Weber State University   

Botany

Results of Assessment

2004-2005 (submitted 03/16/06)

This past year was essentially a maintenance year with respect to our assessment process. The department is well into the forth year of its curriculum whose revision was inspired by the Assessment Plan developed five years ago.  Progress continues to be made both from the standpoint of the student’s acceptance of the Portfolio as the major instrument of Assessment and of the faculty meeting the challenge of incorporating the various aspects of the Assessment Plan into their courses.  The chairman’s challenge of last year for each faculty to take some class time to make connections for the students as to how the material learned in their upper level classes have contributed to student ability to answer the global question posed in the Comprehension and Understanding of the discipline section of the Portfolio is being successfully met.  As a result, a more knowledgeable graduate will be sent into the marketplace or into graduate programs.

Since the advent of the Career Planning for Botanists  (Botany 2121) course which devotes more than half of the course time to the portfolio as an assessment tool, the portfolio requirement is accepted more positively by the students.  Collectively, the faculty could do a better job of monitoring the development of the portfolio by evaluating it in each upper division course taught.  This habit is gradually being adopted, however.  Now that the students are taking the portfolio requirement much more seriously, the quality of the end product is improving. The challenge we face of getting most of our major recruits already in their junior year remains.  Ideally, getting freshmen into the program and into the Career Planning for Botanists course early, would give the student sufficient time to adapt to this method of Assessment.  There is very little we can do to change this aspect of our culture where students generally do not understand that plant biology is a viable choice of a major in life sciences and where students tend not to declare a major before most of them complete an associate’s degree.

The faculty in larger upper division courses face another challenge with respect to the Portfolio.  In the Communications Skills section of the Portfolio we state that an oral presentation is expected of each student in every upper level class.  This presents a problem if one has 20 students in a class and each student takes a minimum of 20 minutes to make the oral presentation before their peers.  We simply do not have sufficient class time to devote to such an exercise. To the extent to which we can accommodate this requirement, we shall continue to do so.  This is one advantage of a small program which tends to be lost as we grow to less manageable size.

Last year the faculty became concerned about a general lack of adequate preparation of our students entering the program.  Students tend to demonstrate an inability to handle the professional literature (basically relying too heavily on the internet and not becoming familiar with the primary source material in the library.  They also tend to demonstrate poor critical thinking skills including an inability to separate factual evidence from personal opinion.   Writing skills of the average student demonstrates unacceptable spelling and grammar, poor organization of material, including poor outline of material and inability to adequately summarize material.  Students need improvements in their problem solving skills as well as critical thinking.  There is a tendency to accept every statement in print as fact, and inadequate analysis of pros and cons of a position and ability to suggest alternate points of view or interpretation.  Math skills, even if a student has had adequate math courses, seem to demonstrate a need for improvement.   There appears to be a problem of carrying over skill and content knowledge from one course to another, whether from other Botany courses or courses taken in other disciplines.

The dilemma for the instructor is very real......how do we find adequate time to not only cover content (and remember that the average student is unable to fully comprehend complex text material just with a cursory reading) and still find time to problem solve, analyze, and think critically?  How do we toss in an adequate dose of research techniques so that the student will be prepared to do a senior thesis or other capstone experience?  We have discussed the possibility of developing yet another course dealing with Research Design and Critical Thinking, however, this presents yet another dilemma in that our program curriculum is already heavy and complex.  These problems are not unlike those faced by College Tier students requiring remedial courses to move into the University Tier.  The problems are systemic and elude a quick fix!   

Three exit interviews were  conducted which represents a three-fold increase in the number of major graduates over last year.  Next year portends an end to the paucity of graduates we have been experiencing over the last two years as we anticipate at least six graduates.  On the basis of information gathered during these exit interviews, we did not learn anything new to respond to as we did over the last few years.  The assessment report submitted in October, 2004 was rather comprehensive with respect to exit interview challenges presented and the department’s response to them.

While we are seeing an improved quality of Student Portfolio, the above challenges shall keep the faculty busy finding adequate solutions to improve the quality of the student as well as the assessment process.

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