 |
        |
Phoenix
College Assessment Committees
|
|
||
|
Phoenix
College Assessment Committees
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Assessment
Committee Minutes 2:00 PM PC Conference Room Committee members who were present: Georgia Gudykunst, Marian Tadano, Billie Hughes, Bill Roe, Brent Jameson, Bill Coppola, Betsy Frank Chairperson Brent Jameson called the meeting to order. The agenda
was distributed to members. Nine items on the agenda were included
and appear as headings within the body of these minutes. The minutes from the February 23rd meeting were accepted with no
corrections. It was also reported that several members could not be
present at today's meeting including David Gorman, who is a new father,
Geoff Erie, who had a conflict, and Marian Gibney, who was forced
to fly to Paris for spring break. Dean Tadano is still working on the letter which has been expanded. Dean Tadano felt it was important to request the postponement (of reporting about the assessment process) and the subsequent reasons and problems for that request, but to also explain that real work is continuing toward PC's assessment effort. This work includes the establishment of a timeline so that NCA will know what and when assessment work is being conducted. Ms. Anderson, Dr. Hughes, Dr. Gudykunst and Dean Tadano met with Dr. Story and members of MCLI at the District Office to discuss and formulate a two-year assessment timeline. Although more work must be done on this timeline, Dean Tadano hopes to have a draft ready to send to Dr. Pepicello by March 11. Dr. Pepicello will add a section to the letter describing the institutional planning process at PC. Dr. Pepicello will then send the letter out to NCA. Dean Tadano will provide copies of the letter to members of this committee. 3. Evaluation of past assessment committee minutes. (Billie) Dr. Hughes reported on her work in gathering data from past assessment efforts. Although there has been a great deal of work, little implementation or feedback has resulted. As a result of this news, several questions were asked. Should departments wait with assessment until a protocol has been established? Should departments hold off for now? Will faculty become frustrated and just stop unless they are given some specific direction? Dean Tadano will seek advice from sister colleges, including EMCC, to try to answer these questions. 4. Update on consultants from other campuses. (Judy) Ms. Boschult has been working to bring consultants from sister campuses
to PC. Consultants from Mesa Community College will be at Phoenix
College on March 30 at 1:00 pm. The meeting will be held in E-112.
The specifics of what will be presented and discussed is being developed;
however, the main point of the presentation should center around how
MCC involved their faculty in the assessment process. There was a lengthy discussion on this topic which began with EMCC's report. It is easy to read. Committee members were encouraged to skim this report to obtain any ideas that might work for PC. Dean Tadano emphasized that an important issue for Phoenix College is to establish parameters for what needs to be measured perhaps focusing on common elements such as writing, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, numericy and mathematics. Then, assessment must be completed in a looping process: measure--> data--> fixes--> areas of responsibility--measure--> etc. If writing were to be an assessment focus, certain questions should be asked, such as: 1) Should the campus (as a whole) provide input? 2) What courses contain writing? 3) If students were not at a proficient level, how is it fixed? 4) Who is responsible for fixing this problem? As the discussion progressed, several important issues were raised, such as academic freedom and the RFP. Any assessment activity should and must not be used as a evaluation of the instructor. Another lengthy discussion involved assessment at the course level as opposed to the program level. The challenge is to obtain agreement from faculty of what and how to assess. Buy-in and agreement on the looping process is another challenge. Another issue was to avoid measuring just for the sake of measurement. Mr. Roe distributed an article that addresses this problem. The article also provides suggestions on how to design an assessment process and to focus on assessment of what the student has learned. Although specific measurement is needed, the items that need to be measured are not quantifiable. Toward the end of this discussion, Dean Tadano talked about a different plan in which classes that had a clear writing component were identified and assessed. Then, a cohort of students who took these courses was identified and tracked. No matter what the PC assessment process becomes, there are some steps that must be demonstrated to NCA. First, the parameters for improvement must be established. Then, student cohorts are identified. Are occupational, transfer, AJEC, general education students going to be included in the PC cohort? General education students were originally identified but is this appropriate now? Are the differences between 100 and 200 level writing skills going to be identified and will those differences impact the cohort? These questions must be asked and answered. Part of the success of EMCC's plan is that it has a specific and
defined cohort. Ms. Frank reported that the ESL subcommittee is working on development
of vision, mission, and goals statements. Once these components have
been established, the committee will wait until assessment training
has been completed before moving ahead with an assessment plan. Dean Tadano reported that this subcommittee is struggling somewhat. Members needed reassurance that developmental education will be supported. Dean Tadano gave that reassurance as developmental education continues to be a part of PC's mission statement. This subcommittee needs a chair. Dean Tadano will also review the committee membership to see if there are additional faculty who could add their ideas to this area. 8. General Education subcommittee status. (Marian) Dean Tadano reported that she had met with the chair of this subcommittee,
Marsha Hopkins. Ms. Hopkins and Dean Tadano will discuss further the
task of this subcommittee. Ms. Hopkins encouraged all committee members to read this booklet. It provides very good information about the assessment process. It emphasizes a structure with identification of those involved. The booklet also provides tips on how to avoid repeating discussions and obtaining a broad involvement in order to get the assessment process of the ground. Unfortunately, the move of the Governing Board to establish its own Ends Statements only complicates an already complicated assessment situation. As the Governing Board focuses on its Ends Statements and the colleges' relationship to those statements, the NCA assessment requirements become somewhat secondary especially when it involves college budgets. This situation coupled with NCA's own floundering makes things very difficult. There is, too, the move of the Legislature in examining how colleges align to the Governing Boards' Ends Statements. In the meantime, NCA is putting together a plan based on the Baldridge Award to provide more structure. However, despite the changes in any of these organizations, Phoenix College still has a job to do: that is developing a plan that will help us move forward. We must develop a planning document that contains clearly communicated goals and objectives. These goals and objections must also be tied to planning and budgeting with assessment as a key element. Assessment is directly tied to a plan. Our job, as committee members, is to define what we need to do and to move forward. We must identify outcome areas and then establish the loop that is tied to implementation and improvement. We must group these outcome areas, pick the ones most tangible and begin the assessment loop. Ms. Hopkins directed committee members to page 35 of the booklet which identified broad abilities (of general education). These important abilities [underlay] the transfer of knowledge: . . . the ability of thinking critically; the ability to develop problem solving strategies; effective writing and oral communication; technological competence, especially with library and other information management resources; familiarity with mathematics and quantitative analysis; and a range of attitudes and dispositions associated with human values and responsible judgment (Framework Outcomes Assessment, p. 35). The meeting ended with final questions of how to get the information, how to get faculty involved, and how to move forward. Dean Tadano will talk with Dr. Pepicello and to the PC Planning Committee to get further information about these questions. The next assessment committee meeting will be on Tuesday, March 23 at 2:30 pm in the PC Conference Center (Learning Center). Respectfully submitted, Betsy Frank |
|||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|||
