3211 Providence Drive Anchorage, AK 99508-4614

T 907.786.1720, F 907.786.1426 www.uaa.alaska.edu/undergraduate-academic-affairs/

UAA GER Assessment Task Force Agenda: April 1, 2015

9:00-10:00am ADM 204 Lync Conferencing Information Provided in Email

General Business Welcome Approval of Agenda Approval of Minutes (3-17-15) (pgs. 3-4) Vice Provost Susan Kalina Report

Informational Items

New Business

Discussion on Draft GER Assessment Plan (pg. 5) Update on this year’s AA Assessment process

Continuing Business

Review and discussion of draft GER assessment standing body charge and faculty fellow responsibilities (pgs. 6-8)

Review and discussion of draft summary report on AA assessment to date (pgs. 9-14) Summary report on GER capstone assessment project to date Pilot project

Future Business

Scheduled Meeting Dates Spring 2015 

Date  Time Location

1/21/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2042/2/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2042/16/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2013/2/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2043/16/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2044/1/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2044/13/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 2044/27/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

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Expected Attendees Shawnalee Whitney, CAS Andrew Metzger, SOE Herminia Din, CAS

Brian Partridge, KPC Kathryn Ohle, COE Susan Kalina, Ex-officio, Vice

Provost

Megan Ossiander-Gobeille,

CTC Deborah Mole, LIB Maria Stroth, OUAA

Jackie Cason, CAS Kyle Hampton, CBPP Vacant, Student Rep. Sandra Pence, Faculty Senate Bill Myers (Chair), CAS

Note: Confirmed meeting attendees are marked with “C.”

Those unable to attend are marked “N.” Those calling in are marked “P.”

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3211 Providence Drive

Anchorage, AK 99508-4614

T 907.786.1720, F 907.786.1426

www.uaa.alaska.edu/undergraduate-academic-affairs/

UAA GER Assessment Task Force

Minutes: March 16, 2015

9:00-10:00am ADM 204

Lync Conferencing Information Provided in Email

General Business

Welcome

Approval of Agenda

o Approved

Approval of Minutes (2-16-15)

o Approved

Vice Provost Susan Kalina Report

o A team from the institution (Susan Kalina, Megan Carlson, Dan Kline, Jeane Breinig,

and Dawn Dooley) went to the Accreditation Workshops in Seattle last week.

A major takeaway is that NWCCU has shifted to a focus primarily on student

learning outcomes as achieved in the academic programming, with other

activities at the university being is support of that core goal.

Informational Items

New Business

Collaborations with IR for GER Assessment, Conversation with Erin Holmes, Director of

Institutional Research

o Institutional Research is developing a website to provide everyone at UAAaccess to

useful data. The website can provide data useful for the GER, such as:

Pass rates as an institution, in the GER, across TIERs, or in a particular class.

Total degrees awarded.

o A GER dashboard can be considered.

o What is the Task Force envisioning in terms of GER assessment? What is the big

picture for GER assessment? What kinds of information is the Task Force particularly

interested in? If IR knows the answers to these questions it can start thinking about

how existing data can be used..

Examples of information that might be helpful:

Enrollment in GER courses

DFW rates

When in their academic experience are students taking general

education courses?

What are the pieces that lead to student success? E.g. are certain

classes acting as roadblocks?

o IR might be able to assign a research associate to helping with GER assessment data.

o The focus for this group should be:

Where do we start?

How can IR help us?

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What is the ultimate big picture wanted?

o It was suggested that it is important that the person proposed as the GERA fellow, be

someone who has ability to think about data and/or work with data.

Follow-up on the AAC&U General Education and Assessment Conference

IDEA Survey Question Proposal (pgs. 5-6)

o It might be good to add a question that gets at students’ perceived importance of GER

courses.

BOR Mandate to align GE across all three MAUs

o This Task Force should be aware of the conversation happening at the Statewide level

around GER. Dan Kline, who has been involved in these conversations, will

participate in Task Force meetings this semester to help provide that connection.

Continuing Business

Review and discussion of draft GER assessment standing body charge and faculty fellow

responsibilities

Review and discussion of draft summary report on AA assessment to date

Summary report on GER capstone assessment project to date

Pilot project

Future Business

Scheduled Meeting Dates Spring 2015

Date Time Location

1/21/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

2/2/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

2/16/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 201

3/2/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

3/16/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

3/30/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

4/13/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

4/27/15 9:00-10:00am ADM 204

Attendees

C Shawnalee Whitney, CAS N Andrew Metzger, SOE N Herminia Din, CAS

P Brian Partridge, KPC

C Kathryn Ohle, COE

C Susan Kalina, Ex-officio, Vice

Provost

C Megan Ossiander-Gobeille,

CTC

N Deborah Mole, LIB

C Maria Stroth, OUAA

N Jackie Cason, CAS C Kyle Hampton, CBPP - Vacant, Student Rep.

N Sandra Pence, Faculty Senate N Bill Myers (Chair), CAS

Note: Confirmed meeting attendees are marked with “C.”

Those unable to attend are marked “N.” Those calling in are marked “P.”

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DRAFT Updated 3‐26‐15 

General Education Assessment Specific SLO (Effective Communication) 

 Indirect Measures:  

IR Data:  Which written and oral communication courses are students taking?  Where taken? What modality?  Course pass rates for these courses.  Where taken?  By modality?  At what point in their academic career are students taking these courses?   

 Student Surveys  Review IDEA faculty information forms for alignment with required GER SLO course outcomes  Student self‐reported progress on IDEA objective that aligns with the SLO (External measure)  Noel Levitz SSI question that aligns with the SLO if applicable (External measure)  Student self‐reported progress on SLO through extra question (Internal measure)  Student assessment of how well the course addresses the SLO (Internal measure)  Results: Do faculty expectations of outcomes match student perceptions? 

 Direct Measures: 

 Student Achievement in ? courses?  Analysis of Student Work by faculty group  Holistic Shared Rubric (can be used across different levels and disciplines to see where students are achieving different 

levels of proficiency)  Faculty Discussions, Analysis, Recommendations 

 Schedule: 2015‐2016  1, 7   (Which classes? Throughout the GER?  Across GER and Programs?) 2016‐2017  2, 6 2016‐2017  3, 4, 5 2017‐2018  8, 9     

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General Education Requirements Assessment Committee (GERA) Charge and Bylaws: Draft 3 (2/12/15)

Prologue: The Value of General Education: Society, employers and UAA all value

broadly trained individuals who can think, communicate, imagine, analyze and engage with their surrounding community and the wider world. UAA needs to articulate this message of value to all involved (faculty, staff, administration, students, community). GER assessment should be faculty driven and student focused, based on “authentic” teaching and assignments that grow out of the classroom. Any GER assessment process should be built around a model of flexibility, simplicity, sustainability and usefulness. Assessment should be seen as inquiry, dialogue, and engagement, as a part of the scholarship of teaching and learning. In order to support this general education mission that we propose the following faculty General Education Requirements Assessment Committee as a stand-alone body, led by a GERA Faculty Fellow.

A) Composition of the General Education Requirements Assessment Committee: 1) Membership criteria: Membership will have experience with academic program assessment, general education, and/or the Associate of Arts program. 2) Composition of the committee: Membership should include the following representation. In order to achieve a manageable working group, members can represent more than one of the areas listed below. [Representatives will be selected by the unit they represent. (Sandy’s suggestion)]

a. At least one faculty representative from the Academic Assessment Committee b. At least faculty member from the Associate of Arts Assessment Committee at the

Anchorage Campus c. Two faculty members from the community campus [both cannot come from same

campus] d. At least one faculty member from each of the Three Tier GER Categories: Tier 1--oral

and written communication, and mathematical reasoning; Tier 2--disciplinary areas in social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and fine arts; Tier 3—integrative capstones

e. A faculty member from the College Preparatory and Developmental Studies program f. A student representative g. Ex Officio member: Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs h. Staff support will be provided by OUAA

3) Term length: Faculty members of GERA shall serve three year staggered terms. 4) Chair: The UAA General Education Assessment Faculty Fellow (a 3 year selective appointment in conjunction with OAA and Provost) will serve as the chair of the GERA committee?? [See below for GERA Faculty Fellow responsibilities and qualifications.]

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5) Selection Process: Members of the GERA committee will be selected by the Faculty Fellow and Vice Provost of OUAA, working with a selection committee formed from the GERA Task Force in its first year. Thereafter, the selection committee will be formed from the Standing GERA committee. Requests for nominations (named or self-nominated) to the committee will go out in March with selections finished by April, and service to begin in the following Fall. B) General Education Requirements Assessment Committee Charge 1) The GERA committee shall be responsible for overseeing the ongoing assessment of the general education curriculum at UAA. This includes the following:

a. Maintain an active general education assessment plan; b. Implement and oversee programmatic general education assessment practices; c. Collect relevant assessment data, as needed by the institution; d. Provide brief yearly reports, for UAA, on assessment actions and findings; e. Make recommendations and revisions, if and as needed, to the general education

assessment plan; f. Make recommendations, if and as needed, to the general education program at UAA; g. Provide informational reports to the Faculty Senate; h. Coordinate with UAB on appropriate general education curriculum issues.

2) The GERA committee shall also be responsible for fostering a campus wide dialogue on the value of general education and GER learning outcomes assessment, with the focus on excellence in teaching and learning. This includes sponsoring open forums, workshops, and seminars. C) OUAA Partnership The Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs (OUAA) partners with the GERA committee, providing information and resources, including professional development opportunities for faculty and administrative support for the GERA committee. GERA Faculty Fellow Positions: Responsibilities and Qualifications. The GERA Faculty Fellow is a 3 year appointment of a qualified faculty member to lead the assessment of the General Education Requirements Student Learning Outcomes. The GERA Faculty Fellow will:

Chair the GERA standing committee; Research and share best practices in assessment, teaching and learning in general

education;

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Lead the planning and organization of the seminars, workshops and open forums devoted to excellence in general education teaching, learning and assessment; partner with ACC in this.

Act as a lead faculty voice on GER assessment [need to describe this?] Partner with OUAA; The Faculty Fellow will receive a workload buyout of at least two courses, and will

report to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Preferred qualifications for such a Faculty Fellow would include significant experience in

teaching general education, in curriculum development, and in assessment. Application process includes a narrative describing experience, qualifications and vision for general education teaching, learning and assessment.

Selection committee for Faculty Fellow??

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AA/GER Assessment, 2005-2014—a Brief History I) Overall Take-away on AA assessment, 2005-14: UAA, through its AA Assessment Committee, has engaged in a substantial and meaningful assessment of the AA program, and by proxy, the GER student learning outcomes from 2005-14. Some brief highlights are as follows:

1) Created a complete assessment plan, and revised it 3 times to incorporate process changes and teaching improvements driven by the assessment process.

2) Created an assessment process for all three Tiers of the AA/GER.

3) Tier I courses and outcomes in Math, Written and Oral Communication assessed rigorously and continuously every year since 2006.

4) Multiple improvements and changed made in Tier 1 due to assessment: for example, enhanced informational literacy projects with Oral Comm.; changes in course structures and assignments for Math 105; and refocused teaching approaches in English writing courses.

5) Piloted a Tier III Integrative Capstone assessment project in Spring 2009.

6) The AA assessment process generated a vigorous, multi-year debate within the Social

Sciences on what are the proper SLOs—“hard” vs. “soft” science approaches; content vs. application; scientific method vs. knowledge of the social world—as well as debate on best assessment measures for tracking student performance on Social Science SLOs.

7) Overall review of yearly reports reveals some faculty frustration and fatigue over scale

and demands of assessment (participation did wane in some categories for some years).

8) A possible solution to the challenge of AA/GER assessment fatigue: Move from model of every SLO, every year, every discipline, to a targeted sampling and staggered rotation of SLOs, categories and disciplines. See GERA Final Report of May 2014 [and new GER assessment plan].

9) Creation of new pilots emphasizing assessment as faculty dialogue and reflection: for

example a new pilot assessment pilot for the Humanities AA/GER, Spring 2015; English “What Writing Does” series on disciplinary writing approaches and outcomes in the classroom during the Spring 2015.

10) GERA (General Education Requirements Assessment) Task Force created, Fall 2012. GERA has investigated and reported to the campus on national best practices in general education assessment and structures; it has fostered a campus wide dialogue on the value of general education and assessment; it has put forth recommendations for revised assessment of GERs, and the creation of a standing faculty body and faculty fellow to guide and GER assessment.

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II) Timeline Overview: 1998-2006: In 1998 and 1999, UAA engaged in preliminary assessment of General Education courses during preparation for its 2000 NWCCU accreditation visit. Programmatic assessment of the AA degree began in the summer of 2005, when CAS created an AA assessment group of four faculty, one representative from each of the three basic skills categories in the general education requirements (Math, Oral Communication, Written Communication) and appointed an AA program coordinator. In AY 2005-06, the Committee developed a draft set of desired outcomes for each of the three basic skills categories, devised a preliminary assessment plan, and piloted collection and analysis of selected courses and student performance towards defined learning outcomes. In the spring of 2006, the committee was also expanded to include a representative from content areas in the AA program: Natural Sciences, Fine Arts, and Social Sciences respectively. Humanities joined the AA assessment committee in Fall 2006. Fall 2008 Revised AA Assessment Plan: The committee crafted an AA Mission Statement, and revised Program Student Learning Outcomes (PSLOs) and assessment mechanisms for each of the categories represented in the AA. Oral and Written Communications and Mathematics completed two full assessment cycles; Fine Arts completed one full cycle; the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Humanities piloted an assessment mechanism. Fall 2012 AA Revised Assessment Plan: Full assessment cycles were completed for all five requirement areas of the AA Degree Program. Assessment of the Humanities area is particularly complex because the GER Course Offering list from which students in the AA Degree Program can select include content area, logic, and language courses, requiring three distinctly different assessment mechanisms, eighteen prefixes, and 10 departments. Fall 2012 NEW Tracks for AA Degree: the AA Degree Program initiated a revision to include four additional tracks in addition to the General Studies track: Fine Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. These added tracks should provide guidance for AA students planning to enter fields in one of these four areas for BA or BS degrees. [These tracks became operational in Fall 2014??] Currently, 2014-15: AA assessment has been serving as a proxy for GER assessment. This has worked well enough, given that the course and area requirements and the SLOs are very similar (GERs do need a higher Math than MATH 105, a science lab, and a GER Integrative Capstone). Since Fall 2012, there has been close coordination between the AA assessment committee and the newly created GER Assessment Task Force (GERA). GERA is currently working towards a sustainable GER assessment process for UAA, but it is still utilizing the work of the AA assessment. For example, a faculty group will be convened in May 2015 to pilot a new approach to AA/GER assessment for the Humanities. III) Yearly Summary of AA annual assessment reports: 2005-6 Actions, Results and Findings:

Defined learning outcomes for AA basic skills in Oral, Written Comm., and Math Created an AA assessment committee and assessment plan Created a math req. for the AA Devised assessment tools for Oral, Written and Math Piloted assessment collection and analysis in the above areas Submitted an annual assessment report (available through CAS)

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Based on assessment Oral Comm., Written Comm. and Math initiated faculty meetings to discuss AA SLOs, and refine expectations and assignments

2006-07 Actions, Results and Findings:

Oral, Written Comm., and Math continued their assessment of selected AA/GER courses Devised assessment strategies and tools for Natural and Social Sciences, and Fine Arts Expanded membership of the AA assessment committee to include Humanities Attempts to create a single, unified Social Science assessment test proved difficult, as

Social Science disciplines had differing emphasis on behavior, institutional, social and scientific approaches. Agreed to design discipline specific assessment rubrics for piloting.

Natural Science created an assessment rubric 20007-08 Actions, Results and Findings:

Oral and Written Communication and Math continued their assessment and saw acceptable results

Humanities devised and piloted an assessment for selected courses Social Sciences refined its outcomes to be assessed and sought to systematize the

delivery and collection of assessment measures and results (using Pre-test, Post-test rubrics). Recommended expanding assessment to non-CAS courses that fulfill the AA Social Science req.

Fine Arts revised part of its assessment tool The Assessment Committee revised and clarified the AA PSLOs

2008-09 Actions, Results and Findings:

Completed two full cycles of assessment for Math, Oral and Written Comm. Acceptable results by students, but room for improvement, for example: in relational analysis in Oral Comm. models; in sentence structure and research techniques for Written Comm.; and some student weakness in inverse functions and rationalizing expressions for Math. Results led to increased faculty discussion in all three disciplines on course designs, teaching assignments, outcome clarification (within the classroom) and tutoring modifications.

Social Sciences continued to tweak its Pre-test, Post-test assessment strategy, trying to find a good match between sampling, participation and agreement on social sciences approaches by the various disciplines. Testing showed that students generally performed better on demonstrating content based knowledge of the social word than on applying the scientific method to understanding the social world. This may be partly due to the “hard” or “soft” science approach to the various Social Science disciplines.

2009-10 Actions, Results and Findings:

An UAA University Wide Peer Assessment Review committee gave the AA program high marks for its assessment process

AA Assessment Committee recommended simplifying and making more flexible some parts of its assessment process. For example, encouraging alternative assessment strategies to the Pre-Test/Post-Test format for the Social Science.

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Initiated discussions with UAA MatSu and Kenai campuses in order to increase coordination on delivery and assessment of AA/GER courses and program.

GERC sub-committee conducted a pilot assessment of the GER Integrative Capstone. Process included collection of a wide sample of student projects from relevant courses, creation of scoring rubrics, analysis of student projects. Recommendations revolved around refining the assessment process (rubric design and norming) and articulating the Integrative Capstone SLOs more clearly to students within the course and assignments.

2010-11 Actions, Results and Findings:

Mathematics and CPDS faculty made content guide revisions to Math 105 in an attempt to lessen attrition rates while maintaining requisite academic standards.

Oral and Written Communication began work on incorporating more informational literacy into their courses.

Uneven participation on assessment in some of the content, Tier II areas of the AA/GER program, for example natural sciences mostly relied on reporting from Biology.

Recommendation made to explore the creation of tracks in the AA program to facilitate both degree completion and transitions into BA and BS degree programs

Plans for discussions with UAF and UAF to better coordinate GERs and transferability. 2011-12 Actions, Results and Findings:

Continued work on incorporating information literacy into Oral Comm. Writing Comm. faculty explored best practices in writing assignment creation and

evaluation, seeking to improve student performance. Social Science AA SLOs revised. Challenges continue in gaining widespread faculty

participation and agreement on social science disciplinary approaches. Continued work on developing AA tracks in Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural

Sciences and Fine Arts. 2012-13 Actions, Results and Findings:

Overall assessment results showed satisfactory progress by students towards AA SLOs, roughly a B- average on SLO performance. Over 2350 students were assessed for the AA program.

There were some areas of concern, mostly revolving around degree of department/faculty participation in AA/GER assessment, and signs of growing faculty assessment fatigue.

In interests of developing a simpler and more sustainable assessment of the General Education program, UAA Faculty Senate and OAA created a GER Assessment Task Force (GERA) in Fall 2012. GERA began researching national best practices in general education assessment, holding workshops and open forums and coordinating with the AA Assessment Committee.

2013-14 Actions, Results and Findings:

Both Oral and Written Comm. continued work on embedding informational literacy into their course design and assignments. Satisfactory results have been noted, with areas of weakness being the focal point of faculty discussions for the coming year.

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Natural Sciences and Humanities saw increased participation in their AA/GER assessment (for example, assessments by Chemistry and History faculty)

Partly due to faculty assessment coordinator turnover, a small participation rate for the Social Sciences.

The GERA task force made recommendations for a unified, simplified and sustainable approach to GER SLO assessment. In particular, GERA recommended moving away from the model of assessing every single outcome, in every single AA/GER area, in every year. Staggered, targeted sampling should yield both valid results and lessened faculty assessment fatigue and frustration.

To that end, the AA Assessment Committee is piloting a revised assessment process for the AA/GER Humanities beginning in Spring 2015.

IV) Concluding Comments on AA/GER Assessment 1998-Present: UAA has assessed the AA SLOs for over a decade, and has been assessing GER SLOs for over 15 years. For the last 10 years the AA assessment has served as the proxy for GER assessment, and it has delivered a wealth of reporting material (annual reports and multiple revised plans). Faculty frustration and fatigue, which is not uncommon nationally, have been part of the process, but the GERA call for simplification and more selective, staggered targeting of assessment, rather than all AA/GER discipline participating every year should help to alleviate some of those challenges. In Fall 2014, UAA also established a Task Force to explore possibilities of “university college” designs for its general education program. Those discussions are still ongoing. Current UA BOR pressures to create a single set of GERs, course, and SLOs across all 3 campuses will present coming challenges for future delivery, design and assessment of the general education program at UAA. UAA faculty and administration remains committed to the value of general education in laying the foundations for student success.

AA Program Student Learning Outcomes Students graduating with an AA degree from UAA will be able to:

Communicate effectively with diverse audiences (individual, group, or public) using a variety of

verbal and nonverbal communication strategies;

Respond effectively to writing assignments using appropriate genres and standard written

English;

Use library and electronic research responsibly and appropriately;

Identify, describe, and evaluate the aesthetic, historical and philosophical aspects of material

culture, including artistic expressions, language, and texts;

Apply critical thinking skills to identify the premises and conclusions of arguments, evaluate

their soundness, and recognize common fallacies;

Use appropriate mathematical language and symbols to develop and communicate solutions and

demonstrate quantitative and analytical skills and knowledge;

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Articulate the fundamentals, developments, and impacts of one or more scientific disciplines and

develop and analyze evidence-based conclusions about the natural and social world.

GER Student Learning Outcomes After completing the GERs, UAA students shall be able to:

Communicate effectively in a variety of contexts and formats;

Reason mathematically and analyze quantitative and qualitative data competently to reach sound

conclusions;

Relate knowledge to the historical context in which it developed and the human problems it

addresses;

Interpret different systems of aesthetic representation and understand their historical and cultural

contexts;

Investigate the complexity of human institutions and behavior to better understand interpersonal,

group and cultural dynamics;

Identify ways in which science has advanced the understanding of important natural processes;

Locate and use relevant information to make appropriate personal and professional decisions;

Adopt critical perspectives for understanding the forces of globalization and diversity; and

Integrate knowledge and employ skills gained to synthesize creative thinking, critical judgment

and personal experience in a meaningful and coherent manner.

Tier 1: Basic College-Level Skills, 12 credits

Tier 2: Disciplinary Areas, 22

Tier 3: Integrative Capstone, 3

Total Credits, 37

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