QVCC: Outcomes Assessment

1. QVCC: Outcomes Assessment Using eLumen Achievement Fall 2005

2. Where actual learning outcomes are Clearly defined and assessed……. Imagine a College…..

3. Where evidence of actual student learning Is regularly, consistently assessed and collected…. + Imagine a College…..

4. Assessment is Done Students Take Courses Link to Courses Link to Possible Assessment Tools Link to Outcomes Imagine a College….. Where……... Certificates and Degrees ? The Data Dilemma

5. The Data Dilemma….. • Many colleges have begun to identify expected learning outcomes • And have linked them to teaching practices • And have even begun to keep track of them, at least on the classroom and course level • We have no consistent, systematic means to get beyond situational collections of “artifacts,” to meaningful collection of deep and broad, aggregate data

6. Institutionally, student achievement continues to remain relatively invisible… The Data Dilemma…..

7. Piloting use of eLumen (2004-2006) after more than a decade of building a “culture of assessment” throughout the college • eLumen is being piloted as a practical way to engage faculty and staff to gather data on what we do, in a context of continuous improvement and learning-centered education

8. ….Is to actual student learning outcomes, as a spreadsheet is to accounting…… …. is a tool ready to hold and to make sense out of collected data….. ….And is built on the assumption that such “data” (and the learning it represents) is often richly qualitative……

9. ….Is not just an electronic “file drawer” where we can store artifacts of student learning (like an electronic portfolio)…… ….but instead, taps the dynamic nature of information technology to provide an active, flexible, and powerful system….. ….through which to turn assessed artifacts into institution-wide, multi-dimensioned information about actual student learning…..

10. = Assessment eLumen + + Collections of Student Learning Artifacts: With a tool like eLumen ….

11. A growing database of information about both • intended and actually achieved student-learning • outcomes. …a database that is readable: • per student • per outcome • per course • across disciplines • within and across programs

12. With a tool likeeLumen • Faculty within departments can together determine what actual learned outcomes to measure, and how to measure them, beyond traditional grading. • Achievement areas can cut across courses (e.g., “critical thinking”, etc.) • Security: only faculty member of a course can see those individual scores – reports are aggregated up.

13. Scope of QVCC’s first-year pilot • Where’s the data? • Better yet, are there tangible results? • Fine Arts Program Review • Medical Assisting • Math Program Sequence • College Research Paper Standards

14. “It is about the conversations, not the technology” (thanks, to Ruth Stiehl and Les Lewchuk) …a technology that helps our conversations and our efforts to address the systemic, ecological nature of teaching, learning, and their effective assessment…..

15. Learning Outcomes Assessment Through a “distributed data collection” approach That is by its very definition both local and systemic.