nuts 
&
bolts

Here's how: 1 of 2-part series --

Remember how complicated it was learning to drive? Look left, look right, look straight ahead, right foot down on the gas pedal, left foot up on the clutch, both hands on the wheel, crawl out into the traffic lane. Turn signal on? Both hands back on the wheel! Right foot on the gas, shift into second when the engine starts lugging at 25 mph, left foot down on the clutch, right up, no, down, on the gas. Where did that @#$%! truck come from? Hit the brakes, clutch, too, or you'll stall the car. OK, OK, maybe I'm showing my age here with the manual transmission, but driving has always involved a complicated set of behaviors. In any event, finally comes the day you're driving along through heavy traffic, the things you're doing make sense and you can't even remember what was so hard about putting them together.

I've had a similar experience this month, working up model syllabi that link SCI's mission statement to student learning objectives and individual assignments. It's been a learning experience. The acronymns are real jawbreakers, but it's starting to make sense, and the pieces are starting to fit together.

Beginning fall semester, every syllabus on file with the dean's office must show:

• The mission statement. Verbatim. Whether we like it or not. That's the rules. It has to be in there.
• CSLOs. A list of the Common Student Learning Objectives we adopted Dec. 9, 2004, that are covered in the course.
• CBSLOs. A list of Course-Based Student Learning Objectives, which are to be related to specific CSLOs and thus to the mission statement.

Got all that? Trust me: It isn't hard once you get the hang of it. In fact, it's pretty easy. K-12 teachers have been doing something like it with state standards for several years, and I've drawn up two syllabi now in the new format. In this month's newsletter, I'll share some tips on how I went about it.

But first, here's why we have to do it: The North Central Association's assessment czar, Cecilia Lopez, says NCA wants to see: "assessment programs ... in which academic departments and programs have clearly linked their assessment activities to their own statements of purpose and goals, and to their objectives for student learning, and in which all of these are reflective of relevant portions of the Institution's Mission and Goals statement and its published educational purposes" (Lopez, 1996). Here's how I adapted my introductory mass communications course (COM 150) to the new format:

I started with the existing course objectives. In my old syllabus, I had the following language:

But that won't do any more, so I copied the SCI mission statement and pasted it into the new syllabus as Section III. Then I added a Section IV to my syllabus headed "Goals, Objectives and Outcomes." Since goals are broadly stated intentions and objectives are measurable behaviors, I split it into two parts. The first required only a couple of word changes:

The second part of my old goals and objectives statement, the part about what I want my students to learn about the mass media, I was able to translate pretty easily into a set of course-based objectives or CBSLOs. I'll get to it in a minute. But I can explain the new format more easily if I talk about an intervening step first.

Remember what Cecilia Lopez said about colleges that have "clearly linked their assessment activities to their own statements of purpose and goals?" Well, that's what we did Dec. 9, when we "identif[ied] the skills that the College needs to nurture in order to prepare students for those enduring outcomes contained within the mission [statement]" and thus "provide[ed] the foundation upon which the effectiveness of the curriculum can be assessed at the College, Program and Course levels" (Kolich, 2004).

So I linked the mission to objectives in Sections III and IV. Here's how. The mission statement reads: "The mission of Springfield College in Illinois is to provide students the best liberal arts education in the Ursuline tradition of a nurturing faith-based environment. We prepare students for a life of learning, leadership and service in a diverse world." And the second part of Section IV lists the collegewide learning objectives we identified at the workshop in December like this:

See how the language of the mission statement is picked up in each one of the objectives? Well, we want our outside stakeholders to see it, too. That's why we're insisting on new headings and new language for the syllabi, including the parts in parentheses that establish the linkage. Now we're ready to go back to those CBSLOs or course-based learning objectives.

My next step was to number the CBSLOs and link them to the CSLOs. Like this:

See how the SCI objectives (the CSLOs) are linked to specific course objectives (my CBSLOs)? Again, that's what we want the outside stakeholders to see. I'll admit our system of coding the objectives, numbering them and cross-referencing them is cumbersome, but it's designed to be transparent to outside stakeholders. And transparency, not elegance, is what we need here.

My final step is to link the CBSLOs to the assignments. I did it in Section VI of the syllabus, which lists Course Requirements. See how I pick up the coded CBSLOs in my summary of written assignments? Again, it's designed to be transparent to educators.

So in the end, I was able to convert my old COM 150 to the new format by following three steps:

• Convert the existing course goals and objectives (the things we want our students to know) into goals and CBSLOs.
• Add the mission statement and a new section of collegewide CSLOs that are covered in the course (and be sure to pick up the language in parentheses that comes from the mission statement).
• Number the CBSLOs, and link them to the CSLOs and individual assignments.

We will go over this in a faculty meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 19. And the new syllabi are due to the new dean of academic affairs basically at the end of July. I'll have more tips in next month's newsletter.

-- Pete Ellertsen, chair, Assessment Committee

References:

• Kolich, Eileen. Evaluation Summary, Assessment Workshop, Springfield College in Illinois, Dec. 9, 2004. http://www.sci.edu/assessment/programgoals/workshop.html
• Lopez, Cecilia. 1996. "Opportunities for Improvement: Advice from Consultant-Evaluators on Programs to Assess Student Learning." http://explore.kent.edu/aa/improvement.html

There's a prototype syllabus linked to this issue of Nuts & Bolts, along with examples of how the mission statement language about (a) service, (b) diversity, and (c) lifelong learning and leadership can be linked to CSLOs, CBSLOs and assignments. In the examples, I've color-coded selected phrases from the mission statement to suggest how they link down through the stated objectives to assignments.

Nuts & Bolts is an electronic newsletter published by SCI's Assessment Committee. Members are: Bob Blankenberger, history and philosophy; Brian Ferguson, chemistry; Amy Lakin, English; Matt Mogle, fine arts; Rick Rossetto, biology; Steve Stowers, math; Barb Tanzyus, math; and Pete Ellertsen (chair), English and mass communications. Kevin Broeckling, dean of students; and Jeff Mueller, dean of the college, serve ex officio. The newsletter is available on line at http://www.sci.edu/assessment/newsarchive.html

• link here to back issues of Nuts & Bolts
• link here to SCI's assessment website

If you have information, comments or feedback, please contact any committee member or Nuts & Bolts editor Pete Ellertsen, in Becker L-16A on the SCI campus, 525-1420 ext. 519 or by e-mail at <pellertsen@sci.edu>.