Chabot College Title Iii Initiative

CHABOT COLLEGE TITLE III INITIATIVE

Focused Inquiry Group (FIG) to Investigate

Core Issues and Practices in the Assessment of Student Learning

FIG Proposal:

Assessing Global and Cultural involvement across the College: Fall 2009

Name of FIG Leader(s)Division or Department

Carolyn ArnoldInstitutional Research

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PhoneE-mail

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Which of the Title III Comprehensive Development Plan Goals does this FIG address?

Increase success and persistence in developmental courses.

Increase success and persistence in courses supported by learning support services.

Develop student learning outcomes and appropriate assessments at the course, program and college level.

Maintain and increase enrollment by increasing persistence.

Narrative describing your proposed inquiry project.

What is the problem at the heart of your investigation?

Global and Cultural Involvement (G&ÇI) is one of our College-wide Learning Outcomes (CLOs). During 2008-09, a FIG developed ways of assessing the CLO of Critical Thinking across disciplines, using 2 common rubrics.

In contrast to critical thinking, which most faculty feel that they are teaching in their classes, only 28 courses were listed as having SLOs that assessed Global and Cultural Involvement. In addition, there are about 100 other catalog courses, in a wide range of disciplines, whose titles or content indicate that global or cultural involvement is being taught in some way.

This FIG addresses the problem of assessing Global and Cultural Involvement at Chabot across disciplines and across the campus. This FIG would develop a way to determine the type and amount of Global and Cultural Involvement that is being learned by Chabot students in any courses that claim to teach it. In the process, we will identify how many Chabot courses in which this CLO is being taught and how much is being learned, so that the faculty can determine whether more of a focus on this CLO is needed across the curriculum. This is an example of “faculty collaboratively examining evidence of student learning to analyze patterns of student strength and weakness and develop responses.”

How have you arrived at these questions?

The Fall 2007 student survey showed that 74 percent of Chabot students believe that they have made some or a lot of progress in “understanding diverse philosophies, cultures, and ways of life” at Chabot and 70 percent have made some or a lot of progress in “becoming informed about current issues that affect the US and the world” at Chabot. This project is designed to use faculty assessment of student levels of global and cultural involvement in a range of courses to validate the students’ sense of learning in this area. In addition, this project will develop common rubrics to use for this CLO and discuss assessment results and what they mean for the teaching and learning of global and cultural involvement at Chabot.

What are your plans for investigating these issues?

Plans - tasksDetails/comments

1) IR will identify and recruit instructors who are teaching courses that include these themes. / The courses, and the instructors teaching in Fall 2009, have already been identified.
2) Instructors in this pilot group will identify or develop a G&CI student learning outcome for their course, and identify an assignment in which to assess G&CI. / Since most of the SLOs and content areas are about awareness rather than involvement, part of the discussion will be to determine a range of acceptable types of SLOs in this area. In addition, faculty involved in Service Learning will help articulate SLOs related to involvement.
3) Instructors will develop common rubrics with which to assess their diverse SLOs. / This will take place in a facilitated discussion group. This will be the most challenging part, unless there are rubrics from other colleges that have already been developed.
4) Instructors will assess their students by the end of the semester, and enter their data into eLumen.
5) The group will meet at the end of the semester to discuss their results. They will discuss both the aggregate and individual results, and what this means for the teaching and learning of G&CI in their courses and at Chabot. / This discussion will include an evaluation of the process of developing common rubrics, the usefulness of the rubric content, and recommendations for the use of these rubrics to assess this CLO in the future.
6) During the end of semester meeting, the group will plan how they will share their experiences and insights during the next semester to help other faculty assess G&CI or other college-wide learning outcomes.

Who will be involved?

The FIG leader, Carolyn Arnold, is the faculty Coordinator of Institutional Research, and is on the SLOAC committee. She has been researching various ways of assessing college-wide learning outcomes, and has been instrumental in training staff to use the District assessment software, so that assessments of course-, program- and college-level student learning outcomes can be recorded for the college and discussed among faculty.

The faculty will be recruited from among the courses with G&CI SLOs, and courses with G&CI titles or content.

FIG Leader: Carolyn Arnold, Institutional Research

Potential FIG Participants (those teaching Fall 09 courses that include G&CI SLOs or content)

Christina Milner-Rose Anthropology

Ameena SaeedAnthropology/Sociology

Diane ZulianiArt & Humanities

Debra HowellBiology

Janice NovakBusiness

Dmitriy KalyaginBusiness

Catherine PinkasBusiness

Noureddine LalamiBusiness

Donna GibsonChemistry

Jason AmesCommunication Studies

Christine WardaCommunication Studies

Hilal OzdemirEarly Childhood Devel

Shoshanna TennEnglish

Julie SegedyEnglish

Irene PlunkettEnglish

Mark SalinasEthnic Studies

Zakia IsadEthnic Studies

Diana KuoChinese

Roger ZhangChinese

Carren ParrishFrench

Mario D'OnofrioItalian

Yoshiko ClarkJapanese

Francisco ZermeñoSpanish

Ilva SalmancaSpanish

Janet French-RafaelSpanish

E. Anderes Solomon Geography

Myron GershensonGeography

Donald PlondkeGeography

Mark StephensHistory

John ParenteHumanities

Keary KensingerHumanities

Christine GillisNursing

Charlotte LofftNursing

Zahra MofidiNursing

Patricia ShannonPhilosphy

Vallejean DalePsych Counseling

Carey HarbinPsych Counseling

Ramon ParadaPsych Counseling

Sadaf AshrafPsych Counseling

Richard DinwiddieReligious

Julie WulferdingenReligious

Nanette DadzieSign Language

Michael CheungSign Language

Susan TongSociology

Ann Le PellTheatre Arts

How do you intend to organize the Inquiry, and what do you think it will cost?

The group will meet three times – the first two early in the semester - once to discuss the SLOs and identify the range and common themes in the SLOs; a second time to clarify and discuss the use of the rubrics in the assessment process. Then, near the end of the semester, they will meet a third time to share and discuss their assessment results. Each faculty member is responsible for developing or using an assignment or test that demonstrates a global and cultural involvement SLO in their class, and helping to develop or choose a rubric to assess it. This may involve individual meetings with the FIG leader as needed. They will then assess their students and either enter their data into eLumen, or provide both individual and aggregated data to the FIG leader in time for the late-in-the-semester meeting. During this meeting, the group will discuss their individual results and the aggregated results, what the results mean for estimating the status of the learning of global and cultural involvement at Chabot, and what, if any, steps need to be taken to improve that status.

They will also start planning how they will share their experiences so that they can help other faculty use these rubrics or develop others to assess global and cultural involvement. In addition, they will share how they developed the rubrics, so they can help their colleagues assess other college-wide learning outcomes during the following semester Flex day activities.

Budget

FIG Leader Stipend: $563

Faculty Special Assignment Rate of $46.92

Hours billed for participation in pilot based on following work expectations Hour limits

• Developing assessment package of SLO/Assessment activity/rubric:2

• Attending 2 meetings to discuss SLOs and rubrics2

• Entering assessment results in assessment software (2) or sending in data (1) 1-2

• Attending the last meeting to discuss the results1

• Writing up experience/results1

• Planning/participating in Spring 2010 Flex Day training activities2

Total potential hrs/faculty:9-10 hrs Total potential $$/faculty: Up to $469.28

Total Budget:

Fig Leader Stipend:$563

10 faculty x $469.28=4,693

Total Budget:$ 5,256