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DATE: November 8, 2000

SUBJECT: Assessment of Student Learning Committee Minutes

PRESENT: Dian Lopez (Chair), Edith Borchardt, Stephen Burks, Eric Klinger, Tim O'Keefe, Engin

Sungur, and Andy Uttke

ABSENT: Nancy Mooney, Lisa Perkins

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The meeting began at 4:00 PM in the Prairie Lounge with the approval of the ASL Minutes. A copy of the ASL Minutes dated 4/26/00 was reviewed by the committee members and approved. The minutes dated 9/27/00 were approved. The 10/23/00 minutes were approved with two corrections: Tim O'Keefe will chair the General Education Subcommittee and the Unit Assessment Subcommittee will be chaired by Stephen Burkes.

Lopez announced good news from Sam Schuman concerning the NCA report. He said the assessment was reviewed and the "favorable report and recommendation goes without qualification or exception to the

Institutional Actions Council and then to the Board of Trustees for final validation." Dian said this sounds like we have no further worries about a 5-year report to the NCA.

Lopez said that the Unit Self Reviews, which are mandated by the Senate, will begin again but since the new Academic Dean will be coming, he/she should have input on how/when this should be done.

Each subcommittee reported on their individual sub-committee meetings.

Committee Members: Tim O'Keefe (Chair), Engin Sungur, Nancy Mooney

The committee identified 2 or 3 hypotheses for each requirement from the list of hypotheses, which are available from the survey on-line at http://www.morris.umn.edu/committees/asl/genedfaculty/genedfaculty.html

The committee decided to survey particular faculty who teach each Gen Ed requirement about which hypotheses regarding that requirement they wanted to teach. Those e-mails will go out at the end of this week. Based on the response, the committee will decide which hypotheses to test, and draft assessment methods. This should all be done by the next committee meeting.

Sungur said that we have assessment plans drafted for 3 of the GenEd requirements: College Writing, Historical Perspectives, and Abstract Systems. It was decided to contact the relevant people and start

implementing the plans that had already been agreed upon. The committee discussed the exit surveys of seniors concerning the GenEd requirements (the results of which are on the web) and decided that continuation of these surveys could be a major part of assessing GenEd requirements.

Committee Members: Dian Lopez (Chair), Edith Borchardt, student (to be named)

Lopez and Borchardt met. Since the Assessment of Student Learning is still waiting for a student replacement, no student could be present for the sub-committee meeting. Lopez distributed to each committee member a summary of their meeting. The main points of the meeting are as follows:

1. Establish criteria for evaluating portfolio material, it should be simple and numerical, therefore easy and fast to use.
2. It was the subcommittee thoughts that the students could self-evaluate their materials by writing a senior essay on how they have changed in fours years, and how UMM has changed and shaped their lives. This could be part of their assessment material.
3. First Year Seminar is the logical place to begin using an electronic portfolio. This is a course that almost all students take. It is known in advance who will be teaching the course, and these faculty are meeting the spring before teaching it, so it would be easy to "teach them" how to use the electronic portfolio. Such classes could be given by the Faculty Center and/or possibly made a part of the Fall Workshop.
4. Lopez said we need to find out more about other people/places that are using the electronic portfolio and obtain ideas from them. This will help us make a decision on whether to use portfolios. Lopez will talk to her contacts on the Duluth campus regarding:

a) How to use it effectively

b) How to train others to use it

c) How to keep the workload to a minimum.

5. It would be good to ask faculty how they are assessing/keeping student work. The questionnaire would begin by explaining that "the NCA has asked us to provide assessment data from entrance to exit of a student. One way of doing this is for the student to keep an electronic portfolio. Questionnaire could include such questions as:

1. How are you storing any student homework you now keep?
2. Do you ever collect electronic assignments?
3. Would it be easy for you to ask your students to put certain assignments into their electronic portfolio?
4. Can you see yourself making use of electronic portfolios for your students?
5. If you did use an electronic portfolio approach, what types of material would you ask students to keep?

Klinger suggested that using the portfolio be made voluntary. It could be required of FYS students and then faculty could decide whether they wanted to use this form of keeping assessment material.

Committee members: Stephen Burkes (Chair), Eric Klinger, Andy Uttke

Burks reviewed the Unit Assessment Subcommittee meeting

1. The subcommittee suggests to investigate ETS exam scores, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, GRE, etc. The sub-committee thought that they could go to Nancy Mooney for this information. The committee thought they could obtain this information from the people who set up the test (unless to expensive) for individual test scores. It would be helpful if figures could be provided to track performance over time.
2. Identification of what disciplines, individual scores by name.
3. Obtain a report from Career Center, feedback on graduate students. It would be a useful tool to receive a sample report from the Career Center.
4. Investigate what each discipline is doing in a senior capstone project. As a campus, have the Faculty rate the project on a standard form.

Lopez said that each subcommittee had good ideas and things to do. Information should be collected from each Discipline on what each is doing for Senior Project and Senior Seminar. Lopez will contact the coordinator of each Discipline and ask what they are doing for the Senior project., if a course project is required, and ask it to be explained with a short description. Nancy Mooney will be contacted on the standardized tests students take and also check with the Career Center on the method used for exiting students. Lopez asked that subcommittee to take into consideration suggestions from the committee members, and meet before the next ASL meeting on December 6. Klinger suggested a simple e-mail requesting a reply on Seminar, Research project, Senior Capstone Project, and other be sent to disciplines requesting information. Lopez said the Unit Assessment plans should be reviewed, can they be streamlined? Lopez said that whatever is decided, we must be very careful not to dictate our plans on any unit. Our main purpose is to help them with the assessment process in any way that we can.

The next meeting will be December 6th, 4:00-5:30 PM in the Student Center Conference Room.

Meeting adjourned at 5:25 PM.