Assessment: Continuity

in the midst of transition

As we begin the 2001-02 school year at SCI, we're in a time of transition on the Assessment Committee just as we are in the rest of the College. In May our report on progress in implementing SCI's 1996 Assessment Plan went to the North Central Association, and we're waiting to hear back from NCA on whether our strategies for carrying the plan forward will be accepted. But we think we've got a reasonable plan, and we're taking steps to carry it forward even as we wait.

Assessment hasn't always been a high priority at SCI, and the coming year will be crucial as we bring ourselves up to speed. In this we have the support of acting president Jeff Mueller.

"We're moving ahead with the early stages of implementing our assessment plan," Mueller said. "It is a high priority item as we move into the 2001-2002 academic year."

Here are the main outlines of our strategy. SCI's Assessment Committee has made every effort to comply with NCA and other relevant guidelines, and we believe we have reason to hope its main outlines will be OKed. We hope to move ahead on three fronts:

General Education. We have contacted ACT Inc. of Iowa City, vendor of the standardized tests most widely used in Illinois, and hope with ACT's assistance to start putting a comprehensive Gen Ed assessment testing program in place by the 2002-03 school year.

Articulation. We will continue to keep our course offerings in line with guidelines developed by the Illinois Articulation Initiative and others for transfer to 4-year institutions, and to meet standards set by professional and other associations.

Individual andProgram Assessment. In the coming year, we will ask faculty in each of SCI's academic divisions to discuss three questions and come to a consensus on them. Modeled after those used in developing assessment plans at Chico State in California, they are:

• What does it mean to study (a given field, like art, English, business or pre-nursing) at SCI, and what should our students learn?
• To what learning processes should the student be exposed to learn those things?
• How will faculty assess whether or not the student has learned those things?

Out of these discussions, we hope, division-level assessment plans will emerge that are appropriate to individual disciplines. We like the Chico State process because it allows maximum flexibility to people in the disciplines to decide what assessment measures will work best for their students, and because it seems particularly well suited to SCI.

"In my view," says James E. Jacob of Chico State, "any successful plan has to be sufficiently flexible to respond to the curricular or programmatic variations of individual departments. So, while the mandate may be central in source, the plan itself emerges from ongoing discussions among colleagues about their curriculum and major. ... In this way, the collegial dialogue at the heart of assessment can serve to clarify thinking by making explicit what had been implicit before."

Last spring, the Language/Literature Division began its Chico State discussions over pizza, and its colloquy will continue this fall. Other division chairs will be asked to begin the process this year, and it is hoped that program assessment plans will emerge from the discussions.

Transition on Committee. With longtime professor Eldon Brown's retirement in May, Pete Ellertsen was named SCI's outcomes assessment facilitator and acting chair of the Assessment Committee. He has worked with Committee members on an ad hoc basis over the summer. New and returning Committee members will be named this month.

August 10, 2001
Vol. 2 No. 1

• For background on assessment at California State-Chico, on which we hope to model part of our assessment strategy, read behavioral sciences dean James Jacobs' report, "A Simple and Effective Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan That Works" (italics in the original.
• There's a very good profile of ACT Inc., the standardized test vendor with whom we hope to work in Gen Ed testing, in the June 13 issue of Education Week.
• To see the context for SCI's proposed strategy for implementing our 1996 assessment plan, read NCA's Five Criteria for Accreditation.
• Are you looking for an excellent nuts-and-bolts guide to practical assessment -- one that tells you what to do and how to do it? Go to the SIU-Edwardsville site on CATs (classroom assessment techniques).
• American Association for Higher Education. This Washington, D.C., advocacy group's Web site includes a FAQ page and a universally accepted set of Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning.
• Raymond Walters College, University of Cincinnati. A very helpful site, with information on Primary Trait Analysis, which can turn grading into an assessment tool.
• An Introduction to Classroom Assessment Techniques by Diane M. Enerson, Kathryn M. Plank, and R. Neill Johnson of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Penn State.
  

Assessment Committee
Pete Ellertsen, acting chair
Bob Blankenberger
Susan Full
Alice Gutierrez
Dave Holland
Dave Saner
Jeff Mueller (ex officio)