Review of Instructional Programs

Learning Outcomes Assessment — next steps in QE

Program assessment is about how the program fulfills its goals,
not about individual students or their grades.
Some of the same artifacts instructors grade
can be selected to evaluate program outcomes.

As a public institution and an accredited college, we are accountable for meeting the goals of our educational programs, both in content delivered and in quality of student learning. While faculty regularly assess students within their classes, our larger goal is to see that students connect the dots of their separate courses to become educated people in a more holistic sense. As educators, we are their guides in achieving this.

CTC offers more than twenty career and technical program areas, as well as an academic core that provides a foundation for an associate degree here or transfer to a 4-year college or university to pursue a bachelor's degree. The current Program Review project focuses on instructional goals of each career program certificate and AAS degree, and takes a holistic look at the general education provided by the core curriculum for AA degrees and transfer. The Program Review Manual provides the rationale, process, and report outline for reviews that are designed to re-examine program need, purposes, instructional focus, and achievement, to refresh our curriculum and educational process.

Assessment of student learning is one aspect of program review. For full program reviews, instructional units triangulate this with self-study, advisory board, employer needs and satisfaction information, student evaluations and self-report information, matriculation to baccalaureate programs, and graduates' performance on any professional certification exams.

A foundation for effective program assessment includes specific mapping of program goals with the various course goals and competencies, including knowledge, skills and abilities students should gain during their college education. Program maps will enable us to analyze how we are delivering on the educational outcomes we aspire to for our students.

Program maps are developed with an eye toward improving formative measures of student progress and summative measures of student success. These measures typically take place in courses, and we will plan to sample across CTC's campuses to profile program effectiveness.

The formative assessments are part of the feedback loop that departments worked with in their QEP projects. The intent of feedback loops was to foster more successful students and provide faculty with valuable information for curricular and instructional decision making—the Evidence-Based Decisions (EBDs).

The office of Learning Outcomes Assessment is working with instructional departments on the program mapping and assessment sampling. We can also provide assistance in developing any survey research that departments would value.

• Jane Zimmerman, Director, Learning Outcomes Assessment
• September 2011