E-portfolio assessment at mchenry county college

1. E-portfolio assessment at mchenry county college February 2014

2. Mchenry county college • Founded 1967. • Located in Crystal Lake, IL. • offers six associate's degrees and 17 Associate of Applied Science degrees. • About 400 AA, AS and related degree graduates each semester. • Serves about 7,000 credit students annually, 37% full time.

3. Prior to the e-portfolio • Until 2013 MCC used the CAAP test as a graduation requirement for AA and AS degrees. • CAAP measures Math, Writing, Scientific Inquiry, and Critical Thinking. • However, MCC’s general education goals are Critical Thinking, Effective Communication, Ethical Awareness, Technological Literacy, and Information Literacy. • CAAP did not give us the feedback we needed.

4. Prior to the e-portfolio • In addition, students took the CAAP test as a graduation requirement, but it had no grade or meaning to the student, and the results didn’t always reflect student learning outcomes. • MCC was spending money on an assessment and not using the data for meaningful transformations.

5. Options Considered • CAAP • Not utilized, didn’t map to Gen Ed Objectives • Writing our own test • Difficult to validate • Curriculum Map/Course Sequence/Individual Tracking of Student Assessment • Time intensive • E-Portfolio • Time intensive

6. E-Portfolio Decision Points: Requirements • Will it be a graduation requirement or voluntary? • Which programs/courses will complete it? • Will all graduates complete it (transfer, reverse transfer?) • How will e-portfolio completion be enforced? • For purposes of graduation, how will completion be defined?

7. E-Portfolio Decision Points:student awareness • What happens to students that aren’t aware of the requirement? • What happens to students deciding late they will graduate that haven’t collected artifacts? • What happens to students that transferred the majority of credits and have no artifacts? • Who will provide training for students and faculty on e-portfolio construction? • How will students be notified of the requirement / when does it go into effect?

8. E-Portfolio Decision Points:Formatting • What type of submission components will be allowed (text, picture, audio, video)? • What type of software platform is needed to support an e-portfolio? • What type of assignments will be considered? (Pre-determined list or students choice?) • Will there be a cover letter requirement?

9. E-Portfolio Decision Points:Management • How will students submit the portfolio? • How will the Credential Evaluators know a portfolio has been submitted and meets the requirement? • How long will students be able to access the portfolio? • Will there be a way to provide a template to standardize e-portfolios?

10. E-Portfolio Decision Points:Scoring • Can a rubric be developed to score all e-portfolio formats and subject areas? • Can e-portfolio’s be consistently scored and evaluated? • Who will score e-portfolio’s? • Will all e-portfolio’s be scored or simply a subset? • Will all e-portfolio’s be scored or only the cover letter? • How will missing general education components be handled (i.e. ethical awareness) • Will scores/feedback be provided to students?

11. E-Portfolio Decision Points:reporting • What data will be tracked and reported? • Where will data be reported?

12. Mcc changes to the e-portfolio • In spring 2013 MCC changed to an e-portfolio graduation requirement for AA, AS, and related graduates.

13. The Graduation Requirement • Beginning with students who enter MCC in fall 2014: • “Students seeking a degree of AA, AS, AES, AFA or AGE will be required to complete an E-portfolio of work demonstrating their achievements in the five general education goals of the college”

14. Learning management system • In addition, in summer 2013 MCC switched from Angel to Canvas for its LMS. One feature of Canvas is the e-portfolio system. This will be used for the graduation e-portfolio.

15. College training Before we ask students to make their own E-portfolios, we have to train faculty and staff. • Faculty training at professional development training days, and in small workshops during the semester.

16. Student training • Canvas “Graduation E-portfolio” page for all students and faculty. • Embedded video instructions • Text instructions • Planned workshops • Faculty-led practice

17. Rubric development • The MCC Assessment Team, which comprises faculty, staff, and administration members, will develop a rubric to evaluate the student work

18. Rubric Draft

19. Rubric Draft Definitions: Exceeds: The artifact demonstrates knowledge or skills beyond the expectations of a two year degree seeking student. Competent: The artifact demonstrates knowledge or skills at the expected level of a two year degree seeking student Approaching: The artifact demonstrates knowledge or skills below the expectations of a two year degree seeking student but shows some features near competent level. Marginal: The artifact demonstrates knowledge or skills below the expectations of a two year degree seeking student

20. Scheduling with graduation • Students must fill out an intent to graduate form. • Students have to send the link of their e-portfolio to both the credentials evaluators and the Assessment Team

21. E-portfolio contents • Students will have graded work to represent their outcomes in each of the five general education goals: • Critical Thinking • Effective Communication • Ethical Awareness • Technological Literacy • Information Literacy • In addition, they will write a cover letter.

22. Transformations • Data will be collected and presented to the college, beginning spring 2016. • Transformations from the data will be developed by departments.

23. Final Thoughts….. • Student cooperation with data collection. • Accuracy of data collected. • Ability to generate meaningful transformations. • Influence on student graduation rates. • Transfer students and reverse-transfer graduates.