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Kingsborough Community College Assessment 

General Education Assessment

Kingsborough Community College is also dedicated to ensuring that all students, regardless of their academic program, are developing general education knowledge and skills. CUNY targets these skills through the Pathways Common Core, a set of course requirements that ensure that each student receives a breadth of common knowledge in addition to specialized knowledge in their major. Many departments offering Pathways courses have a General Education Assessment Liaison who leads the planning and implementation of the assessment projects for evaluating students’ achievement of General Education learning outcomes in their department’s courses.

Kingsborough is currently in the middle of a 5-year assessment cycle for General Education Learning Outcomes, which has been implemented as follows:

      1. Select one Pathways-certified course per year to assess student learning of the Pathways Learning Outcomes
      2. Align the Course Learning Outcomes in that course with the Pathways Learning Outcomes
      3. Select an assignment in that course that best allows students to demonstrate their learning of that Learning Outcome
      4. Conduct an assessment of student learning by evaluating student performance on that assignment
      5. Use the results to prompt a discussion among course or department faculty to discuss changes to the course that will enhance learning of the Pathways Learning Outcome

Developing an Assessment Plan

Assessing Pathways LOs is done on a regular, cyclical schedule. Every five years, all departments with Pathways courses will develop a long-term schedule for assessing Pathways Learning Outcomes. In this plan, each department will select one course per year to assess one Pathways Learning Outcome. The General Education liaison for that department will coordinate with instructors of that course to a) align the CLOs with the Pathways LOs and KCC Institutional Learning Outcomes, b) select one Pathways LO to assess, and c) select an assignment that aligns with the Pathways LO to use for the assessment.

The General Education Assessment Liaison, along with the course instructor(s), will use this information to develop an Assessment Plan for the year, using the Gen Ed Assessment Template. 

Templates, instructions, and schedule

2020-21 Gen Ed Assessment Schedule

Report Template- Mathematical & Quantitative Reasoning

Report Template- Life & Physical Science

Report Template- English

Report Template-Flex Core

 

 What learning outcomes should be included on the syllabus? Program learning outcomes, pathways learning outcomes and/or course learning outcomes?

➢ The syllabus is a communication tool for students, and should list the course learning outcomes. These learning outcomes specify what is taught and assessed in the course. They were approved when the course was approved by the Department, Curriculum Committee and College Council. The course learning outcomes for any specific course are the same for all sections of the course, regardless of the modality or the faculty member, and are included on the syllabus.

What if the course learning outcomes do not represent what is actually being taught?

➢ Departmental faculty should discuss the course and whether it needs revision or whether the course learning outcomes need revision.

What if the course learning outcomes are stated in such a way that it is unclear how to assess it?

➢ Since assessment is an iterative process, course learning outcomes can be revisited and reworded to improve them. These changes do not substantially change the course.

What if there are too many outcomes associated with the course?

➢ Review the outcomes to determine if determine if they are actually course outcomes (the overarching outcomes a student will achieve upon completion of the course) or if they might be course unit outcomes (outcomes specific to student achieving content knowledge about a particular topic)

What if the SLOs on the Pathways submission form do not match up with the Departmental syllabus?

➢ It is possible that the Department has clarified the course learning outcomes since the Pathways submission. Do the changes reflect actual changes in the particular outcomes that were chosen for Pathways, or just a clarification of what was previously submitted? Do the changes reflect actual changes in the course itself? Departmental faculty should discuss the course and whether it needs revision or whether the changes are significant enough for a new Pathways submission

What if the Department does not have a record of the Pathways submission (this may be especially true for courses that were approved as soon as Pathways was implemented)?

➢ Use the Department’s most current course syllabus and course learning outcomes when completing the General Education Assessment Template.

Do we conduct the assessment in all sections in the Spring semester or just a sampling of those sections?

➢ The goal is to maintain a manageable sample size while reducing sampling error as much as possible. There are a number of considerations to take into account in determining a sample size and sampling method, including, but not limited to the following:

  • The number of students enrolled in the course or program

  • The length and complexity of the assessment measure/rubric/scoring tool and assignment/artifact

  • If the assessment measure has been collected before or pilot tested

  • The number of faculty members who will be involved in evaluating student work

  • If the work will be assessed by individual instructors, or whether work will be collected and assessed by a group of faculty raters