assessing general education outcomes terri m. manning, ed.d. central piedmont community college...

Assessing General Education Outcomes

Terri M. Manning, Ed.D.

Central Piedmont Community College

Hawaii Strategy Institute 2013

We Need a Complete Overhaul of Higher Education in America

• We should start with general education………..


• Education must evolve based on a result of the diverse economic, social, spiritual, cultural, and political realities of our individual lives. Likewise, how we deliver instruction and how we measure success must be updated to match.

• Kim Jones, CEO, Curriki, Forbes August 15, 2012


http://www.curriki.org/

Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation’s

Future

* Ensure that students can learn what they need to learn, whenand how they need to learn it, by shifting community collegesfrom playing the restricted role of local provider of directinstructional services to an expanded role as broker ofeducational access, connecting students to learningopportunities available through multiple providers and multiplemodes of delivery.

*Of necessity in an increasingly open learning environment,The brokering role will require expanding community college

work in academic advising, learning assessment, and credentialing.

A Report From the 21st-Century Commission onthe Future of Community Colleges, 2012

At Your Tables….• Thinking about gen ed courses taught at

your college – pick one.• Think back to when you were in college

and you took the same course.• What are two or three things that are

exactly the same?• What are two or three things that have

changed?


College Students Have Changed


College Courses and Faculty – Not So Much

• “People who work in the academy, like people in any institution or profession, are socialized to operate in certain ways, and when they are called upon to alter their practices, they sometimes find that they lack a compass to guide them.”

• Louis Menand, Harvard Professor, 2010, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University, p. 17.


Quote….

• “A pressing pedagogical challenge right now is the problem of adapting a linear model for transmitting knowledge ……….. to a generation of students who are accustomed to dealing with multiple information streams in short bursts.”

Louis Menand, Harvard Professor, 2010, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University.

Quote….• “Once being a professor

meant ……. refinements on knowledge that were effectively inaccessible to the unlearned person. Now, most of that esoterica is available instantly on Wikipedia.”

Louis Menand, Harvard Professor, 2010, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University.

• Success in the Knowledge Age was mainly determined by …..a series of tests throughout the education system that required logic and analysis to identify a single correct answer.

• ….. education is still firmly geared towards the needs of the Information Age (digital/technology), a quickly disappearing era. It’s as if our children are moving along an assembly line, where we diligently instill math, reading, and science skills and then test them to see how much they retained, making sure they meet all the “standards” of production.


• This does not meet the needs of the Conceptual Age (global), which requires creativity, innovation and design skills.

• Today, a successful member of society must bring something different to the table.

• Individuals are valued for their unique contributions and their ability to think creatively, take initiative and incorporate a global perspective into their decisions.

• A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink


http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind

What is General Education

• The courses are called “general” because they are pitched to non-specialists: they are supposed to be courses that any student can enroll in with the hopes of learning something and getting a decent grade. • Louis Menand, The Market Place of Ideas, 2010, p. 23


Why are we doing this?• We ask students to take 15-30 hours of

general education coursework before they can graduate.• What is our intention?

• What skills do we want them to develop?

• Why these courses?

• Are we, as institutions, teaching these well?


At Your TablesOnce students complete their general education courses….

What is one skill we would like them to

have learned?What is one deep thought we would like them to have?

What is one fear we would like them to

lose?

What is one prejudice we would

like them to have put away?

What is one connection we would

like them to have made?

What is one piece of self-knowledge we would like them to

have? Hawaii Strategy Institute 2013


Top 25 Highest Enrolled Courses

Course

A-C

A-F

DFIW%

retainedSuccess of retained

Total

% success of all

CIS110 1470 2144 891 90.7% 68.6% 2364 62.2%

ENG111 1357 1755 618 88.9% 77.3% 1975 68.7%

PSY150 884 1113 310 93.2% 79.4% 1194 74.0%

SOC210 782 1022 362 89.3% 76.5% 1144 68.4%

ACA111 786 1032 322 93.1% 76.2% 1108 70.9%

MAT161 588 865 416 86.1% 68.0% 1005 58.5%

COM231 637 837 340 85.7% 76.1% 977 65.2%

COM110 637 828 281 90.2% 76.9% 918 69.4%

SPA111 384 649 366 85.2% 59.2% 762 50.4%

SPA181 350 650 401 85.6% 53.8% 759 46.1%

HIS111 441 614 266 86.8% 71.8% 707 62.4%

ENG112 459 592 219 87.3% 77.5% 678 67.7%

ENG113 352 534 304 81.4% 65.9% 656 53.7%

BIO168/9 386 488 255 76.1% 79.1% 641 60.2%

MUS110 415 521 157 90.9% 79.7% 573 72.4%

BUS110 297 492 274 86.2% 60.4% 571 52.0%

CIS111 285 463 280 81.8% 61.6% 566 50.4%

HIS131 342 454 178 87.3% 75.3% 520 65.8%

We Are Losing Students• 25% in developmental course

• Another 25% (approximately) in the gen ed sequence

• Pull exit-non-completers and look at what they were taking the term they dropped, how many dev ed classes they accrued and how many gen ed classes they accrued.


When Students Complete These Courses

• They enter their majors courses and the faculty say:• They can’t write• They can’t reason and think critically• They can’t do basic addition and subtraction• We are supposed to teach them content specific

knowledge about the major – not teach them to write (whose job is this anyway)

• Then employers tell us:• They lack work ethic• They lack the basic skills to function in the workplace• They lack basic teamwork skills• They say the same things college faculty say about high

school preparation


Why These Courses?• We want our students to come out of their major

program areas with knowledge, skills and the ability to perform as teachers, nurses, welders, police officers, etc.

• We also want them to know how to read, write, speak, listen, understand issues of culture, function in a technological world, etc..

• But the standard gen ed curriculum in US higher education has been in place since WWI (100 Years)

• What general knowledge and skills are most critical for students in the 21st Century? Is it time for a change?


What Does ACCJC Say About General Education Assessment?

• General education has comprehensive learning outcomes for the students who complete it, including the following:

• a. An understanding of the basic content and methodology of the major areas of knowledge:

• areas include the humanities and fine arts, the natural sciences, and the social sciences.


ACCJC, cont.

• b. A capability to be a productive individual and life long learner: • skills include oral and written

communication, information competency, computer literacy, scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical analysis/logical thinking, and the ability to acquire knowledge through a variety of means.


ACCJC, cont.◦c. A recognition of what it means to be an ethical human being and effective citizen: qualities include an appreciation of ethical principles; civility and interpersonal skills; respect for cultural diversity; historical and aesthetic sensitivity; and the willingness to assume civic, political, and social responsibilities locally, nationally, and globally.


Accreditation and General Education: The Cart Before the Horse

• The accrediting agencies should not dictate or guide our expectations, outcomes and assessment in general education.

• We should come up with our own rigorous standards that address the needs of the students at our colleges and make sure we create a tracking and documentation process that passes our accrediting agency expectations.


Where Do We Go Wrong?• A critical thinking goal from an actual college:• To comprehend complex ideas, data, and concepts, to

make inferences based on careful observation, to make judgments based on specific and appropriate criteria, to solve problems using specific processes and techniques, to recognize relationships among the arts, culture, and society, to develop new ideas by synthesizing related and/or fragmented information, to apply knowledge and understanding to different contexts, situations, and/or specific endeavors and/or to recognize the need to acquire new information.


This Would Be Better

• To integrate and synthesize knowledge, and draw conclusions from complex material.

• Not every aspiration you have for your students has to go into the goal. The faculty is not measured by the weightiness of their goals for student learning.


Outcomes Should……. • Be useful - if you could know anything about your students’

level or quality of learning , what would be of greatest use to you and your faculty?

• Be of value to the course or program – what does your faculty place greatest value on in relationship to the topic or program?

• Inform practice and decision-making – does it give you direction, stimulate action, tell you where you need training, help you with planning?

• Be important - of all possible outcomes students achieve in the course or program, what 2-4 are most critical to their future success?


Ask Yourself These Questions…..

• Are these the skills a college educated person should have?

• Are they “college level” skills rather than minimal?

• Are they a valid representation of all course material?

• Are they worthy of the time, money and energy a student puts into the course?


-We give grades in courses to indicate the percentage of all course requirements the students completed – 82% of 500 total points in tests/assignments/other. Consumers of grades can draw solid conclusions from them.

-We give students tests and assignments in class for several reasons: to allow them to demonstrate what they have learned, to help them master content through repetition and to keep their feet to the fire. Students can draw conclusions from graded assignments and tests.

-We do learning outcomes assessment for us – to determine how well we are teaching critical content, to see if students are where we think they need to be. Are the results in our classroom what we anticipated.


If students don’t do well on any of them….

• Course grades – we rethink assignments and grading scales, time spent on certain tasks.

• Grades on assignments – look at the instructions given, what items they missed, what is learned from an assignment (is it worthy), study guides and test prep sessions – mostly student support.

• Learning outcomes assessment – seriously look at how we are teaching, methods of assessment, what would help students learn “better”, search for best practices, revise and reassess.


Measuring General Education Outcomes Across the Curriculum

• Pros• all faculty are responsible, forces them to collaborate and

address expectations (e.g. nursing and reading or science and engineering)

• students can develop true skills if the outcome is emphasized in every course

• skills learned are related to discipline• Cons

• lots of faculty from which to obtain “by in”• a tracking challenge without special software• bump up against a misguided idea about academic freedom• how can you realistically use that many results


Easiest Way

• Common syllabus, common outcomes, common exit exam.

• Gen ed becomes the foundation from which all learning springs.

• Faculty teach gen ed across the curriculum. Everyone is responsible for writing, readings, etc.


Suggestions…..• Hold regular forums with the general education faculty and

the program faculty to discuss expectations.• As course content changes in gen ed, let the program faculty

know.• Encourage the program faculty to “take it from here.”• Try to get the gen ed faculty to see their roll in student

success especially first year experience.• Try to get the gen ed faculty to see themselves as a

combined group of faculty whose job it is – to get the students through the gen ed core.


Final Question at Your Tables• Considering the students in your classroom

and the needs of the current and future workforce, what course/concepts should be in the gen ed core?

• What assessment should we conduct that could transform how we look as student progression.


Contact info

• Terri Mulkins Manning

• [email protected]

• (704) 330-6592

• Contact me for a copy of this presentation.

assessing general education outcomes terri m. manning, ed.d. central piedmont community college...

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