Weber State University   

Report on Conference Attended by Becky Johns

Goal: To acquire information on general education assessment options from national assessment leaders and programs which might be applicable to WSU’s Humanities and Creative Arts general education program assessment

Most important thing learned: (I think Kathleen has been saying this all along but I just got it) Educational assessment is not brain surgery (or rocket science or bridge building, etc.); it is not precise or terribly accurate (maybe not even close); it is "messy;" and the only thing that really matters is that we start a dialogue. Good stuff will follow (probably bad stuff too, but that is part of learning and growing as an institution of higher education). I found out that I have been preoccupied with what we will measure, when, and how. The experts say it doesn’t matter. There are grundles of instruments, programs and interpretation schemes. Tools abound; what we need is faculty thinking and talking about our student learning goals and outcomes and how we can facilitate more and better learning (and demonstration to our publics that we are doing this).

• Assessment programs must be driven and sustained by faculty. Top-down support is just that, support. Students should play a central role in planning and initiating assessment as well as performing it.

• Assessment takes time, money, energy and is ongoing forever.

• Embracing assessment is a matter of degree; there are levels of engagement unique to each campus.

• Assessment is fundamentally a change process; it is political, cultural, emerging, hard. Resistance is inevitable and a university’s "assessment culture" waxes and wanes as other things capture our attention and money.

• Assessment is non-linear, messy, chaotic, intuitive.

• Assessment may accentuate divisions and political interests that already exist.

• General options for assessment include (1) testing (standardized, local, "embedded" test items, satisfaction and/or knowledge, self-report and/or "objective", etc.); (2) "Real World" experiences (internships, service learning, job placement info); (3) Course-related, course-connected (capstone courses and experiences, grades, artifactual analysis, portfolios).

My suggestions for WSU Arts and Humanities gen ed assessment:  Modestly (because I am not an expert), I suggest:

1. We get information on where we are now. What do we already know about A&H gen ed at WSU, goals of the program, etc.? Looking at history seems relevant (Committee is presently working on this), asking folks what they know. Maybe even a faculty-wide survey (electronically?) asking WSU faculty and students what they think Arts and Humanities General Education is, what purpose(s) does it fill, is program meeting those purposes? I’d like to know if my students even know what the term "Humanities" means (actually, I’d like to know what faculty would say!)

2. Arts and Humanities Assessment Profile (how about Institutional Profile and include everybody?) entailing:

A.  A&H assessment committee identifies, articulates and operationally defines gen ed student learning goals, objectives, outcomes and holistic criteria scoring rubrics (for student artifacts based on goals, objectives, outcomes) using extensive input from faculty and students campus wide.

B.  Patterned after our assessment of writing pilot study, student artifacts are collected by Institutional Research (or assessment office? or assessment committee?) consisting of work normally performed by students in our general education classes and identified by faculty as assignments which are designed to meet gen ed goals (cluster samples divided by outcome area)

C.  A&H Assessment Team (or Task Force or whatever) is formed of 3-5 four-member, trained on rubric instrument, cross-disciplinary faculty/professional staff groups who review 100 student artifacts per academic year (50 in Fall of previous Spring semester, 50 in Spring of previous Fall semester) using holistic scoring criteria (rubrics).

1.  Rotating membership, four-year terms, after staggered entry, one-year internships, four year commitments

2.  One credit hour release time/overload pay or equivalent per person per semester

D.  Results compiled, analyzed and reported in aggregate by the Institutional Research or Assessment Guru or Committee or maybe a student research methodology course? (analysis may include demographics, credit hours earned, prior courses, which courses selected by students to fulfill gen ed requirements - of course, not identified by which faculty taught, etc.) This report is available for general discussion by all faculty and students (perhaps electronically? Maybe has its own message board? Maybe we sponsor a faculty retreat, symposium, round table, T&L Forum activity, etc.? Whatever gets a dialogue going) for a period of time.

E.  Each department who sponsors a gen ed course responds once a year to above report and details how they are how they interpret data, what changes might need to be made in courses, how these changes are being addressed. This report becomes a part of the university’s general assessment reporting mechanism.

These are just some ideas to bat around. I have lots of material from the conference I can share if anyone is interested. I will bring copies of one or two of the best things to our A&H general education assessment committee meeting on November 18.

Thanks for supporting my attendance at this conference. I believe it was helpful in my understanding of this complex area.