GE Minutes 10-07-2011

Snow College Ad Hoc General Education Assessment Committee
October 7, 2011
In attendance: Terri Carr (for Tracie Bradley), Mel Jacobsen,
Cozette Roberts (for LaFaun Barnhurst), Clinton King, Joseph
Papenfuss, Melanie Jenkins, Jeff Carney (chair), Rick White (ex
officio)

MINUTES

Clinton moved, with Mel Jacobsen seconding, that minutes from
9.23.2011 be approved. Joseph, Jeff, Clinton, and Mel Jacobsen
voted to approve the minutes. Cozette and Terri abstained.
Melanie was not yet in attendance.

MATH

Jeff reported that he had met with Mel Jacobsen, Kari Arnoldsen,
Jonathan Bodrero, and Omel Contreras in the Math Department to
discuss the assessment of the computational reasoning outcome.
The result was a plan to identify specific outcomes for Math
1030, 1040, and 1050.
For 1030 and 1040, one hurdle is the fact that instructors have
some freedom to tailor course content and evaluations of student
performance to their personal styles. The solution is to embed
common questions in exams given in all sections of these classes.
By semester's end, these KPI questions should yield an wealth of
data about the learning of all students in those courses.
Math 1050 already administers a departmental exam. The
department will ensure that the exam does in fact contain
questions that address key learning outcomes for the course. An
additional KPI is performance of former 1050 students in higherlevel
math courses. This can easily be tracked.
A supplemental KPI for all three classes will be a qualitative
instrument (as yet unidentified) asking students if they believe
their understanding of math has improved as a result of their GE
Math experience.
For the current year, Math has decided that an appropriate
performance target is that 70% of students will answers the KPI
questions correctly 70% of the time.
oseph moved, with Clinton seconding, that this plan be
recommended for approval by the Curriculum Committee. With
Melanie still not in attendance, the motion passed unanimously.

WRITING

Melanie reported that the English Department has already
implemented an assessment plan that will carry through the
academic year.
All ENGL 1010 students were administered a short, research-type
essay within the first week of Fall Semester. This will happen
again in Spring Semester.
At the end of Fall and Spring Semesters, the final research
project generated by students in ENGL 2010 will be collected.
A sample of pre-program essays and post-program essays will be
evaluated according to the same rubric.
Absolute and relative data will thus be generated.
Pre- and post-course evaluations of writing confidence will also
be administered, as will several qualitative questions appended
to the next set of student course evaluations.
Clinton moved, with Mel Jacobsen seconding, that this plan be
recommended for approval by the Curriculum Committee. With all
in attendance, the motion passed unanimously.

ORAL COMMUNICATION

Jeff indicated that he will speak with the Communications
Department much as he spoke with Math to develop an assessment
plan. Communications will then be invited to discuss the plan
with the committee.

TARGETS

Rick urged all present to remember to establish specific
performance targets when identifying KPIs.