last modified:2009-04-01 11:54:05
General Education Assessment Pilot Spring 2009
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General Education Assessment Pilot, Undergraduate Studies, Spring 2009
Pilot Summary - The University of Utah’s Undergraduate Council recently endorsed a set of “Essential Learning Outcomes” (ELO’s) (see attached) for their General Education program. The State of Utah’s General Education Task Force also recently endorsed these ELO’s at a conference with representatives from each state higher education institution present.
The University of Utah is piloting an assessment of these outcomes in the spring of 2009. During this pilot faculty will be asked to provide the following information for one course that meets a General Education requirement:
1. List the name and number of the course and the General Education requirement you would like to assess it for (Applied Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities, Physical and Life Sciences, or Social and Behavioral Sciences). If it meets more than one, list those as well, but specify for which requirement it is being assessed.
2. Select at least three ELO’s from at least two of the four major categories (1. Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World, 2. Intellectual and Practical Skills, 3. Personal and Social Responsibility, and 4. Integrative Learning) that your students will achieve.
3. Identify a “signature assignment” which will allow students to demonstrate their achievement of each of the outcomes selected in step 2.
4. After the signature assignments have been turned in and graded, provide a simple table or description of results for each of the ELO's selected which shows the percentage of students in the course who accomplished each outcome at the following levels:
4 - Exemplary achievement of outcome
3 - Satisfactory achievement of outcome
2 - Less than satisfactory achievement of outcome
1 - Little to no achievement of outcome
These levels can be defined subjectively by the instructor, who might simply indicate that an A is a 4, a B is a 3, etc….
5. Provide one example of a "4 - Exemplary" assignment for each of the three or more ELO’s you selected.[1] Also provide a brief critique/explanation of what characteristics made the student work exemplary. This blurb will be presented with the student work in an electronic portfolio for your course.
Evaluating Course Data – After the above information is collected from faculty participating in the pilot, it will be placed in an electronic portfolio format on a web page so that you and a handful of administrators from the relevant requirement committee and/or Undergraduate Council can review the data and give feedback on it. The data will be password protected and not be made available to the general public. This review will not impact the standing of the course in any way. This phase of the project is purely an exploration of the design of the assessment.
Benefits of Participation - So that faculty realize the context of what their participation in this General Education Assessment pilot will result in, consider this: When the above information is available for each of the courses that meet each of our General Education requirements (this will take a number of years to accomplish), the Undergraduate Council and/or General Education area committees will be able to do the following analyses:
- Assess the content of each General Education requirement by randomly choosing 10 courses and looking at the assignments students are completing that meet the overall Gen Ed Essential Learning Outcomes (ELO's). This would be a content validity review in which committee members review the examples of exemplary work and reflect on whether they believe this is the appropriate work students should be doing to accomplish the goals of the General Education requirement.
- Assess our overall Gen Ed program, as defined by the Essential Learning Outcomes (ELO’s), by randomly choosing 10 signature assignments for each of the four ELO’s. This will give the committees an idea of how each of those outcomes is being achieved across all of our Gen Ed programs. For example, we might find that there is not enough Integrative Learning (one of the ELO’s) happening or that the quality/content of the work in that area is not what we want or expect.
- Based on the descriptions of exemplary student work, the University will be able to describe in detail what students are doing to accomplish each of the General Education requirements, what percentage are achieving each outcome at each of the defined levels, and what the characteristics of a successful outcome look like in each area.
- Finally, if the other campuses in the Utah System of Higher Education adopt the ELO's and begin to assess them similar reports/analyses can be run across the whole system. In addition, it will be easier for administrators to articulate courses and the achievement of General Education requirements across institutions.
If you are interested in participating in this pilot and improving the assessment of General Education at the University of Utah, please write Mark St. Andre at mark dot standre at utah dot edu or call him at 585-9876. Thank you! See below for a description of the Essential Learning Outcomes.
University of Utah, General Education Program
Learning Outcomes[2]
By completing the University of Utah’s General Education program (American Institutions, Quantitative Reasoning (QA and QB, or QR), Lower Division Writing, Applied Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities, Physical and Life Sciences, or Social and Behavioral Sciences), students will be prepared for twenty-first-century challenges by gaining:
A. Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
1. Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring
B. Intellectual and Practical Skills, including
2. Inquiry and analysis
3. Critical thinking
4. Creative thinking
5. Written communication
6. Oral communication
7. Quantitative literacy
8. Information literacy
9. Teamwork
10. Problem solving
Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance
C. Personal and Social Responsibility, including
11. Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global
12. Intercultural knowledge and competence
13. Ethical reasoning and action
14. Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges
D. Integrative Learning
15. Integrative learning, including synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies
Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings
and complex problems
[1] Please ask those three students whose work you select for their permission to a) submit their work as an example of exemplary work. Please leave students’ names off the work unless you ask their permission to include it.
[2] American Association of Colleges and Universities, Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) Essential Learning Outcomes, 2008.