Response to Recommendations of the 2002 Visiting Team
Develop measures of relative program effectiveness based upon demonstrable student learning and employ them as part of the enrollment management plan.
Response to Recommendation 1
In 2002, the Commission’s Action Letter noted that CSULB had not developed “data [on student learning] into systematic evidence to be aligned with questions of effectiveness, nor has it developed a framework for raising such questions.” The letter further noted that areas related to planning programming, and assessment were not “clearly vested in specific structures or individuals, resulting in dysjunctures in institutional governance and evaluation.” In response to these concerns and ongoing challenges regarding integrating program review and assessment, the Academic Senate worked with the Division of Academic Affairs to completely overhaul program review policy and practices and to establish clear guidelines for program assessment. The results of Program reviews are used to drive the approval of faculty searches and, thus, the growth or shrinkage of particular programs.
Support the training and development of course-specific assessment of measurable learning objectives. Collect these measures regularly and consistently and analyze them appropriately. Expect programs to use the results of these assessments to initiate experimental changes in pedagogy or curriculum intended to improve learning. Review the results of such experiments and continue to effect changes to create an authentic culture of continuous improvement.
Response to Recommendation 2
All degree programs at CSULB are implementing a faculty-endorsed time line for the assessment of student learning outcomes, with reports provided annually to deans and central academic administrators. Beginning in 2005-06, a plan for or an update of student learning was a required component of all periodic program review. Each college has designated a coordinator responsible for ensuring the assessment of program and course learning outcomes, with funding allocated to support faculty efforts. The Director for Assessment and Program Review, together with the College Assessment Coordinators, review the departmental annual assessment reports to document how programs have made changes based on evidence of student learning. These reports will then become part of each program’s Program Review. We need to assess how readily programs make curricular and instructional changes based on actual evidence of student learning.
Develop clear learning outcomes for the general education of all students, become more intentional about how general education is to achieve these outcomes, develop ways of monitoring student progress across courses, and develop methods by which results of learning assessments affect curricular decision making.
Response to Recommendation 3
The CSULB GE policy identifies ten key learning outcomes and defines guidelines for on-going program-level assessment. For each of these ten learning outcomes, the responsible faculty come together to identify current pedagogical practices and to examine their effectiveness for student learning. The process, entitled GEtogether, began in spring 2006 with an interdisciplinary discussion about best practices in courses designed to address the learning outcome of “fostering respect for human diversity.” The goal of the first GEtogether process is for faculty to create common pedagogical practices, incorporate them in a variety of human diversity courses, assess their impact on learning, and tease out best practices to benefit all GE human diversity courses. We anticipate that, in a cascading effect, every GE outcome will be brought into this process within a three-year time frame. Faculty who teach GE courses will collectively examine samples of student work to map desired learning outcomes to specific elements of instructional activities. The best practices identified through this on-going plan will inform the evaluation and recertification of General Education courses. Although preliminary results will be available for incorporation into the Capacity and Preparatory Review, very substantial results will be addressed in the Educational Effectiveness Review, by which time we expect every GE outcome to have been brought into this process.
Systematically extend this culture of evidence to other educational programs across the campus.
Response to Recommendation 4
The University has launched its culture of evidence campaign campus-wide rather than program by program, thinking that we could move more quickly college by college rather than program by program. Thus, as described in our response to the second recommendation, we have provided each college with a program coordinator, and each college has funds to invest in assessment activities. In all cases, programs and colleges are asked to employ data from student learning outcomes assessment in their annual reports as well as in their self-studies for program review. Following every program review, there is a Memorandum of Understanding between the program, the college and Academic Affairs that is a factor in resource allocation and new faculty allocations.
