Assessment Conversations

1. Assessment Conversations Writing in the Disciplines and Expectations for Annual Assessment Reports in May 2014 and 2015 Elizabeth McCormack, Associate Provost Gail Hemmeter, Senior Lecturer in English and Director of Writing JenneferCallghan, Director of the Writing Center and Lecturer in English

2. Discussing Writing in the Major • Context-- • New and modified courses to offer instruction in writing in the major disciplines -- WI and WA courses. • Middle States Commission on Higher Education acted: “To reaffirm accreditation and to request a progress report … documenting (1) further implementation of an organized and sustained assessment process to evaluate and improve student learning and (2) evidence that student learning assessment information is used to improve teaching and learning (Standard 14).” Periodic Review Report due in June 2015 • Opportunity to demonstrate campus-wide engagement of linking student learning at the course level to institutional objectives.

3. The Goals of a Bryn MawrEducation 1. Promote a life of intense intellectual engagement, including the recognition, in theory and in practice, that we need to be acquainted with a variety of approaches to inquiry for understanding the world and our place in it. 2. Promote the ability to think critically, that is, to reflect on the presuppositions and implications of our own arguments and commitments and those of others. 3. Increase students‟ skills in areas that are fundamentally important to their ability to take advantage of a Bryn Mawr education and to make the best use of their knowledge in their life beyond. In particular, we want to train women who can communicate effectively and are quantitatively literate. 4. Enhance students‟ breadth of knowledge and their life‐long capacity to learn new things on their own. 5. Give students the opportunity to acquire a certain depth of disciplinary knowledge in at least one particular area of contemporary scholarship in the arts and sciences. 6. Prepare students to be active citizens in an increasingly global context, one in which the opportunities to overcome geographical and cultural boundaries are greater than at any other time in history. 7. Educate women who are prepared to transform and improve human life in their own communities and throughout the world. Bryn Mawr MSCHE Self Study Report, 2010

4. Evaluating Writing in the Major Annual Assessment Reports due May 2014 • Describe your student learning objectives pertaining to writing in the discipline. • Develop/describe your evaluation framework (narratives, rubric, etc.). • Describe your plan to • collect examples of student work, • apply the evaluation framework (or a component of it) to samples of student writing, • consider possible changes to your courses/program in response to how students are doing towards achieving the learning objectives. Fall/Spring 2014/2015 • Engage in your plan, apply evaluation framework to student work, document results. Annual Assessment Reports due May 2015 • Describe where you are in your plan and provide a summary of preliminary evaluation results.

5. Streamlined, pertinent, and flexible The framework and focus are yours to determine. Outline for today-- • Gail will provide some suggestions on evaluation frameworks. • Jen will provide an example linking an evaluation framework to learning objectives in a writing course. • We’ll have an opportunity to discuss your goals for students. • Faculty members who participated in our Tri-Co Teagle Grant will share what they’ve learned about evaluating the effectiveness of their programs.

6. Suggestion 1 Conversation about criteria for disciplinary writing is one of the main benefits of the assessment process.

7. Suggestion 2 Assess what you plan to teach. Don’t assess general attributes of good writing, however important, if you don’t intend to teach them in your WI course.

8. Suggestion 3 To make assessment manageable and most useful, limit what you assess. Focus on the dimensions of writing most important to your discipline. • Max. 5 or 6 dimensions/criteria • Max. 4 levels of achievement • Streamline the descriptor

9. Suggestion 4 Tailor the rubric or framework for evaluation to the level of the course.

10. Suggestion 5 Loop findings back into WI course pedagogy. Depending on the results of assessment, continue what has worked, change what hasn’t.

11. ENG 125 Syllabus, Spring 2012

12. Selection of Criteria

13. Rubric

14. Thesis

15. A “Good” Thesis • Original or imaginative • Debatable • Significant stakes or relevant to ongoing conversation • Clearly identifiable (whether implicit or explicit) • Precise word choice • Appropriate scope for the length of the paper

16. Looping Back

17. Resources • CCCC Position Statement on Writing Assessment http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment • Sample Discipline-Specific Writing Rubrics (George Mason U) http://wac.gmu.edu/assessing/assessing_student_writing.php • Writing Program Workshop: Designing WI Courses Tuesday, April 15, at 4 p.m. • Bryn Mawr College web page with links to guides and examples http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/assessment/bmcassessment/index.html

18. Discussion: Learning Goals for Students • What does effective writing in your field look like? How does it differ from writing in other fields? • What does ineffective writing look like? • What do you want students to learn about writing in your discipline? • What types of writing assignments are students normally given? • What audience(s) should students be writing for, and what should they know about audience expectation? • What kinds of questions does writing in your discipline pose? • What kind of evidence is considered appropriate and convincing? • What kind of sources are considered valid, and how are they used? • Are there common formats or organization conventions in your discipline? • What constitutes good style in your discipline? • Do you care about grammar and mechanics? Do you plan to work with students on sentence level errors?

19. Debrief • What one or two important interesting ideas emerged from discussion?

20. Tri-College Teagle Assessment Project • Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges collaborate to develop best practices for effective and sustainable department level assessment of student learning -- http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/teagle/ Director of Institutional Research, Richard Barry • Second round 2012-2014 • Bryn Mawr: Economics, French, PsychologyHaverford: Computer Science, Spanish, Economics, ChineseSwarthmore: Philosophy, Physics and Astronomy, Political Science First round 2009-2012 Bryn Mawr: English, Geology, Sociology Haverford:Chemistry, History, PsychologySwarthmore: Computer Science, Educational Studies, English