Assessing general education programs

The assessment of these institution-wide efforts is particularly challenging, but many campuses have made substantial progress from which students can learn. In this book, the author draws on her experience with over sixty colleges, universities, and college systems to: 1 Establish a broad context for general education and first-year experience programs and assessment, and summarize relevant ideas from professional organizations; 2 Advise how to develop mission, goal, and outcome statements; 3 Explain how to align curricula and pedagogy with learning outcomes, develop alignment questions to be used in assessment projects, and describe how campuses can use course certification to promote alignment; 4 Describe approaches for assessment planning, criteria for selecting strategies, and ethical issues to be considered; 5 Provide examples of direct and indirect assessment strategies; and 6 Discuss the infrastructure for general education assessment and offer advice for effective collaboration among faculty and staff.

Written for college and university administrators, assessment officers, faculty, and staff who support general education and first-year experience programs, this book is a hands-on guide for developing, aligning, and assessing general education programs in meaningful, manageable, and sustainable ways.

The author presents a variety of approaches and dozens of examples to help readers understand what other campuses are doing and develop a repertoire of their own methods so they can make informed decisions about their programs. A glossary and bibliography are also included. Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley. Program-level assessment embeds assessment within general education courses, and results are summarized for the program, as a whole.

For example, Noel and colleagues examined two arts and humanities learned outcomes by developing a rubric and using it to assess student products from a sample of upper-division arts and humanities courses. The focus was on the program, not each individual course. Institutional-level assessments usually embeds assessment in advanced courses in the majors, allowing the campus to see how well learning in the general education program generalizes to learning throughout the institution.

For example, students at Truman State University complete a general education portfolio in senior-level capstone courses in the major, and the portfolios are assessed to see how well students have mastered general education outcomes.

This approach includes a check that students who have transferred from other institutions have developed the marks of a Truman State graduate. San Jos? State University has a well-developed system for assessing the general education program at the course level, and this is a major undertaking.

This campus has more than general education courses that meet 18 general education requirements, and more than general education course sections are scheduled each semester. Faculty who teach sections of the same general education course collaborate to assess student mastery of general education outcomes within their courses. Designated course coordinators submit a "Coordinator Summary" that:. This assessment approach results in continuing refinement of each general education course as well as ongoing collaboration among faculty who teach it.

Pomona students have the option of participating in the IGE Program to meet most of their lower division humanities and social sciences general education requirements. Students complete the innovative program in cohorts, taking one course each quarter starting in their freshman year; the eighth and last course is a capstone course in which students create integrative projects that are expressed in a page paper and through an alternative medium, such as a poster or work of art.

About six to eight sections of each required course are offered each quarter, and about students complete the program each year. Tenured and tenure-track faculty, as well as adjunct faculty, offer IGE courses, and many have participated in the program for years. Around 12 faculty offer IGE courses each year, and they share responsibility for assessing the program.

IGE faculty, including adjunct faculty, meet regularly to discuss the program and its assessment; each quarter the program hosts a "torch passing" in which faculty who have just taught the students "pass" them into the hands of the next instructors by sharing what they have done and what they have learned through the ongoing assessment program.

Alignment of the IGE program is planned through an alignment matrix and is made explicit during the torch passing. In addition, many of the courses are taught, and involved faculty carefully orchestrate their courses to meet program and course outcomes. Throughout the year faculty meet to discuss how their courses help students build the skills necessary for the capstone project, including attention to fostering the required information competence, critical thinking, and communication skills.

IGE faculty also meet for an annual retreat each June to review progress and establish goals for the next academic year. The IGE program is assessed in multiple ways, including both direct and indirect assessment. Students accumulate a portfolio of their work as they proceed through the program, and they evaluate their own learning each quarter. Faculty survey current students as well as alumni, and they conduct student interviews as the end of the first year, the middle of the second year, and the end of the program, faculty obtain their major direct evidence by assessing the portfolios and capstone projects, and an outside evaluator is periodically invited to visit courses and review student work.

IGE faculty consider themselves part of an ongoing learning community, and they routinely review assessment results and reflect on their implications. Over the years they have refined the capstone assignment, revised the curriculum and learning outcomes, developed effective relationships with staff at the campus library and student affairs offices, and monitored the impact of their changes on student learning N.

Fernandez, personal communication, July 1, Truman State University assesses its general education program at the institutional level by embedding portfolio requirements in capstone courses taken in the majors.

Faculty who teach capstone courses assign and collect the portfolios, and some departments augment the assignment to collect additional data fro assessing majors.

The assignment may change slightly from year to year, but during the academic year, faculty required students to submit work demonstrating critical thinking, interdisciplinary thinking, historical analysis, scientific reasoning, and aesthetic analysis, as well as work that the student felt was most personally satisfying; a reflection on their growth while at Truman State; and anything the student would like to share about their university experience Truman State University, a.

Students receive explicit instructions for each segment of the portfolio. For example, the Spring assignment for Critical Thinking and Writing asks students to submit the best example of their writing that demonstrates critical thinking.

Please include an example of your best writing that demonstrates your critical thinking skills. Thus, as a result of an intellectual process that communicates meaning to a reader, good writing integrates ideas through analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of ideas and concepts. Good writing also exhibits skill in language usage and clarity of expression through good organization. Truman State University, c, p. Students identify the course from which the writing sample was drawn and their academic status when taking the course freshman, sophomore, etc.