Assessment, Teaching and Learning - Recently Updated Pages

2010 Winter College Readiness

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:19:53 CST

Key initiatives, successful strategies, challenges...

Bellevue:

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Big Bend:

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Clover Park:

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Everett:

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Olympic:

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Shoreline:

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Spokane Falls:

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Walla Walla/Coyote Ridge:

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2010 Winter ATL Retreat

nlight — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:40:27 CST

College key initiatives, activities, and challenges:

Bellevue: 1) assessment task force--to develop a campus-wide assessment plan that engages all faculty and assesses all courses. 2) gen ed task force--to revisit the current college wide outcomes structure and consolidate/reorganize the 18 college wide outcomes to a fewer number (for easier assessment). 3) Development of a teaching and learning center.

Challenges: time required by faculty/programs to perform assessment, and how to document it easily.
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Cascadia:

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Clark:

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Clover Park:

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Edmonds:

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Everett:

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Green River:

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Highline:
Initiatives:
1. All prof-tech programs have created a program map.
2. Develop a degree level assessment plan for AA transfer.
Challenges:
*#2 would be difficult because of the different distribution areas.
*Faculty seeing the value.

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Lake Washington:

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North Seattle:

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Olympic:
Initiatives: (source/funding in parentheses)
Faculty retreat, leading to spring workshop and fall series on universal design (Center)
Tenure-track support (Center)
Reading groups (six of 10 each, Center-purchased books)
Writing across the curriculum workshops (Writing Center faculty-staff / Center)
Specifically for Adjuncts—

Angel (library, IT / Gen Std)
Teaching Boot Camp (B&T Faculty / Perkins)

Software use courses for staff and faculty (staff, IT / Classified Staff Development Funds) Required staff trainings (HR) Challenges: Staffing, funding, momentum; tech training for new building Opportunities: Possible new site for Center

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South Seattle and Seattle Central:

Initiatives:
1. Presidential Search at all three campuses
2. South: Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Supporting Institution
3. South: strong particpation in FIGS
4. Central: CLIPS on developmental math, composition, tutoring
5. BAS in Human Services
6. South: Student Success Task Force (Momentum Points)

Challenges
1. Classroom assessment
2. New accreditation standards

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Tacoma:

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More notes from the work session

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:00:29 CST

ATL Online presence

Examples of effective practices/innovations that work—and link to contact at that school
Searchable database—build thesaurus of search terms, and place to fill in a search term
Material organized so that it becomes a history of assessment practices/improvements at each school.
Yearly report becomes report of two innovative or effective practices that are creating sustainable change at your college-just a few sentence for each. E-WAG sort of publication in which these, organized around topic, are disseminated. Could be that a phone interview supplements the submitted mini-report. Suggestion that ITV classroom be used to convene sessions around some of these topics.
Everthing will need to be ADA compliant
Template for yearly report dumps data into database.
Moore’s Musings again!
Links to articles on ATL scholarship
Quick Answers database
College-wide ability outcomes—who claims what, what are the ones most claimed.
Comprehensive Assessment Plans—detailed by three levels—institution, program/dept, course
Classroom assessment methods
Assessment tools
Faculty development initiatives/mechanisms
Top page includes both links to deeper and box to enter search terms
FAQs

Individual Retreat Oucomes

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:56:39 CST

Individual Retreat Outcomes (ordered from most to least named) Next Step: this naming of desired retreat outcomes occurs at the beginning of each retreat so that even if there’s not a session on something, we discover who we want to talk to during breaks and meals.

Hearing colleagues’ concerns/needs re assessment; getting their expert advice (everyone).
General check-in—what’s going on at individual campuses around the state
How new NWCCU accreditation standards are affecting assessment practices at our colleges
Hear what’s going on at the state level
Good ideas that work
Hear an outside expert who will provoke us to think more deeply, develop more effective practices
Find out about other colleges’ comprehensive assessment plans/How institutions are measuring core abilities.
How to help new and pt faculty
Learn more about the language of assessment
How to dsevelop and support faculty learning communities
Means of creating tipping point for turning college into a learning culture—what I could do to make those changes

Notes from the work session

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:42:30 CST

Notes 3:30-5pm Work Session, ATL liaisons retreat, Feb 4th 2010

-Designing a searchable database for CTC assessment and faculty development practices
-Examining annual assessment and fauclty development reports
Structure of the reports: Assessment liaison
A. Highlights of major assessment activities/projects
Break down to: Teaching and Learning Forums and Campus Workshops, Presentations and attendance at conferences and workshops) -- Tacoma did this and it was helpful.
B. Examples of Educational Improvements made/actions taken
C. Current Issues/Concerns

1. Feedback from small group discussion (Highline CC/Lake WA/Bellevue):
· links to examples or documents embedded in the report would be helpful. for example if rubrics were developed, attach or link them to the rubrics so we can see what they look like. another example: link to survey results if a survey was given. But realistically--who's going to include all this in their report?
· database of all “cool” stuff from each institution, or even things like how they do program review
· include “resources” : media resources such as “new tools” to use for online or face-to-face instruction (professional development) and books or articles that are helpful
· faculty learning center: # of workshops and budget for that (very helpful) and where it comes from.
· summary of activities (workshops) not just a list but a short explanation is helpful
# of participants, who facilitated, but what was the outcome (who are they trying to reach)? how does it related to the mission. · put the website for each assessment committee at all schools on the top of the form.
· list of workshops (for ideas)
· categories of activities: technology, diversity, teaching/learning and community and leadership.
· More info on commitment to support staff, release time, budgets and source of budget. Budget and staffing? side note: who didn’t get a recommendation in assessment? what did they do? (best practices? a model for assessment?)

2. Feedback from the bigger group:
who is the audience for the report? writing the report for us rather than for everyone else? also they aren’t searchable. general categories on the old form were nice (highlights, actions) because they were providing reflection. make it voluntary: workshops, activities, etc… make it a simple form that is searchable.

(1) making it really really easy. minimum of one idea a year (highlights) 50 word abstract, with drop down category: relates to pd, program review, giving grants for projects, accreditation, assessment, etc… (to be searchable on the database, which would provide the name of the contact person. This is to be done INSTEAD of the annual report.

(2) in addition to #1, provide a repository that indicates the structure of how all of these things are implemented at the college: how does assessment work at your college? who’s working on it? what is the structure? post the examples of what each school does, not as a report, but a history/narrative. or if it’s already a part of your college website, provide a link to it, or a link to the assessment committee website that can be accessed by anyone interested in learning how assessment works at different schools. how is PD happening at other colleges? assessment? what is budgeted and what is the funding source? what works and what doesn’t work? workshops that worked? learning communities? is there a way to document these to search and share them so others can take benefit? (3) providing a grid that‘s easy to fill out, or list of

categories? allow more than one checkbox to be selected, as there are overlaps.
list of categories:
faculty development / T&L
accreditation
best practices
activities / workshops
teaching and learning centers
e learning
bibliography and resources (books articles)
program level assessment
classroom level assessment
institutional assessment
by discipline
contact are the reports useful at all? (4) repository for people who document their yearly activities (optional and flexible), which can be searched (5) do these sessions meet the need of the liaisons? Is there a need for the report if we’re meeting at rainbow lodge? look in depth at what a college is doing—what is occurring? why? best practices in assessment or faculty development or T&L. (6) topics of interest, turnout to workshops? (7) calendaring. putting all the conferences available for the state and publicizing the events to the state (open it up more and publicize it). include upcoming events, is it open to anyone? (8) mechanism to encourage contributions to the database? maybe having presenters post the ideas since they will want to publish their ideas in the database. laptop or two set up during the meetings (rainbow lodge) instead of waiting for people to forget! (9) Turbo tax idea: memory of “profile” page or initial data input from previous use, which can easily be modified as changes are made at various institutions.
Submitted by: Jennie Mayer, Bellevue College

Resources for Students

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:47:56 CST

10 + 1 information rich sites

About.com - A site with thousands of articles ranging from African travel to Zoology. A useful one.

Benefits Of - A wonderful site with hundreds of articles that discusses the benefits of various things we use everyday. Some of the topics worth noting, benefits of technology, benefits of globalization, benefits of ginger. There is an email subscription option available. One of those sites we need to bookmark, share and check out regularly.

Brittanica - This one doesn't need explanation. It is an online encyclopedia. An encyclopedia that contains vidoe too.

Difference Between - The name says it all. DifferenceBetween.net a site that compares things and terms we are often confused of. White eggs and brown eggs to Coke Zero to Diet Coke. Black Berry to iphone.
An amazing collection of articles that grows everyday. Its a knowledge hub.

Fact Monster - This site is monster if you think in terms of the size of the facts it contains. Worth a look.

Geek Interview - A wonderful site for job seekers. Common interview questions and answers offered by the user community. The questions are categorized into job titles therefore very easy to find. Never attend an interview without looking into the site.

How things work - A site supposed to talk only about how things work. But it looks like they have lost their focus lately. Still there are plenty of articles discribing the inner working of many things.

Love To Know - A site that primarily offers information for woman. Offer Answers for questions about family, health, fashion and entertainment. You can find useful, reliable information on the subjects most important to you, today's woman.

Make Use Of - A site which brings information about internet, gadgets and computer in a blog format. A useful one for keep in touch with the latest tech developments.

Reference.com - Daily crosswords to Word games. A useful site.

Wise Geek - A site with thousands of articles which mostly answer the question "What is..?". What is mold?, What is HSDPA? to name a few.

First Year Experiences for New Faculty

nlight — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:30:19 CST

Best Practices Discussion
What’s happening with faculty throughout the system?
What specific programs are people doing?
What models are in practice; what works?
These are models of intentionally designed, professional development activities with repeat sessions, over time. North Seattle Community College: Pedagogy 101, 102: 3 years old and has evolved from 101 into 101 and 102. (Contact: Jane Lister Reis, jreis@sccd.ctc.edu )

101 is a year long topic-driven event. Came out of L. Dee Fink’s book; his website has article which addresses content of 101. § Lunch begins 101; social event is a critical starting point.
Each session organized around topic; i.e., mapping a course, multicultural competency, UDL, etc. 6 total; Friday’s once a month.
· 102 meets twice monthly. Organized around a book; seminar/dialogue on text. One meeting is on text, one meeting is demo of teaching a specific pedagogical strategy.

New faculty orientation ·

Done each quarter; welcomes new faculty into the college community. Representatives from across campus there to welcome/orient. · Master teaches teach faculty pedagogy; the art of teaching. · “Why have you come, and what do you bring to our campus? What are your questions?” Create a feeling of “welcome;” highlighting and valuing what the new faculty bring. Create a feeling of, “How did we ever get along without you?”

Clark College New faculty orientation · 3 days · Basic structure of developing a course. (contact: Gail Liberman, gliberman@clark.edu )

Orientation topics are comprehensive character. · Orientation is separate from faculty retreat; done before quarter begins. · Nuts and bolts of working at the college (mailbox, policies, forms, etc.) ·
Reception included: key players on campus are invited (pres, vp’s, deans, etc.) with new FT and PT faculty. o Call new faculty and invite, “We have people here who want to meet you.” o The key players work the room. § A cocktail party atmosphere—very welcoming; people like this. Faculty Fellows (Clark)
Topic driven once monthly meeting. o Faculty create topics. o Faculty enjoy this. o Open to FT and PT faculty, primarily FT participate.
Institute · Collaborative learning group the most recent topic o Content is covered, collaborative pedagogy is practiced. o Each faculty member brings a real issue to work on. o 4 sessions are typical for institute length. Q: how are distance learning instructors (not on campus) addressed with these efforts? · Currently there are limited faculty in this area. E-Learning staff are currently responsible. In the future program chairs may take more responsibility here. ·
Do we have technology tools which can be used to create better outreach to these faculty? o The distance learning faculty (off campus) most likely don’t know the questions to ask; it’s our responsibility to reach out to them to welcome them, to orient them. · Our PT faculty have this same issue. We need to better attend to our onsite PT faculty as well as the distance learning faculty.

Green River Community College: (contact Julie Moore, jmoore@greenriver.edu )

Summer pedagogy institute works well for PT faculty (Green River) ·
Stipends are provided. Q: what is a successful time to offer this type of training? · Summer institute o August—a master teacher program for tenured faculty (1 week) § Focus: speaker engaged; focused topic is well received; each faculty member brings a project to work on. · Collaborative, workshop model. · Student panel speaks to significant learning experiences; successful and unsuccessful experiences. · Past faculty participants come in. · Salary bump provided—tied to professional development o Mid level faculty; mitigates salary compression. Q: Union implications of professional development on campus? · How encouraged, discouraged? Pay and rewards? · How are unions involved?

Tacoma Community College: Adjunct faculty institute (contact Alan Waugh, awaugh@tacomacc.edu )

College course in teaching; everything from A-Z. 10 weeks long. · Every TH aft 3:15-5:15 (accommodates day and evening teaching schedules) · Topics: beliefs, role as instructor, learning theory, assessment, rubric development, etc—ends up back at philosophy. They complete institute by writing a teaching philosophy. · $500 stipend. · Team taught; breadth of teachers. Lake Washington has a series of course offered (5 classes in length). · Negotiated with union. · Required for a 5th year certification in Prof/Tech (FT faculty primarily) Q: do colleges offer credit for these professional development activities through other colleges and universities? · Yes. “Making Learning Visible” · A knock off of the UW undergraduate research initiative. · Poster session for students; very visible, a big deal. · Can we develop a “Making Teaching Visible” event?

2009 Fall ATL Retreat

nlight — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:20:55 CST

Our Fall ATL Retreat - October 29-30, 2009
Recorded Elluminate session: Course Redesign Project, presentation by Cable Green to the ATL Retreat participants on October 29,2009.

College key initiatives, activities, and challenges:

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Bellevue
NWCCU Recommendation: 1) Implement your (assessment) plan; 2) Engage ALL faculty (more FT/PT participation); 3) Assess all courses.
Three major task forces: 1) Assessment task force (which will create a college assessment plan--how will disciplines take ownership of their assessment process? How will assessment be documented on campus?); 2) General education task force (to evaluate our current gen ed outcomes--maybe 18 is too many?); 3) Teaching and Learning Center task force (to create a Faculty Commons for improving instruction / sharing knowledge and experiences.

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Cascadia
Program Review: 1) Formed official Program Review Task Force; 2) Received budget for summer work and for this year; 3) Received some release time to develop plan; 4) Now have full-time IR; Challenge is to get more faculty buy-in
TLA: 1) Increased number of small-stakes in-house workshops; 2) Ongoing FLC on collaborative learning; 3) Theme for year is integrated studies; Challenge is to get more participation in workshops by associate faculty.

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Centralia:
Focus: Continuing: expansion of elearning
New: Faculty notebooks for Program Review
Challenges: Accreditation preparation and time for training under budget constraint

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Clark
Focus: Fall Institute focused on developing curriculum that engages students in active learning.
Faculty Learning Community examining integrated learning and assignments.
Creating physical spaces that are learning centered environments.
Challenge: Create and enact a program review process this academic year.

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Clover Park Technical

Interim accreditation
TLC maintenance
Year 5 of global outcomes assessment/celebration event
Challenge: transcending the obvious and routine

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Green River

We have a new focus on the Teaching and Learning Center this year. The campus funded two full-time faculty at 1/3 released time to lead different faculty professional development. Julie Moore is coordinating faculty workshops and Bob Filson is leading a mentoring program and What Works forums where faculty can informally gather and discuss what is working/not working with their teaching. While we still need to better integrate professional development for admin and staff, this renewed focus on faculty prof. development is well received by faculty.

We have another round of accreditation coming. We will switch onto the new 7-year model, but we have to complete this by 2013 (in 5 years instead of 7). There is a bit of anxiety about this as the new standards haven't been completed yet and we aren't sure of the process exactly. More news on this as it emerges ....
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Lake Washington Technical
boot camp was offered before the fall quarter started
pandemic preparation with angel and elluminate for all faculty
Accreditation in October and passed with no recommendations
Challenge: faculty participation --lack of $$ and time

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Olympic
In post-Accreditation stupor--awaiting the official report t so we can give official feedback--and thinking of what to do next: very happy with the commendations; question is how best to address the term "systematic" that showed up in several of the recommendations.
New student services/humanities building opening in April; question is how to make the e-bells and whistles it offers accessible and valuable to the half of the faculty who are essentially classroom luddites.
The Center is being re-centered: full-time staff removed in economic sweep, so how to configure professional development for faculty/staff/admin, how to drive that development, how to enable it--these are our tasks.

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Pierce
Emerging from an Accreditation cycle & recent focused visit; as a result, we have a new set of Degree outcomes
Renewed faculty engagement as a result of Accreditation activities; also renewed faculty pushback
Retrenchment and reorganization as a result of budget constraints
Entering a new accreditation cycle on the new standards

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Renton Technical
Initiatives:

Achieving the Dream-evident, presentation, and training.

Evidence-based decisions

Student success - reading apprenticeship

Faculty development - in service, atomic learning, FLCs
Challenges: prioritizing and communication

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Seattle Community Colleges:

Coordinating faculty development efforts with North, Central and South.
Major initiative: faculty learning communities, grant to initiate communities @ all 3 campuses, springboarding off of Ken Bain's book, What the Best College Teachers Do
Major challenge: faculty are busy, pulled in many directions; integrating curriculum development, program review, meeting accreditation requirements; outcomes and assessment, cycle of improvement.

South - Accreditation oct Oct 19-21, 2009
1) program level outcomes-uneven 2) degree vs certificate outcomes
Implications for new accreditation standards-assessment by theme and planning

Faculty Development, Teaching & Learning
1) emphasis on e-learning and technology 2) Faculty Inquiry Groups (FIGs)
3) Committee on Online Learning & Teaching 4) Student Success Task Force-funding for faculty projects based on assessment, examples Hawkes in math - successful for minorities, repllicating industries practices, recording lectures

Central -

North-

Faculty learning communities: pedagogy 101/102, state board-funded learning communities
Student voices
College readiness
Accreditation site visit on assessment in April (2010)

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Spokane Falls
Highlights: College Abilities and Learning Outcomes Wizard; Transfer Degree Distribution Area assessments updated; stronger collaobration with Faculty Development Committee to coordinate faculty development/assessment activities and information.

Challenges: Figuring out how to assess our "W" (writing intensive) requirement; codifying assessment language and signage; revitalizing Outcomes 101.

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Tacoma

Teaching/Learning Labs
New Instructional Designer
Re-visioning Institutional Effectiveness/Institutional Research
Increased ownership, achievement gap issue

Assessment, Teaching and Learning Community

nlight — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:06:29 CST

Noreen's Elluminate room.

Recorded Elluminate session: Course Redesign Project (now called the Open Course Library project) , presentation by Cable Green to the ATL Retreat participants on October 29,2009.

Common craft SHORT video explaining wikis

Who we are...

and what we do...

The statewide Assessment, Teaching, and Learning community

includes educators, administrators, and institutional researchers

- representing both 2-year and 4-year institutions in Washington -

who provide ongoing campus leadership to improve teaching and learning

through assessment and faculty development.

The office of Assessment, Teaching and Learning operates as part of the
Education Services Division of the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.

The staff in this office support the Assessment, Teaching and Learning community in the following ways:

Communicating in ongoing and regular ways about assessment, teaching and learning

Convening the statewide community at various retreats and conferences

Supporting specific local, regional, and statewide communities of practice, collaborative projects, and related efforts in assessment, teaching and learning that are beneficial to the community as a whole.

Don't be afraid to add pages, post new discussion threads, or add content.

The more people contribute to the wiki, the richer the resource becomes!

Calendar of Events

Archives

ATL Digests

ATL Potlucks in Elluminate (recordings)

eWAG Newsletters

Moore's Musings

Readings and small group discussions

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:43:10 CDT

Friday morning sessions, October 30, 2009.

Topic 1: Practices leading to accreditation commendations
comments:
1- Dedicate some funding, release time and stipends in order to get the work done
2- Although it must have administrative buy-in, faculty must drive this
3-Build a plan and improve it, making sure it is systemized and the steps show
Suggestions: make it be like a learning community, find a way to make it personal
connect it between departments
connect with other colleges to see what they are doing
expect it to take time
be sure to include analysis

Topic 2: Mission Study draft recommendations
Overall reactions -

As is, describes status quo (or what almost is and as we'd like it to be now)
Too specific on small details, while missing higher level goals, focus
These are all good goals but for a much shorter term than 20 years, closer to 2-5 year plan
Needs sustainability focus

Revision/additions suggested -

In face of unknowable change, we need recommendations that will let us stay nimble and be able to change focus and priority quickly
We do not know what the future changes will be (due to convergence, globalization, climate change, demographic shifts, technology developments, etc). Historically we, as a system, have been relatively good at reacting to change, working with client populations, legislature, etc. We need a statement that sets this as a future goal and priority instead of a laundry list of what various groups need/want today.

Which recommendation should be addressed first? -

Take process back a few steps and look more at our stance relative to change and less on list of specifics
Use Theory U (Scharmer, MIT) methodology for long term planning - with listening and small scale rapid prototyping and feedback loop.
Respective dialog with everyone - need student input as well as faculty and adminstration

Topic 3: It's a Whole New Ball Game
What direction did this take you?
The junior game is a good place to start.
Where we do the element teaching is in the introductory courses (like the 81)--boring!
We should spice up the connections with the individual and his/her life and experiences to make it meaningful before teaching the basics
Let students know the relevance or the purpose for their learning, but when do we let them play the whole game?
Give them lots of practice without grades. Risk free first attempt.
It is ok to play without being perfect—just for the love of the game.
If I give them the whole game all the time, they get frustrated and will give up.
Video games—younger students learn from reflection as they play the game. The real learning is happening at that point. Students do not have the same mindset from learning in their academic classes as they do with video games.
Are you attaching new learning to learning already known to the student--making connections to increase the dendrites
The junior game allows for failures but these steps are necessary to play the whole game.
Using analogies in your own learning experiences to share with students

Other aspects of getting to the hidden game?
Only get to this point when they understand the whole game.
How relevant is this hidden game to all learners?
They should have enough skills so they can keep practicing and be challenged
Those that know the hidden game have it organized and personalized and the end result may be more engaging and memorable.
How does this relate to assessment?
It is at each point of the game—junior, whole game, etc.
After we read this article, how can we do something differently in the classroom in the gatekeeper courses to increase student success rate. :

Topic 4: Strengthening Evidence-based Decision-making
comments:

Common Themes and Current Events

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:41:04 CDT

Small group discussion topics were chosen from the college reports on key initiatives, activities, and challenges. Highlights of the subsequent discussions were posted by participants.

Topic 1: Alignment and assessment; classroom, program, global/college-wide outcomes
Comments:
Faculty needs to engage with Institutional Research data - dialog on relevance
Qualitative data - needs to be collected and reviewed
Milestones - can/should be flexible. They are designed to be changed in reaction to what assessment strategies have have been tried and adjusted. They should not be set too high (unattainable) or too low (not effective, not reflective).
Distribution Area - themes - e.g., Basic Studies, Developmental Education, General Education, Transfer, Professional Technical areas.
College Wide Outcomes - in rubric with descriptors format. Tracking them at the course level reveals holes, but accreditation looks at the process of doing this.
Assessment as component for program review along with retention, student/faculty ration, full-time/part time ratio, flow rate
Good article: "Validating the Infusion Model"
National normed assessment models do not reveal differences betweened colleges (normed), rather within colleges.
Degree level assessment - must have a cohorent degree result - not a partial degree

Topic 2: Addressing global-level/college-wide outcomes
Comments:
May change "outcomes" to "themes", "values" or "abilities"
Clover Park has an annual Celebration around the core abilities
So. Seattle conducts Graduate Exit Survey which includes questions about global outcomes
Bellevue has 5 global outcomes which break down to 18 subgroups, each with rubric to use to assess
Some have a way of looking at the frequency of the global outcomes showing up in the number of courses (how often will a student be assessed in their program of studies?)
Brown Bag meetings--1 per year for each of the core abilities
ARF (Assessment Record Form) or database to document assessment projects
Colleges all have global outcomes, anywhere from 4-7), some assess directly and some assess through course and/or program outcomes that are aligned with each other
All syllabi should include global outcomes
Some use "key assessments" in courses that faculty submit and/or keep in their "Faculty Notebook"
Invite faculty to participate in sharing forum where they discuss assessment projects that have cross-disciplinary implications
Teach faculty how to use SMS system to collect data

Topic 3: Classroom-level data-gathering, looking at patterns in data, structures to support this work
Comments:
A) "Data Doesn't Drive" article in Lumina

B) Keep Jerry Woodard! He can design data collection/storage arrays and mine data for meaningful results faster than anyone else in the college system. All you have to say is, "Jerry, I am sort of interested in (you supply the topic)." He'll say, "Okay, just a minute..." Then he'll be back in 20 minutes with results of a deep dive, reported out with all relevant cross references supplied, that would take anyone else a week to compile. His position at North was inexplicably cut, which is a terrific windfall for Washington State. He will be available January 1 to further the efforts of the state board to support assessment at all levels. To fund his position, every college in the system could pony up $1000 from IR monies.

C) We need small "ir" people (as opposed to IR Administrators). Faculty, particularly part-timers, could be stipended to function as coordinators at the departmental or program level, tasked not (or not merely) with scheduling the department's courses, but with investigating patterns emerging among faculty's successes and challenges in the classroom. They would be "pattern investigators." They could put these patterns together with data elegantly mined by Jerry to perhaps begin to make dents in the heretofore intractable fog surrounding the goal of moving observed, insights upward and formalized as assessment. They would be there to help faculty overcome resistance to the process of quantifying changes in the classroom and keep the process alive.

D) Campus committees are at heart "inquiry groups" who also deal with emerging patterns, albeit on the institutional level. There needs to be better ways to connect the committees across campus, identify parallel vs redundant pursuits, and report and chronicle patterns as they emerge. This effort has been successfully confounded not only by garden variety systemic (read political) factors, but by the uneven levels of technical ability across employee groups and even among departments. Some use Web 2.0 applications readily, choosing among social media in the "cloud" such as wikis, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. Others use only the phone. Some campuses have evolved tech systems, like the NetID system at North with its authenticated roaming profiles and built-in, automatic website, and others are just getting the hang of email. Find a way to create our own "euro" from all these different "currencies" and some of the committee issues would solve much more easily.

Topic 4: Engaging/involving part-time/adjunct/associate faculty
Comments:

Topic 5: What do assessment efforts look like?
Comments:

Topic 6: Teaching/Learning Centers, activities, coordinating a coherent program, structure
Comments:

Faculty Book Group: The faculty choose from a list of several books. The school purchases the books for faculty who want to participate. The faculty then read assigned sections and meet as a group several times over the quarter to discuss the chapters. The faculty could then incorporate a blog or ning to continue the discussion online. (This hasn't been tried yet, but the blog/ning idea could better integrate more faculty into the discussion.)
Boot Camp: Lake Wa Tech does this. They have a week-long boot camp the week before school starts. It meets 4 hours a day and focuses on topics such as how to create a syllabus, how to create lesson plans, etc. The faculty are paid to attend and the faciltator is paid to lead. They want to try and encourage this cohort of faculty to then continue with prof. dev. throughout the year.
Difficulties discussed = How to get funding to support prof. dev. activities? How to get faculty to attend prof. dev. when they have little time and/or incentive to do so? How to use technology to capture ideas and better include those who can't attend face-to-face sessions? How to structure TLC -- where should it be located and who should coordinate it?

Assessing Online Courses

nlight — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:21:15 CDT

Let's start pulling ideas on assessing eLearning together here (either in threads or as attachments). I'd be interested in hearing what folks have to say about the rather extensive checklist on course readiness that I have attached below.

Attached at the bottom of this page is a PowerPoint overview of Quality Matters, forwarded from Kayeri Akweks.

A brief description of QM:
"QM relates to rubrics that are nationally recognized as helping to make the design of a course a quality course. Any online or hybrid course can use the rubrics to help design and review a course. Part of the QM project is a peer review process to help designers and instructors apply those standards to their particular courses. My experience is that it is a great tool to give to faculty as they are working on their courses. The peer review process is secondary and not necessary unless someone wants to go that extra step." Kyla Bates, eLearning/Continuing Ed Manager, Spokane Falls Community College

For more information about Quality Matters, please contact Boyoung Chae, SBCTC elearning professional development coordinator, at bchae@sbctc.edu

2008 Winter ATL Retreat

nlight — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:46:53 CDT

February 7/8 at Rainbow Lodge

Seventeen community and technical colleges are present for the 2008 ATL Winter Retreat. (To see the revised agenda - scroll to bottom of this page)

Several folks are blogging and taking notes during the presentations and discussions. We'll add those to our Wiki soon!

The pages in this section of our Wiki include the notes from small group work begun on Thursday afternoon and continued on Friday morning.

Groups were asked to think about the models of Learning Communities, train-the-trainer activities, and online community building which were shared with us by Sheryl Hansen of the Ohio Learning Network.

Updates on the Technology Transformation Task Force were presented by Cable Green, Kayeri Akweks, and Connie Broughton, from the eLearning team at SBCTC.

Jane Lister Reis presented a video "How to Seminar", and distributed copies to all in attendance. After viewing the video, we discussed the ways that the seminar could be used in teaching/learning and also where we could incorporate this video into training for instructors. (New Faculty Institute, Boot Camp for New Prof/Tech Instructors, campus in-service training, other?)

Jane, and others, are working on creating a rubric to assess seminars. (Ideas on this? Please start a thread at the bottom of this page.)

Stephanie shares her blog with us! Stephanie Delaney from Cascadia was blogging during the retreat and was kind enough to share her thoughts and notes with us.

More to come...

Spotlight on Students

nlight — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:43:31 CDT

Spotlight on Walla Walla HVAC graduate:

Faculty Development

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:12:32 CDT

Faculty Development opportunities are listed on the Assessment, Teaching and Learning web pages, under Calendar of Events.

If you are holding a faculty development event to which you would like to invite other higher education faculty members, please send the event information to the SBCTC Faculty Development Coordinator (nlight@sbctc.edu) for dissemination.

ATL Calendar of Events

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:07:30 CDT

Click here to access the Calendar of Events
Have events to add to the Calendar? Please send them to Noreen.Contact Noreen Light, nlight@sbctc.edu, or 360.704.4345

Find more details on the Conferences and Training Page

Emergency Preparedness

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:06:39 CDT

Continuity of Instruction During Emergency Campus Closures
Are you prepared to provide instruction via Elluminate, ANGEL, wikis, or other means, if your campus is closed for any reason?
For thoughts and suggestions on this topic, please view the recorded Elluminate session.

Active Shooter Training Video
Most of us practice fire drills on our campus; some of us have practiced for other emergencies such as earthquakes or volcanic ash fallout. However, until just a few years ago, most of us didn't give much thought to preparing ourselves, or our students, for the possibility of an armed intruder on our campus.

Of course, the chances of ever needing the knowledge and skill to maximize your ability to calmly respond to such a crisis are very small. Still, it would be well worth the time to prepare yourself and know that you have a plan in mind should you ever need it.

A new resource is now available to each of the colleges within the Washington State Community and Technical College system. Every college has been given a copy of an excellent training video, titled: Shots Fired: When Lightning Strikes (Guidance for Surviving an Active Shooter Situation). We have a system-wide license for these videos.

If you have not seen the training video, "Shots Fired", please contact your campus security director to arrange a viewing - perhaps at your next faculty or staff meeting?

Student Voices

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:44:47 CDT

From the Chronicle of Higher Education October 14, 2009Going Backstage in Students' Lives

October 14, 2009 By Kevin Brown
Last spring, I was able to play a minor role in our theater department's production of Pride and Prejudice. I had one line consisting of two words, and I was a dancer in the two scenes that required dancing in the background. In the midst of rehearsals, students would often either forget that I was there or that I was a professor, so I was able to see and hear them in ways that faculty members seldom do.

In some cases, I heard comments I would prefer not to hear as a professional, especially ones concerning my peers, so I would often drift away at that point. However, there were two insights that I gleaned from this experience that I'm not sure I would have gotten otherwise, or at least not to the same degree.

First, students these days are busy—much busier than I thought they were, and much busier than my generation was in college. Even those of us who were minor characters in the play had to be at almost every rehearsal for most of the time, which was between two and three hours, depending on the night. In the two weeks leading up to the production, especially in the week ahead of time, we were often there for three to four hours a day. The students who served as costumers or stage managers had to be there even longer, arriving before the actors did and leaving afterward, not including the meetings they attended throughout the week.

On top of that, many of the students were also involved with a series of scenes that were going to be performed in the weeks after our production closed, serving as either actors or directors, sometimes both. So they would often have rehearsals after ours ended, beginning at 10 or 11 p.m. Those who were in a lighting and set-design class would tell me about working on their projects at 3 or 4 a.m., as they all had to share time on the light board and that was the only available time for them to do anything.

I have only mentioned their theater commitments, but many of the students were not even drama majors, so they had other obligations as well. Some were in Greek clubs, others were involved in honor societies. Two of the women played rugby, so they had afternoon practices, as well as games almost every weekend.

Many of the students also had jobs. My university is a private institution with a large population of first-generation college students (roughly 40 percent), so they are often struggling to pay tuition every semester. I have even had students who honestly could not afford textbooks. They have to work even if they would prefer not to, just like so many other students across the country.

Like many institutions, we require students to complete 20 hours of community service each semester. Because I teach at a church-related university, students are often involved in local churches, too. Some of them take part in student government or local politics, while others work as teaching assistants in their departments.

Needless to say, none of them talked about playing Halo 3 for hours on end during their free time.

All of that information connects to the second insight I had during the play's production, which is that students today do not study as much as my generation did in college. Even though I worked 35 to 45 hours a week in various jobs as an undergraduate, and carried a full course load, I still had long blocks of time to do my schoolwork. I would go to the library in the afternoons if I worked at night, or vice versa, and spend hours reading a novel or working on a paper for a class. I would use time on Saturday to sift through articles and books for research papers and projects, even if I had to work a six-hour shift later on. I seldom had to read books in snatches or write papers in between customers at the grocery store where I worked (though I did read a few books there, most notably Great Expectations, which almost everyone had a reaction to, by the way). But most of the time, I could find a long stretch of time to just sit and digest the work I was dealing with.

Students today, with their many and varied commitments, just do not study that way. When they were not on stage, they were working on their homework in the wings, as they had to be ready to go on stage when necessary or to move furniture on and off. Only one other student could come downstairs, as I did, and actually focus on his work. The rest would have laptops with them, and they would write a few sentences, then go on stage and deliver their lines before exiting to write a few more.

They took the same approach to reading, although the only reading they could do during performances was online, as it was too dark to read a textbook offstage, though a few of them tried anyway. It should come as no surprise, then, when we read essays that do not quite cohere or see responses to a reading that miss a key and obvious point.

The best example I saw of this approach to studying was what our assistant stage manager did one night of our performance. She had rushed downstairs during intermission, then come back up to complete her night of work. I asked her what she was doing, and she explained that she was working on a quiz. It had been posted online, and it had to be completed by sometime that evening. So she went downstairs during the intermission to read the question, then spent the second half of the performance thinking about how she would answer it. After the show, she went home, wrote out the answer, and posted it. All of her thinking about the quiz happened while she was managing the second half of our performance.

As professors, we often have the idea that students sit down, read the assignment, think about it, then write out a response—one action following the other, which is how we would proceed.

However, our students simply do not have the time (or perhaps the inclination) to approach their assignments that way. Instead, they grab whatever they can, whenever they can, and make their responses as coherent as possible in as brief a time as possible. Knowing that this is the way they work causes me to be surprised when I see work that is intelligible, not the other way around.

Now some faculty members may argue that students should simply be less involved. If they have to work, they should cut out some extracurricular activities and focus on their academic work. That approach is certainly the one I took in college, but our students are not in the same position as I was. When English majors ask me for a letter of recommendation, I tell them that it will write itself if they've been solid students in my courses, been active in our English honor society (which I sponsor), and have worked in our department's writing center or as a teaching assistant for one of our composition courses.

However, none of them have only done that work, as they know that much more is required of them when they apply to graduate school or go out on the job market. What I mention is the bare minimum, and they know that it is because they hear their peers talking inside and outside of class. They feel they must be competitive, as the woman on their right is president of the student government while the man on their left is doing an internship in a local politician's office.

I'm not sure how my newly acquired knowledge will affect my teaching, or whether it should. There is no way I can make students give up some extracurricular duties or block out long hours to focus solely on their homework. I suppose I could simply give them fewer assignments so that they can focus more time on each one—aiming for depth rather than breadth. Or I could focus my teaching on skills, with the idea that students could then apply those skills to new knowledge after they graduate.

Neither approach satisfies me much at all, nor do I think they would serve our students well. I will have to keep thinking about how I can teach students whose lives are so unlike mine in ways that give them what they need to succeed in this brave new world.
Kevin Brown is an associate professor of English at Lee University, in Tennessee.

Are educational professionals interested in what students think about their learning experience? Dropped in this space are some candid students sentiments for you to chew on.

The first topic is grades.

"The only opinion that matters is the instructors...because they are the one who gives the grade." -anonymous community college student

"Student assessment doesn't always have to involve a grade. It doesn't have to have a direct impact on the rest of their life." -conversation involving student participant in Experiencing Collaborative Learning Conference

Educators are encouraged to answer these two questions as threaded discussions below:

What does the statement mean?
Why is this important? -does this resonate, disturb, or seem reasonable? how might the sentiments on educational roles affect instructor teaching, and student learning? how might it affect the assessment process?

Other thoughts?

Accreditation Results

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:40:44 CDT

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities Powerpoint:
Overview of the New Accreditation Standards and Oversight Process.

Bellevue Community College
Site visit Fall 2005
Visiting Team's response to assessment process: no comment specifically for assessment. Commended faculty for their "commitment to the development of innovative academic programs and for their many efforts to improve pedagogy and refine curriculum."
How the college assessed at that time: Cross-curricular assessment of 18 gen eds via gathering of student work from specific classes, then normed evaluation using faculty developed rubrics for the gen ed outcomes. Work gathered from classes that "address/assess the outcome." Gathered work only from students w/75 or more college-level credits.
What the evaluation committee report said: Liked the institution-level assessment. Commented regularly that there is no documentation of assessment activity at program/department level. Urges college to develop that and to keep working to get to the point where faculty trust and use assessment results.

2009 Fall College Readiness Retreat

nlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:33:48 CDT

Please see the attached agenda, and all resources, at the bottom of this page.
Small group discussions:
In terms of student success in developmental education:

What is your college focusing on this year?
What are one or two strategies being used at your college?
What is one challenge your college is facing?

Each college discussed the above questions, and reported out to the entire group.
Summaries were posted here during the retreat.

Cascadia: At Cascadia, our focus is mainly on transitioning students. We're interested in this because we want to help our students be succesful and expose them to and prepare them for college level courses. Our strategies to achieve this are through transition workshops, potential for PCMP (Pre- college math project) and the Math and Writing Center. Lastly, our challenges include placement testing and the types of support we offer transitioning students.

Chemeketa and Mt. Hood:
Chemeketa:
Focus: improving success in dev. ed. math, transitions from ABE/GED to college, and more intentional support for developmental students.
Strategies: for math; work with Study Skills faculty; develop a transition course for ABE/GED; coordinate a plan with counseling and dev. ed. faculty.
Challenge: financial

Mt Hood:
Focus: Surviving budget cuts and trying to address basic needs that use to be supported by a coordinator position
Strategies: reorganizing to share tasks and priortizing fundamental needs
Challenges: Time and money

Clover Park and Everett:
1. Focus: Sustainability

Student success and retention
Manadatory Advising

2. Formation of pre-college cohort with English, Math, and Developmental Education

Hiring of "dev ed Math instructor"
English department created dev ed coordinator
Creation of Dev. Ed. department with added tenure track position
CPTC-placement testing for math and dev ed math coordinator

3. Money - philosophical differences and resistance, departmental leadership, ability to hire new faculty.

Green River: We're focusing on building learning communities with reading, writing, math, and some transfer level courses. We have a College SPARKS Grant that will fund eleven projects to help students transition to college classes. We hope to use some of this funding to improve and expand upon our learning communities. In addition, we are looking into the Gates Foundation Grant for an academic version of I-BEST. Finally, we're building the offerings of our Teaching and Learning Center to improve student learning.

Highline:
Our focus is on integrating reading and writing at the 81 level. We're working to develop themes to guide classes, find common reading and writing textbook to adopt, and use the online Angel repository. Our challenges include placement issues, prep. time/workload issues for teachers, and mixed assessment of reading and writing.

North Seattle: Our focus is to develop cross-disciplinary leadership for college readiness through a transitions and pathways committee. This committee will include faculty and staff from all divisions and student services. The purpose of this committee will be to develop initiatives to improve transition from ABE/ESL to developmental English and math, and from developmental English and math to professional-technical and degree programs. Our main challenge is finding real support around time and money.

From these discussions, the following themes or common issues appeared:

Learning communities for faculty, and for students
Sustainability - money and leadership and time
Transitions/progression through academic pathway
Placement issues - ABE/Dev Ed/College-level, testing, differences in interpretation of college "readiness",
Open source, Learning object repositories, ways to share
International students, rise in enrollment
Cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary work

Plenary session: Systemwide works in progress
Gates and Ford Foundation grants totaling $6.1 million to Washington CTCs

Student Achievement Achievement
Course Redesign Project
Pre-college Math
Expansion of I-BEST Practices to Developmental Education

Faculty Learning Communities Initiative

Online resources:
www.sbctc.edu Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
http://www.sbctc.edu/college/e_assessment.aspx The Assessment, Teaching and Learning pages of the SBCTC site http://www.sbctc.edu/college/e_studentachievement.aspx Student Achievement Initiative information
http://www.elluminate.com/support/training/index.jsp Elluminate training page, Participant and Moderator levels - free and online
http://www.waol.org/ Washington Online, faculty resources, training, ANGEL information

Plenary reading and discussion: Understanding College Readiness and Implications for Practice
Article "Redefining College Readiness", by David T. Conley
Graphics comparing COMPASS cut-off scores for pre-algebra, algebra, reading, and writing for Washington CTCs

Participants' insights: