GEGB Meeting January 19, 2016

Meeting Details

• Attendance:  Brenda Helmbrecht, Helen Bailey, Elena Keeling, Gregg Fiegel, Katherine O'Claire, Neal MacDougall, Bruno Giberti, Clare Battista, Tal Scriven, Thomas Sawyer
• Time:  1:10 to 2:00 pm
• Place:  10-241

Assessment Overview

Background on University/GE Assessment - ULO Project (2008-11)

• Writing
• Oral Communication
• Diversity
• Lifelong Learning
• Ethics

Discussion:  What happened to this assessment project?

• The project ended primarily as a result of the financial crisis that occurred in 2010.  The project was large and required quite a bit of assigned time for the ULO consultants.  
• The results were reported in the WASC EER report in 2012.  Information is in the first section of the report, which is called Student Learning.  
• The campus wanted to create a more sustainable, less costly project, so the University/GE Assessment of the WASC Five Core Competencies was developed.

Update on Current University/GE Assessment

University/GE Assessment Timeline (PDF)  2012-2022
The diagram charts the five-year cycle for each of the core competencies.  

Phase Description in Timeline

• Phase I Research and Development: (Year 1) Organization of learning communities to research and develop the core competency, create a common definition, identify artifact, sampling plan and assessment tool(s).
• Phase 2 Data Artifact Collection and Analysis (Year 2) Collection and evaluation of artifacts from across campus representing lower-division courses in GE and senior-level work.
• Phase 3 Education  (Years 3, 4 and 5) Communication of results and determination of appropriate curricular areas for improvement. Develop educational workshops to enhance learning of core competency.

Progress on Core Competencies

• Critical Thinking - Currently in Stage 3: Education
  The Critical Thinking Advisory Group is meeting regularly to discuss strategies to continue education on campus.  

• Writing - Currently in Stage 2: Data has been collected/Analysis in Progress
  The writing assessment group has continued to progress from the writing work done during the ULO project, utilizing the University Writing Rubric (PDF) created by Brenda Helmbrecht.  
  
  The group collected 135 upper-division writing samples in 2014-15 from GE classes in C4 and D5.  This assessment included 11 different assignments which were each scored twice by a group of 23 faculty.  The data was collected, but it has not been fully analyzed yet.  Results will be reported in the near future.

• Quantitative Reasoning - Currently in Stage 2: Data Collection and Analysis
  The learning community is currently finalizing the rubric and collecting assignments.