Three-year cycle for the assessment of learning and service area outcomes:

 

All course student learning outcomes, service area outcomes, program learning outcomes, and institutional learning outcomes are to be assessed on a three-year cycle.
Departments identify an appropriate method for achieving this by considering their course schedule, department needs, and staffing issues.

The following are recommendations that will help ensure that outcomes are assessed regularly and that the assessment results are incorporated into the dialogue and planning of each department and program.

– Department chairs should identify which course/program outcomes need to be assessed at the beginning of each semester and disseminate that information to all faculty.

– Every class should have at least one SLO assessed each semester. (Note that
classes that are offered infrequently will need to assess more SLOs in a given
class per semester.)
o This allows for assessment to be incorporated into each class and keeps it
at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

– Courses that are taught by more than one instructor should have a common
assessment tool. This could be an assignment, project, or exam question and can
be developed as a group. Using a common assessment tool allows for:
o dialogue within the department about what is & is not working well
o specific department-wide budget requests
o the re-evaluation and potential modification of course SLOs
o consensus building among colleagues
o documentation required by ACCJC regarding widespread dialogue

– At the end of each semester, the department should meet to discuss their PLOs. This can be done through the discussion of various course outcomes that all map to a given PLO.

When planning for course assessments, the following schedule is useful:
– February/September 15: Assessment plans due to department chairs. These plans will indicate which outcome is to be assessed and the timeframe for doing it.
– May/December 15: Assessment results and action plans are due to department chairs.
(This deadline can be earlier depending on the assessment tool used.)