Measuring the Core Competencies – a key indicator model for classroom implementation

This project seeks to ‘get real’ about gathering worthwhile data on student attainment of the core objectives of Critical Thinking, Communication Skills, Empirical & Quantitative Skills, Teamwork, Social Responsibility, and Personal Responsibility.  Given that vast numbers of instructors with widely differing instructional and assessment practices all basically teach to the learning outcomes specified in the college master syllabus, how can we gather routine measures of the abstract competencies defined for the Core Curriculum?  This discussion proposes a model for faculty to discuss, apply, and test in their own courses as they develop their institution’s core syllabi to submit for approval in 2013.

The state requires that courses in each of the Foundational Component areas ‘cover’ several of the Core Objectives, and show that in the master syllabi we will submit for CB approval in November 2013. How will you show evidence that your approved core courses are developing students’ abilities to meet those objectives?  As we develop the course syllabi, we can design the institutional measurement plan as well, creating means to routinely record and report observations of student performance on key indicator assignments. 

This page provides baseline data from May 2012 and updates on pilot efforts of assessment models in development at CTC.  The project proposes to gather models and comments from faculty participants in a one-year project to prototype and test several instruments for core measures in courses.  Faculty can gain insight into how they can easily provide institutional data using their own instructional methods and measures on the abstract objectives of the core. 

See the attachments and web links listed below for more detail.