Improving Learning at Modesto Junior College

An Assessment Framework for the Community Colleges
Measuring Student Learning and Achievement as a Means of
Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness
As community colleges organize their efforts to use assessment as a means of improvement, there are limited resources making recommendations as to how to do so. The League for Innovation in the Community Colleges has facilitated the production of this whitepaper as a means to help colleges create a master plan for aligning student learning outcomes to strategic planning for the sake of improvement.

"For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap" between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English."

Raoul A. Arreola, University of Tennessee, Memphis
An excellent guide for writing learning objectives. Includes distinctions between goals and objectives, and simple steps to writing objectives.

A Georgia State University website containing excellent tips on written objectives. Content is excerpted from Mager, R.F. (1984). Preparing instructional objectives. (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: David S. Lake.

Inventory of Audio Recordings:
SLO Practices in California Community College Courses and Programs

In October 2006, due to an unexpected response to its statewide promotion, the RP Group doubled capacity for its first ever Student Success: What Counts conference in San Diego, California. Despite the increased capacity, even more CCC faculty and administrators were turned away. For this reason, the MJC Instructional Services Office invested in recordings of all sessions so that MJC staff could access the material. Click here to view the inventory of recordings that will soon be available in the MJC Library.

by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Ever since Education Secretary Margaret Spellings unveiled plans seven weeks ago to overhaul the nation's higher education system, she and her staff have been trying to relieve anxieties. No, she says, she's not suggesting extending into universities President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which she helped design [which] relies heavily on standardized tests. And no, the federal government won't start telling faculty how to do their jobs. No does it intend to rank, rate, or grade institutions. All she wants, Spellings says, is better information made available to families, taxpayers and policymakers so that they can make better decisions about how they spend their money. And given how little is really known about how well students are served by higher education, she says, she doesn't see why anyone would find that unreasonable.

RICHMOND, Ind. — As the longtime resident expert on institutional data at Earlham College, provost Nelson Bingham says he used to feel like the Maytag repairman.

Not anymore. Today, he says, a "culture of assessment" pervades the campus...Bennett says that's part of his motivation for participating in the two assessments. Student learning, he says, is a better measure of quality than those being used in U.S. News & World Report rankings, such as acceptance or alumni giving rates, two areas that hurt Earlham, ranked 65th among national liberal arts colleges. "You show me a playing field that really gets at the value of education, and we'll (show that) we've got the goods," he says.

The SLO Committee has prepared this document to respond to many of the key questions MJC faculty and staff may have about SLOs.

Benjamin Bloom created a taxonomy of measurable verbs to help us describe and classify observable knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors and abilities. The theory is based upon the idea that there are levels of observable actions that indicate something is happening in the brain (cognitive activity.) By creating learning objectives using measurable verbs, you indicate explicitly what the student must do in order to demonstrate learning.

Here are more verbs that Bloom's taxonomy includes, classified in areas of use to MJC faculty, e.g. dramatic behaviors, language behaviors, and social behaviors. It also makes clear what words one should avoid when preparing measurable objectives.

Accounting for Outcomes (Article)
Marshall Drummond, CCC Chancellor
University Bulletin, November 2006

Colleges can close the student achievement gap by focusing on defining problems. CCC Chancellor Marshall Drummond discusses the Equity for All project as a “uniform framework” for measuring student achievement.

In 1995, Barr and Tagg placed an article in Change magazine that immediately inspired discussion and reprinting in newsletters. In this article, Barr and Tagg make the distinction between instruction-centered and learning-centered constructs in education.
(Robert B Barr is director of institutional research and planning and John Tagg is associate professor of English at Palomar College, San Marcos California.)

In this visionary article, Flynn makes makes the case for a paradigm shift in education, drawing on global economic trends, the culture and history of higher education, and the needs of our students. He details meaningful change cannot take place in higher education without the meaningful evaluation of how well learning is woven into our core processes and values.

Accountability is often a word that carries a negative tone in higher education. This study was prepared by a team of professors (including a former community college president), governors, policy makers, and legislators that have "deep experience in higher education policy" makes a compelling case for a meaningful, simpler model of educational improvement geared towards keeping sustaining education programs

A well-written overview of the role of student services and its critical role in the student's emotional and intellectual development. "Today student learning outcomes provide a focus – a way of articulating the intended impact of learning experiences on student growth and development. As a result, they also provide a framework - a structure against which to measure our contribution to student success. Through this continuing effort to improve impact, student learning outcomes influence the structure and delivery of programs and services and help our constituencies, from the students to the public, understand our intentions and affirm the value of our contributions. Generally speaking, then, it is agreed that outcomes are important to us because they help us clarify our contributions to the student experience and promote our contribution to student success."

American University: General Education Objectives
A sample of what general education objectives might look like for students who complete the transferable IGETC and CSU-GE patterns at Modesto Junior College.

This interesting article highlights how specific classroom assessment techniques in Mathematics help ensure active student participation, dialog, and success. Some instructors use similar methods at MJC and find them to be extremely valuable to teaching and learning.




Resources for MJC Faculty and Staff An Assessment Framework for the Community Colleges Measuring Student Learning and Achievement as a Means of Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness As community colleges organize their efforts to use assessment as a means of improvement, there are limited resources making recommendations as to how to do so. The League for Innovation in the Community Colleges has facilitated the production of this whitepaper as a means to help colleges create a master plan for aligning student learning outcomes to strategic planning for the sake of improvement. Accreditation and Accountability Council for Higher Education Accreditation The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) has published 13 papers, advisories, and commentaries on outcomes, performance and public information during the past five years. This document is a distillation of CHEA’s work, summarizing key recommendations, ideas and effective practices for accrediting organizations working with institutions and programs. We hope that these ideas and suggestions are helpful as the accrediting community provides leadership in addressing current accountability challenges. A Test of Leadership Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education A Report of the Commission Appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings How to Bring Our Schools out of the 20th Century By CLAUDIA WALLIS, SONJA STEPTOE, TIME Magazine, Dec.10, 2006 "For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap" between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English." Writing Learning Objectives Raoul A. Arreola, University of Tennessee, Memphis An excellent guide for writing learning objectives. Includes distinctions between goals and objectives, and simple steps to writing objectives. Mager's Tips on Instructional [Learning] Objectives A Georgia State University website containing excellent tips on written objectives. Content is excerpted from Mager, R.F. (1984). Preparing instructional objectives. (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: David S. Lake. Inventory of Audio Recordings: SLO Practices in California Community College Courses and Programs Recorded at the CCC RP Group Student Success conference, October, 2006 In October 2006, due to an unexpected response to its statewide promotion, the RP Group doubled capacity for its first ever Student Success: What Counts conference in San Diego, California. Despite the increased capacity, even more CCC faculty and administrators were turned away. For this reason, the MJC Instructional Services Office invested in recordings of all sessions so that MJC staff could access the material. Click here to view the inventory of recordings that will soon be available in the MJC Library. Should government take a yardstick to colleges? (Article) by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — Ever since Education Secretary Margaret Spellings unveiled plans seven weeks ago to overhaul the nation's higher education system, she and her staff have been trying to relieve anxieties. No, she says, she's not suggesting extending into universities President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which she helped design [which] relies heavily on standardized tests. And no, the federal government won't start telling faculty how to do their jobs. No does it intend to rank, rate, or grade institutions. All she wants, Spellings says, is better information made available to families, taxpayers and policymakers so that they can make better decisions about how they spend their money. And given how little is really known about how well students are served by higher education, she says, she doesn't see why anyone would find that unreasonable. College gets low-down on how students do (Article) by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY RICHMOND, Ind. — As the longtime resident expert on institutional data at Earlham College, provost Nelson Bingham says he used to feel like the Maytag repairman. Not anymore. Today, he says, a "culture of assessment" pervades the campus...Bennett says that's part of his motivation for participating in the two assessments. Student learning, he says, is a better measure of quality than those being used in U.S. News & World Report rankings, such as acceptance or alumni giving rates, two areas that hurt Earlham, ranked 65th among national liberal arts colleges. "You show me a playing field that really gets at the value of education, and we'll (show that) we've got the goods," he says. FAQs about Student Learning Outcomes MJC SLO Committee, Spring 2005, revised, September 2005 The SLO Committee has prepared this document to respond to many of the key questions MJC faculty and staff may have about SLOs. Bloom's Taxonomy of Measurable Verbs Benjamin Bloom created a taxonomy of measurable verbs to help us describe and classify observable knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors and abilities. The theory is based upon the idea that there are levels of observable actions that indicate something is happening in the brain (cognitive activity.) By creating learning objectives using measurable verbs, you indicate explicitly what the student must do in order to demonstrate learning. Bloom's Taxonomy (more) Here are more verbs that Bloom's taxonomy includes, classified in areas of use to MJC faculty, e.g. dramatic behaviors, language behaviors, and social behaviors. It also makes clear what words one should avoid when preparing measurable objectives. Accounting for Outcomes (Article) Marshall Drummond, CCC Chancellor University Bulletin, November 2006 Colleges can close the student achievement gap by focusing on defining problems. CCC Chancellor Marshall Drummond discusses the Equity for All project as a “uniform framework” for measuring student achievement. From Teaching to Learning - A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education (Article) By Robert B. Barr and John Tagg In 1995, Barr and Tagg placed an article in Change magazine that immediately inspired discussion and reprinting in newsletters. In this article, Barr and Tagg make the distinction between instruction-centered and learning-centered constructs in education. (Robert B Barr is director of institutional research and planning and John Tagg is associate professor of English at Palomar College, San Marcos California.) The Search for the Learning-Centered College (Article) William J. Flynn, Palomar College, Vista, California In this visionary article, Flynn makes makes the case for a paradigm shift in education, drawing on global economic trends, the culture and history of higher education, and the needs of our students. He details meaningful change cannot take place in higher education without the meaningful evaluation of how well learning is woven into our core processes and values. Accountability for Better Results: A National Imperative for Higher Education National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education Accountability is often a word that carries a negative tone in higher education. This study was prepared by a team of professors (including a former community college president), governors, policy makers, and legislators that have "deep experience in higher education policy" makes a compelling case for a meaningful, simpler model of educational improvement geared towards keeping sustaining education programs Student Learning Outcomes and Student Development: A Synopsis of the City College Experience Katherine German and Lindy McNight, San Francisco City College A well-written overview of the role of student services and its critical role in the student's emotional and intellectual development. "Today student learning outcomes provide a focus – a way of articulating the intended impact of learning experiences on student growth and development. As a result, they also provide a framework - a structure against which to measure our contribution to student success. Through this continuing effort to improve impact, student learning outcomes influence the structure and delivery of programs and services and help our constituencies, from the students to the public, understand our intentions and affirm the value of our contributions. Generally speaking, then, it is agreed that outcomes are important to us because they help us clarify our contributions to the student experience and promote our contribution to student success." American University: General Education Objectives A sample of what general education objectives might look like for students who complete the transferable IGETC and CSU-GE patterns at Modesto Junior College. Classroom Voting in Mathematics Kelly S. Cline, Carroll College, Helena Montana This interesting article highlights how specific classroom assessment techniques in Mathematics help ensure active student participation, dialog, and success. Some instructors use similar methods at MJC and find them to be extremely valuable to teaching and learning.	Miscellanous SLO Resources for: Learning Resources From ALA Student Services From ACPA Music from NASM Psychology From APA
The content of this page is provided by the MJC Student Learning Outcomes Committee For questions regarding the content of this page contact Letitia Senechal, MJC SLO Facilitator.