Standard 5: Competencies

1. Standard 5: Competencies October 2, 2010 Las Vegas

2. Introduction

3. What is a Competency? • Difference between universal required competencies; mission-specific required competencies and mission specific elective competencies • Programs without mission-specific required competencies and mission specific elective competencies don’t need to respond on them

4. How are Competencies Operationally Defined? • Through learning objectives • The learning objectives should relate to the program’s unique mission

5. Defining Mission What is your program all about? What makes it distinctive? How is it aligned with your university’s or college’s overall mission and vision? How do the courses you offer align or “match” with this mission?

6. Look at Courses and Competencies Given the mission and competencies, what must students learn in order to address the competencies successfully? What are the learning objectives, and how are the aligned with each competency? How might you list these learning objectives in a way that demonstrates that your courses give students every opportunity to master such learning objectives and competencies?

7. Idea: Showing that Learning Objectives and Competencies “Match” Program’s mission: Community-based public administration program emphasizing management of social services

8. Exercise Each table operationalizes one of the universal competencies based on their table’s “interest/ mission area”

9. How do you Assess Students on Competencies? • Indicate in what course the competency will be covered • Thinking about where/how students are introduced to a competency, allowed to practice it, and then where/ how are they assessed on it • Determine (as a faculty) what constitutes achievement of the competency/ learning objectives. • Describe ways in which the program can measure student attainment of competencies • Portfolios • Comprehensive exam • Case Studies • Etc.

10. Suggestion: Aligning Courses and Learning Outcomes After you have ensured that the competencies and learning objectives are aligned, take the learning objectives for each competency and see which core courses address such objectives. You should also be able to observe “gaps” in curriculum coverage and “natural” places where it is most convenient to assess student learning outcomes.

11. Example

12. Take the same table, and identify if there is “substantial coverage,” “intermediate coverage,” or “minimal coverage,” just to observe if the courses adequately enable students to master the objectives.

13. (M)=Minimal coverage; (I)=Intermediate coverage; (S)=Substantial coverage

14. Advice • Just begin the conversation on your campus, and do the following: • Choose a competency • With your faculty, discuss the unique mission of your program • With your faculty, discuss the learning outcomes that have something to do with the competency, and write the learning outcomes down • Ask the open question, “Do my courses offer my students enough opportunities to master these objectives?”

15. How Do You Assess On Competencies?

16. Continue discussion of aligning courses with the appropriate learning objectives. Important Point: Without doing such, it is difficult to decide how to assess the learning outcomes.

17. When You Align Learning Objectives With Courses, List Courses in Sequence

18. You Might Discover Some Assessment Modalities… Post-Assessment Pre/Post Assessment

19. Types of Assessments • Indirect: Student attitudes and perceptions, GPA studies, etc.; they look at impressions, but often not learning • Direct: Use of student work samples, performances, and evaluations that, when aligned with learning outcomes, directly attest to strengths and weaknesses in student learning

20. What Do Programs Need to Show on Assessment? Where they are in the assessment cycle How they are assessing the learning objectives outlined in the required competencies How they are using assessment results to make program decisions No need to assess every year, but there is a need to do so periodically Sampling may be a good idea Documentation is important

21. Reminder: Why Assessment? The purpose of assessment is to inform faculty about general strengths and weaknesses, areas where improvement is needed, etc. The purpose is to give faculty information to impact student learning positively and to empower faculty with information needed to do their jobs effectively, not simply to comply with a mandate.

22. What Does “Close the Loop” Mean? • Faculty do the following: • Align competencies, learning objectives, and courses • Assess the learning outcomes regularly; • Discuss what strengths and weaknesses exist in student learning, and make recommendations that maximize strengths and that act on weaknesses • Act on such recommendations

23. Suggestions About Documentation • Changes do not have to be radical. They often appear mundane. But when assessment happens over time: • Mark instances where changes have occurred to syllabi (textbooks, lesson plan sequencing, new course modules, etc.) with a yellow highlighter • Meeting minutes where decisions have been made, with documentation of such changes • Faculty reports on changes • Assessment reports attesting to the assessment process

24. What do Programs Need to Show on Assessment to COPRA? • They have operationally defined the required competencies • They have marked where they are in the process of assessment for each • They have chosen one competency to fully explain their assessment process • Any additional mission-specific or elective competencies the program may have • Program can use upload function to provide tables if needed.

25. What do programs need to show on assessment to SVT? • Where they are in the cycle for each competency, (5.1 Part B) • How they are assessing the learning objectives outline in the required competencies • How they are using the assessment results to make program decisions? • Don’t need to assess each competency every year • Sampling • Documentation

26. What Questions Should the SVT be Asking the Program? • How the program chose to operationalizes the competencies • Who was involved in the process • How often does the program assess student achievement of the competencies • How do they assess achievement, (what measures used, • What changes has the program made based on the feedback they’ve received (or how have they decided changes were not needed) • SVT will make their own judgment on where they think the program is in the assessment cycle and compare it to the programs own judgment from the SSR

27. Interview Process