure
4
3
4
5
3
3.8
TOTAL
13
17
10
12
15
Individual Student Grade:
C
A
D
C
B
An “All-Purpose”
Rubric Form to
Streamline SLO
Assessments
Workshop Focus
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Our focus is on a tool that makes it
easy to
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Grade a regular assignment, and
Assess students’ performance on a course
level SLO
The tool is an “all purpose rubric” form
developed by Chaffey’s Business
department
Benefits of the Rubric
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Automates the grading process
Provides a checklist
Easily adjustable
Can be distributed to students before
and/or after collecting the assignment
May be as simple or complex as the
faculty member desires
Quickly and easily enables the SLO
assessment
Excel Terminology
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Worksheet
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Workbook
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An individual spreadsheet
A collection of worksheets combined in a file
Cell
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The intersection between a row and a
column in a worksheet
May be Simple or Complex
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Examples
Preparing Your Rubric
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Open the All Purpose file
Save it with a new name
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“Assignment 2 Grading and Assessment”
Fill in line items
Assign weighted values for each item
Fill in the total points possible on the
assignment
Preparing Your Rubric
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Make copies of the worksheet to fill in
for each student in the class
Type each student’s name in the
worksheet tab
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The student’s name automatically appears
on the worksheet
Evaluate the students’ performances
The Assessment
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Once the grading (evaluation) is
complete, the workbook contains all the
data needed to conduct an assessment
All you do is make a copy of the same
rubric you used to grade the
assignment
The trick is Excel’s 3D Reference
function
The Assessment
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Examples
How to Do a 3D Reference
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Make another copy of the blank
worksheet
Type “Assessment” into the Worksheet
tab
click in cell O4, which is the cell
containing the score on the first item
Type =AVERAGE(
How to Do a 3D Reference
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click on the tab for Student 1's
worksheet – Then click in cell O4
Press down on the “Shift” key and while
still holding it down, click on the tab for
the last student worksheet
How to Do a 3D Reference
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Without going to a different sheet, click in the
formula bar (the one labeled “fx” near the top
of the page)
You will notice that there is a formula there
that reads something like this:
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=AVERAGE('Student 1:Student 5'!O4
Type a “)” at the end of the formula
Click on the green check to the left of the
formula bar (or press the “Enter” key)
How to Do a 3D Reference
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Go back to the Assessment worksheet
Cell O4 contains the average of all the
students’ scores for that line item!
Copy the formula in cell O4 and paste it
into all of the other cells in column O
that correspond to one of the rubric’s
line items
How to Do a 3D Reference
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Once done, you have a worksheet that
shows:
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The class performance on each line item,
and
The overall average score on the
assignment
The Assessment
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This worksheet now contains the class
assessment on this project
The only extra work required on top of
the grading for the assignment was to
spend a few minutes creating the
Assessment worksheet
Now, all you have to do is talk about
the results with your colleagues!
A User-Friendly Approach to
Streamlining the Collection and
Analysis of SLO Evidence
- The End -