Minutes of the Seventh AMCOA Meeting, January 19, 2012

Prepared by Kerry McNally

Host Campus: MassBay Community College, Wellesley Hills Campus

I. Attendance

The seventh AMCOA meeting was hosted by MassBay Community College (MBCC), Wellesley Hills from 10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on January 19, 2012. Representatives from 23 institutions attended the meeting (See list in Appendix A), and Peggy Maki, Consultant under the Davis Educational Foundation Grant awarded to the Department of Higher Education, opened and chaired the meeting.

Peggy thanked MBCC for hosting the meeting.

II. Welcome, Dr. John O’Donnell, President, MassBay Community College

President O’Donnell welcomed the AMCOA Team to his campus and said that it was fitting to have an assessment meeting on the same day that MBCC is holding a Strategic Planning Day for the campus. MBCC and AMCOA are both developing a culture of assessment.

Massachusetts has the right policy statement with The Vision Project, encompassing student learning, but preparing them for careers needed by employers. The message is that we will educate the best workforce in the nation. The Vision Project goal is: “We will produce the best-educated citizenry and workforce in the nation. We will be a national leader in research that drives economic development.”

How do we bring this policy statement down to professors and students? This is the important work that AMCOA is doing. Dr. O’Donnell said that he

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recently went to the Pinning Ceremony at MassBay’s School of Nursing, where he heard three nurses say that they are practicing nursing based on viewing evidence. Empiricists look at data, literature, and draw conclusions. Student assessment follows a similar path.

Thank you for the time and work you are giving to this important project and welcome to MassBay Community College.

III. February Conference Update: Elise Martin, Conference Co-chair More than 100 people as of January 19th had registered for the UMass

Lowell AMCOA conference on February 9th. There are 21 presentations. There are a number of institutions presenting: Bunker Hill Community

College, Holyoke Community College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, MassBay Community College, Middlesex Community College, Northern Essex Community College, Quinsigamond Community College, University of Massachusetts Boston, and University of Massachusetts Lowell.

There are six session rooms that seat 30 people each, and there is one room that seats 15 people.

Elise is holding off assigning rooms until about a week before the conference, when the number of people registered for each session will become more apparent.

There are seven concurrent full presentations, while there are two Poster Sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon.

IV. Update and Questions: Commissioner Richard Freeland, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

The Commissioner said that the important goal of higher education in Massachusetts right now is improving teaching and learning. He thanked the group for coming together on this issue, and specifically thanked Mo, Bonnie and Neal’s leadership and Peggy Maki’s guidance.

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Where are we now? How will we move forward? There are two phases to the AMCOA Project:

1) How can the system of public higher education support campuses to improve education?

2) The WGSLOA goal – Can we build on strong campuses to develop assessment programs at a system level?

Regarding the Phase 2 report on WGSLOA, the Board approved as a working idea the State’s seeking status from the American Association of College and Universities (AAC&U) to become a LEAP State and develop a system-wide program to improve the system’s education. Pat Crosson worked on our application with the Presidents, Provosts and campuses. A draft proposal was sent to Presidents and Provosts asking them to let the Commissioner know if our institutions should pursue LEAP status as a system. The question was: Will your campus participate? The overall response was positive. No responses were negative to the idea of seeking LEAP status. Some campuses said that it is not appropriate for their type of work, but they had a positive response to it.

We will submit the proposal to the Board and then to LEAP. AAC&U is well disposed to the work being done in Massachusetts. It sees Massachusetts as being well ahead of the curve. AAC&U doesn’t like standardized tests because they over quantify and simplify assessment. The question is: How can you report results of embedded assessment? AAC&U is interested in this question. Pat Crosson and I will go to Washington, DC, to talk about our State assessment plans. I am confident that AAC&U will give Massachusetts a positive response.

I am open to ideas on how to flesh out the LEAP role that Massachusetts will play. The Presidents have said: “This is good, but it’s a lot of work.” We have to figure out how to do it without getting in the way of campus teaching and learning. Maybe an organizational body of the campuses that said they want to be part of LEAP will be created. We need to organize all of this.

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In addition to that, we must coordinate with other states we have reached out to. There are about seven or eight states that have the same questions and concerns that Massachusetts has. After becoming a LEAP state, we will move to a new level of work with a new level of complexity with other state partners.

AMCOA is doing its work. I am thrilled at the level of quality of the presentations and the sharing. I am also pleased with Peggy Maki’s work. The AMCOA project’s goal is to foster true system-wide learning on assessment. We are doing it with conferences, meetings and Peggy’s consulting.

Now, how does this relate to Phase II of the AMCOA Project? We are at an inflection point. How do we keep going with this work? Do we have more meetings and conferences, or is there another way to continue this work? Where do we go with the AMCOA group?

The second big issue is: We have a genuine learning group in the AMCOA Team. In a way, we are preaching to the choir. Most of the AMCOA Team is strongly invested in assessment. AMCOA’s goal now should be in influencing change deeper into the faculty work system-wide. How do we do that? How does AMCOA do it? For example, the Assessment Retreat at MassBay Community College on January 10th invited people from the public Massachusetts campuses and from private institutions. How do we best move forward based on models such as MassBay’s? I would like the AMCOA Team to talk about this. It would help me to hear positive and constructive suggestions as we plan next year’s work.

There is a continuing role for the AMCOA group in Phase II, but it should be interactive with the new LEAP organization. We are creating the proposal to the Davis Foundation now for Phase II funding. Pat Crosson feels that AMCOA should continue the work it is doing, supporting campus assessment and acting as a great sounding board for the new LEAP group.

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The Commissioner then asked the Team: Where do you see the AMCOA group moving forward?

Chris Cratsley, Fitchburg State University: He envisions continuing to offer conferences and meetings because they are an opportunity to learn what other campuses are doing. That has to continue, maybe in the form of an annual system-wide conference to share best practices. AMCOA is a source of details about what others are doing on their campuses, including a forum to share forms of resistances. The details are important. Maybe there could be published case studies or a website with courses and descriptions showing how assessment works.

Maureen Sowa, Bristol Community College: Mo suggested an assessment database and case studies with best and worst practices at the core level and in the courses. We should have a site with space for the 28 campuses to post on these assessment issues. It would be a way to consolidate and centralize the ideas.

Ellen Wentland, Northern Essex Community College: I would like a way to link what the campuses are doing on assessment to my campus.

David Leavitt, Bunker Hill Community College: AMCOA has done good work on assessment. The conferences are heavy on presenters though. It is hard to get faculty to take the time to go to conferences. Maybe AMCOA could travel to the campuses to reach faculty and particularly the adjuncts. AMCOA could create a Professional Development Day around assessment for the faculty, so they would not have to travel for hours across the state.

Maureen Sowa, Bristol Community College: Maybe we could have better scheduling of meetings. Faculty members in the community colleges are teaching five courses and have a very hard time scheduling meetings or conferences.

Richard Freeland, DHE: How do you integrate assessment work into faculty workloads?

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John Savage, Middlesex Community College: I see AMCOA as a resource to advise other campuses on assessment.

Roger Johnston, Massasoit Community College: There are 75-85% adjuncts teaching at the community colleges. The best assessment is done with the full-timers. How do you bring the adjuncts into the process?

Maureen Sowa, Bristol Community College: I am concerned about templates. A one-size-fits-all template is not necessarily true. There are gateway courses, tool kits that include assessment methodologies. A one-size-fits-all template might cause resistance.

Neal Bruss, UMass Boston: Spoken to Richard Freeland – Are you getting what you need from us to write the Phase II Davis Grant? Our meetings and agendas have to be carefully planned and in sequence, so we know where we are going. Neal attended a UMass Dartmouth video conference, which he found useful. He suggested that maybe it is time to use technologies such as video conferencing to spread the assessment message.

Felix Wao, Bridgewater State University: I am pro-template. They reflect what the minimum requirement is. If they are measurable, show the possible measures, outcomes, and close the loop, they can probably work. When templates define general minimum standards, they are good.

Elise Martin, Middlesex Community College: Elise said that SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching, Assessment and Learning) and assessment are moving in parallel ways. She recommended SOTL to the AMCOA Team as a possible worthwhile resource.

Richard Freeland, DHE: So we could incorporate techniques; groups going to other campuses; and campuses helping each other.

Maureen Sowa, Bristol Community College: Would it be possible to have an AMCOA site on the Department of Higher Education website? Yammer is

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dense and its feed style buries information as soon as new feeds are added. If there were an AMCOA website focusing on assessment and learning, it would be an easier way to find resources.

John Savage, Middlesex Community College: To engage the faculty at Middlesex CC the college had union reps help them so that this work became contractual.

Richard Freeland, DHE: We will have an AMCOA and a LEAP structure. AMCOA has a realm of activity independent of LEAP, but there should be some overlap between the two. Some of the LEAP members should come from AMCOA.

Maureen Sowa, Bristol Community College: AMCOA campus strategies flow up into a LEAP model.

Richard Freeland, DHE: I want the best possible program on each campus. Then, we can build a system-level on top of that.

David Leavitt, Bunker Hill Community College: AMCOA and LEAP need to communicate. That would involve more work.

Richard Freeland again thanked the Team for all its work and said that he will continue to support AMCOA. He emphasized that he welcomed the input from the Team and was always willing to hear it.

Pat Crosson, Senior Advisor for Academic Policy, DHE: On the Lumina Project: There is some money, not a lot, for the DHE and two campuses that would be part of a dyad. We are entering this program late, so as not to conflict with AMCOA and the agenda of WGSLOA. Assessment is an important issue for AAC&U’s April meeting. Every state and its team are represented. It is important that we be there. It is a chance to have a voice in the parameters. I am pleased to learn that we have more flexibility in how we participate in the Lumina project. We choose one community college and one four-year institution that are willing to be part of this process. I have heard

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from two schools already based on what has been written in the press. I open up this opportunity to the group and to all of the campuses. Each campus will receive $40,000 each over the duration of the project.

Pat Crosson’s memo to the AMCOA Team is attached as Appendix B.

V. Presentation and Questions about PARCC: Francesca Purcell, Associate Commissioner for Academic and P-16 Policy, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Francesca Purcell filled in for Aundrea Kelley, Deputy Commissioner for P-16 Policy and Collaborative Initiatives, who is recuperating from knee replacement surgery. A copy of the PARCC presentation and handouts are attached as Appendix C.

Francesca opened by thanking the group for the opportunity to meet with them. She said that the PARCC initiative intersects closely with the work of the Vision Project in the area of college participation and ultimately in the readiness of our students to succeed as measured by the approaches to learning assessment that the AMCOA Team is working on.

1. The PARCC initiative provides a rare opportunity for states – individually and collectively – to reach a common definition of what it means to be college ready and to come to agreement on an approach to assess college readiness. The presentation touched on why these goals are important and describes how all of us can play a role in helping Massachusetts define college readiness and establish college-ready performance levels.2. Looking at national data, Massachusetts is doing fairly well in terms of college participation and readiness. For the fourth year in a row Massachusetts students have won or tied for first place in fourth and eighth grade reading or math. And, Massachusetts is third nationally and second in the northeast in college participation rates.3. However, we are finding that once students enroll in our colleges, more than 30% are enrolling in remedial coursework, primarily at the community colleges where more than 60% of new students need at least one remedial

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course. This is a troubling statistic because remedial courses cost time and money, but don’t yield college credit. Further, only 25% of students who enroll in remedial courses ever complete their degree.4. National discussions about what it means to be college ready link the definition of readiness to absence of the need for remediation. ACHIEVE, a national organization which has brought K-12 and higher education together to focus on college and career readiness, has articulated this commonly shared definition: “Being ready for college and careers means that a high school graduate has the core, foundational knowledge and skills―defined as the mastery of English and mathematics, along with the critical thinking, communications, problem-solving and teamwork skills learned in those courses―necessary to qualify for and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing coursework―be it at a university, community college, technical/vocational program, apprenticeship or on the job―without the need for remediation/remedial courses.” 5. Massachusetts is one of many states without an official definition of readiness. So, how do we signal what it means to be ready for college? K-12 has defined the MassCore Course of study. Higher education has outlined admissions requirements which differ somewhat from MassCore. Post enrollment, however, colleges administer placement exams. Students who place into remediation are usually surprised and disappointed to find that although they may have been admitted to college, they are not deemed ready for college-level coursework. Quite simply, the current signals about readiness are confusing to students and to the adults who work to prepare them for college.6. To address the need for clear signals to students, the National Governors Association spearheaded the effort to develop a set of rigorous preparatory standards. The Common Core State Standards have been accepted by 46 states and the District of Columbia. The CCSS align closely with Massachusetts’s curriculum frameworks and are scheduled for full implementation in the Commonwealth’s public schools by 2013. A distinguishing feature about the CCSS is that they are more focused, i.e., fewer and deeper, than the standards that were typical in most states.7. From a national perspective, the common core state standards in English, mathematics, and eventually science are rooted in college and career

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readiness. Mastery of the core foundational knowledge and skills in these standards – along with the critical thinking, communications, problem-solving and teamwork skill learned in these courses – would signal that a student could succeed in postsecondary education and training without the need for remediation.

i. In Mathematics, the CCSS focus is on key topics at each grade level; there is a coherent progression across grade levels; and it addresses long-heard criticism of mile-wide, inch-deep math curricula. There is an emphasis on procedural fluency and understanding of concepts and skills. Content standards require both conceptual understanding and procedural fluency.

ii. For mathematical proficiencies students should:

a. Develop, e.g., abstract reasoning, modeling, precision, perseverance, strategic use of tools, and making arguments.

b. Be able to use mathematics to understand a problem, even in new or unfamiliar contexts.

iii. The CCSS standards are organized around conceptual categories that promote various approaches to high school curriculum. Standards are organized into conceptual categories and models of traditional, integrated, and advanced courses.

iv. ELA/Literacy

a. Reading involves a balance of literature and informational texts with a focus on text complexity and student reading comprehension.

b. Writing emphasizes argument and informative/explanatory writing. Writing about sources (evidence) answers questions that require students to have read the text.

c. Speaking and Listening includes formal and informal talk.

d. Literacy standards for history, science and technical subjects promote the idea that teaching literacy skills is not just the

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job of the English teacher. It complements rather than replaces those subjects.

v. Both Content Areas are anchored in college and career readiness. They explicitly define the knowledge and skills that students must master to be college and career ready by the end of high school, and the knowledge and skills in each grade that build towards that goal.

8. CCSS standards are critical, but only a first step. The development of these new standards will require the development of new assessment tools.9. Enter PARCC.10. Rather than having every state go it alone in the development of new “next generation” assessments based on the CCSS, the USDOE set aside RTTT funds to encourage multi-state consortia to work collaboratively. The new assessments are intended to address five key goals.11. Goal 1 is high quality.

i. The PARCC assessment system will:

a. Better reflect the sophisticated knowledge and skills found in the English and math Common Core State Standards.

b. Include a mix of item types, e.g., short answer, richer multiple choice, longer open response, and performance-based

c. Make significant use of technology

d. Include testing at key points throughout the year to give teachers, parents and students better information about whether students are on track or need additional support in particular areas.

12. Goal 2 is to signal clearly whether a student is on track to be college ready.

The PARCC assessment system will be aligned to the college- and career-ready, Common Core State Standards, and is being designed to challenge students, help identify when they’re not meeting the standards, and

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provide targeted instruction, supports and interventions to help them succeed.

Students who score proficient on the assessments will know they are on track for the next steps in their education creating a more meaningful target.

In high school, results will send an early signal about whether students are ready for entry-level, non-remedial courses at higher education institutions in all 24 PARCC states

Students who are identified as not being on track, or who do not meet the college readiness score, will receive targeted supports and interventions

Higher education partners in PARCC – nearly 200 institutions and systems covering over 850 campuses across the country – have committed to help develop the high school assessments and set the college-ready cut score that will be used to place incoming freshmen in credit-bearing college courses.

13. Goal 3 is to be supportive educators.

The PARCC assessments will be built with the K-12 educator in mind around four different areas.

A. Instructional Tools to Support Implementation

i. Model content frameworks

ii. Sample assessment tasks

iii. Model instructional units

B. Professional Development Modules

i. Common Assessment 101-103: PD focused on the implementation of the new assessments

ii. Common Assessment 201-204: PD focused on how to interpret and use the assessment results

C. Timely Student Achievement Data

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i. Aligned performance-based assessments given throughout the year

ii. Data reports will be available, designed with teacher use in mind

D. Educator-Led Training to Support “Peer-to-Peer” Training

i. Training for cadres of K-12 educators around the instructional tools, AND

ii. Around training their peers to use the instructional tools

14. Goal 4 is to be next-generation technology based.

15. Goal 5 is to support accountability (at the discretion of the state).

16. The PARCC assessment has the potential to send a clear signals on what it means to be “college ready”; put students on a faster track to completion, with less need for remediation; and create a better assessment tool for 21st century learning. In Massachusetts it will also help eliminate the disconnect between MCAS and Accuplacer.

17. The PARCC grant has set an aggressive timeline. Ultimately, in order to set college ready performance levels for PARCC, we need to come to agreement on what college readiness is.

18. The recent October Conference launched a discussion on an approach to foster the conversations that are needed to achieve a college readiness definition in Massachusetts. This approach would start with discussions among higher education and K-12 faculty and administrators in every campus. Please look at the organizing structure and timeline handouts.

To conclude, we have had high standards and strong assessments before, but we still have gaps. We know that many students coming out of high school are not ready for college-level work.

What’s been missing? It could be that we haven’t as a state had a systematic approach to faculty interaction across sectors: faculty from K-12 and higher education, coming together to examine syllabi, share examples of student work, and developing bridge modules. We recognize that faculty have the most important seat at the table in

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determining what college readiness means and how college readiness will be assessed in the coming years and seek your input and support.

VI. AMCOA Members’ Responses to Assessment Survey Prepared by AMCOA Co-Chairs

Bonnie Orcutt summarized some of the responses to the Assessment Survey. Some respondents spoke of the networking advantages of the AMCOA Project. Some suggested that there should be a central place for the meetings. There is not a clear answer whether the Team could hold meetings at one school in the central region on a monthly basis. People were curious about what workshops would be given at the February Meeting. Overall, people felt that the AMCOA Project was beneficial. Some of the responses must be tempered because there was a very small response from the group, only 13. Charlotte Mandell pointed out that it was not possible to nuance an answer to some of the questions, give it a “yes” or a “no,” so it made it difficult to answer. Some people feel that AMCOA should have a webpage with assessment resources, complete with links, case studies, presentations, faculty bringing works in progress, student development, and mentors (a list of people who could advise faculty or administrators on assessment).

A small group exercise followed with members breaking up into groups to discuss the role of AMCOA going forward after the Phase I of the Davis Grant is completed. Appendix D has a copy of Peggy Maki’s “Small Group Discussion and Reports” and Appendix E has Bonnie Orcutt’s summary of the small groups’ discussion.

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Appendix A: Institutions Represented at the AMCOA January 19th Meeting:

Berkshire Community CollegeBridgewater State UniversityBristol Community CollegeBunker Hill Community CollegeFitchburg State UniversityFramingham State UniversityHolyoke Community CollegeMassachusetts College of Art and DesignMassachusetts Maritime AcademyMassasoit Community CollegeMassBay Community CollegeMiddlesex Community CollegeMount Wachusett Community CollegeNorth Shore Community CollegeNorthern Essex Community CollegeQuinsigamond Community CollegeRoxbury Community CollegeSalem State UniversityUniversity of Massachusetts AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts BostonUniversity of Massachusetts LowellWestfield State UniversityWorcester State University

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Appendix B: Pat Crosson’s Memo to the AMCOA Team on the Description of the AAC&U Quality Collaboratives Project

For: AMCOA TeamFrom: Pat CrossonSubject: Description of AAC&U Quality Collaboratives ProjectDate: January 15, 2012

Massachusetts will participate with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and seven other states in a Lumina Foundation supported project to test the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) in the context of student transfer from two year to four year institutions. AAC&U proposed and will coordinate the $2.2 million three year project under the LEAP initiative, bringing together state system and campus representatives as well as national experts on transfer and assessment policy. For Carol Geary Schneider, President of AAC&U, the project provides an opportunity to ensure that all students seeking to transfer from a two-year to four-year institution achieve the important outcomes of a “liberating college education,” and also for building on their work on quality student learning, learning outcomes assessment, curricular change and transfer. California, Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Virginia are the other states participating in the project.

For the Lumina Foundation the project is part of its beta testing of the value of a shared Degree Qualifications Profile and intended to contribute to its goal of increasing the proportion of Americans with high quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent by the year 2025. The DQP proposes specific learning outcomes that benchmark the associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees, illustrating how students should be expected to perform at progressively more challenging levels. It could be a useful tool for campuses to use as part of transfer policy and practice.

In the November DHE Newsletter, Commissioner Freeland announced the Quality Collaboratives Project, noting that it will “complement our assessment work with LEAP Essential Learning Outcomes and VALUE Rubrics and the work of the Advancing a Massachusetts Culture of Assessment (AMCOA) project. It will also be helpful to continuing efforts to improve our transfer policies and practices.” He emphasized that Massachusetts participation in the project will not change our focus on discussions about the use of the LEAP frameworks as a shared basis for assessing student learning and will not begin until the second year of the project (estimated January 2013) to ensure that there is ample time for ongoing internal discussions related to the assessment of student learning, LEAP and the Vision Project.

Pat Crosson will serve as the DHE liaison for the project and Francesca Purcell and Jonathan Keller will also be involved, contributing their expertise in areas of transfer and assessment. The actual testing of the DQP in relation to transfer will be undertaken by a “quality collaborative”—a dyad in which a community college and a four year institution work together. Within the parameters of dyads, transfer, the DQP, and the need for complementary approaches among participating states, there is flexibility for campuses and state systems to develop a project that is helpful to their own work. For each participating campus, the project provides a total of $40,000, not a great deal of money but enough to be helpful to campuses that see benefit in this work for their own programs of transfer and learning outcomes assessment.

Although work in Massachusetts will not start before next year, selecting the Massachusetts dyad now will enable us to have an important voice in the overall project design and will give campuses an

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opportunity to begin planning together. AAC&U has already begun work with participating states and national experts and is organizing an April 2012 meeting for all project participants. Since the meeting will result in plans that will enable or constrain what we will want to do in Massachusetts, it will be important that campus personnel working on the dyad as well as DHE representatives attend the April meeting. It is time to select the Quality Collaborative dyad for Massachusetts.

Given the time constraints, the small scale, and probable limited interest in this project, the Commissioner will use a low-key process to select the Massachusetts dyad. He will ask any campus presidents with an interest in the project to be in touch with Pat Crosson. The Commissioner will also encourage any member of the AMCOA Team with an interest to discuss it with their provost and/or president. Pat Crosson will ask for a brief description about each dyad, an anticipated approach and design for the project and a statement about the significance for the campus and the Quality Collaboratives project as whole. She will review the material and make a recommendation to the Commissioner. If many campuses respond and the choice will be difficult, the Commissioner will ask the President’s Advisory Group working with him on matters related to LEAP, assessment and AMCOA to become involved in the selection of the Massachusetts dyad.

Two campuses, each of which would form a dyad with another campus, have expressed interest in this project on the basis of the DHE Newsletter announcement. The level of interest among other campuses is not known. But many campuses have long histories of working together to implement transfer policies and resolve transfer problems and might see testing the DQP as informative for their efforts. Additionally many of the current AMCOA experiments involve campus collaborations and focus both on assessment of learning and transfer issues. Follow-on projects might prove valuable to the campuses concerned and both AMCOA experiment results and Quality Collaborative test results might contribute to the AAC&U project as a whole. If you would like more information on this project, or to express interest in it, feel free to contact Pat Crosson (pcrosson@bhe.mass.edu) or 508-693-4148.

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Appendix C: PARCC PowerPoint Presentation (Please double-click the image below to start the presentation. Single click each slide in the presentation to move to the next slide.)

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Appendix D: Peggy Maki’s “Small Group Discussion and Reports”

Small Group Discussion and Reports

As we move into the last four months of our work under the current Davis Grant that supported the creation of an AMCOA group and the identified work of the grant—campus visits, monthly meetings, statewide conferences, and assessment experiments—it is now time to consider how our efforts should evolve under a possible second Davis grant.

To make recommendations for that next grant, we would like you to respond to two questions focused on how we advance the work of AMCOA beyond the model we have followed this year. Please appoint a recorder for your group who will list the significant points that emerge from your group discussion and then hand those results in before you leave today.

1. Advancing a Statewide Culture of Assessment

To advance a statewide culture of assessment, the goal of AMCOA, what recommendations would you offer that you believe would effectively advance that goal across our public institutions? For example, developing and offering professional development workshops focused on assessment, establishing Faculty Learning Communities across the State, continuing to offer statewide or regionally-based conferences, developing means to disseminate information about AMCOA and assessment initiatives?

2. Reflecting on Your Role as an AMCOA Member

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a. How do you currently view your role as an AMCOA member on your campus or on other campuses?

b. How do you think your role as AMCOA member should change as we move forward?

c. Should there be more specific criteria or other criteria established for appointment of AMCOA members based on your response to “b.”?

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Appendix E: Bonnie Orcutt’s Summary of the Small Group Discussion

SUMMARY OF SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION January 19, 2012

Question 1:

To advance a statewide culture of assessment, the goal of AMCOA, what recommendations would you offer that you believe would effectively advance that goal across public institutions:

MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES:

1. Fewer AMCOA meetings as move forward but continue to meet face to face but less frequently (limit the number of face to face meetings) with greater use of Skype conference meetings or video conferencing.

2. Fewer meetings per semester will allow faculty to plan and build their course schedules to accommodate these meetings. It is important that the meeting schedule be in place early enough for faculty to build their syllabus and schedule so as to accommodate the meetings. In addition, when selecting/soliciting faculty participants, the meeting schedule can be publicized. Address campus specific issues particularly with respect to scheduling

3. Annual State-Wide Conference; fewer conferences

TECHNOLOGY USE TO SHARE ASSESSMENT INFORMATION, ACTIVITIES AND INITIATIVES INCLUDING BEST/WORST PRACTICES:

4. Seek support for an IT designer; use more technology: website and listservs Institutional websites to share assessment ideas rather than a DHE website or a DHE site that would serve that function; Digital repository for both assessment data and analysis of results and examples of best/worst practices; Perhaps a discussion board where there best/worst practices might be shared with immediate responders Local websites do not work well

Website to post cases studies; how to assess campus and course level outcomes; share what has and has not worked

Provide links to well-established campus websitesPost video-taped presentations and sessionsCreation of a Frequently Asked Questions listserv that might address how we can integrate general education learning outcomes (LEAP outcomes) into the MassTransfer Block

PART TIME FACULTY:

5. Identify models for integrating part time faculty into campus assessment efforts; engage part time faculty in projects of meaning; that lead to meaningful change with respect to the curriculum and classroom instruction practices

FACULTY AND INSTITUTION WORKLOADS:6. Explore how to integrate assessment efforts into overall faculty workloads; need to explicitly

recognize the burden imposed on faculty particularly for institutions without an assessment

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office; do not want assessment initiatives to be barriers to accomplishing and continuing other campus based initiatives and activities; need to recognize there will not be an influx of resources to support assessment results.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: AT AMCOA MEETINGS AND ON INDIVIDUAL CAMPUSES:

7. Workshops and Professional Development Opportunities:a. Workshops for faculty who are interested in assessment related topics but are not necessarily

experts in this area; b. Professional development around assessment strategies; Professional development from list

of options is most importantc. Targeted workshops aimed at specific campus constituencies: curriculum committees,

specific academic departments, otherd. Faculty development days on assessment with outside experts, colleagues for colleges doing

assessment well, AMCOA reps and staff; promote cross institutional efforts with focus on best efforts; Full day professional development around assessment work

e. Explore ways to explicitly link the SOTL with Assessmentf. Use of Faculty Learning Communities to bring the activity/discussion to individual campuses

Faculty learning communities perhaps driven by discipline and or interest (topic based); Organize working groups by discipline or by topic; Integrate professional development with respect to student learning outcome assessment within the discipline; disciplinary based conferences and/or general education à important to look for ways to integrate strategies for assessment of general education with assessment of specific programs“How to” processes; how to assess specific areasDepartment based groups getting together – example of the nursing presentations at the conferences

g. Identify models for developing college-specific outcomes and what to do with assessment results

h. Develop signature assignments (Salt Lake CC) that capture the full range of student abilities and, necessarily, how to scaffold learning to enable student success

SHARING INFORMATION AND ENGAGING FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND STUDENT AFFAIRS PROFESSIONAL STAFF:

8. Explore ways to provide more support for building assessment and generating faculty buy-in9. Faculty and others need multiple exposures; so keep talking10. Discussion and support for what is a case study and how to use consultant group work with a

consultantConsulting working groups drawn from membership; development of a resource foundation

11. Possibly list the names of faculty and administrators in AMCOA that are available to speak on specific topics on other campuses

12. External report on comparative highlights from Peggy’s and the President’s reports: showing resources from campuses that are exemplars;

OTHER: 13. Impact policy issues and contract language

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Question 2:

A. How do you view your current role as an AMCOA member on your campus or other campuses?

1. Conduits for information to and from the AMCOA group for faculty and administrators on campus. Serve as the eyes and ears for our campuses; bring information back to administrators and faculty, particularly those involved in assessment. Acquiring a broader perspective to bring back to campus committees; link between the our campus and statewide initiatives; sharing information from the state with our campus

2. By presenting, we are a resource to other campuses.3. Responsible for engaging more people – but in many cases, able to generate interest but not

engagement – future role should focus on engaging; how to engage faculty in projects that lead to curriculum and pedagogical changes: changes to enhance student learning

4. Learn from what others are doing

B. How do you think your role as an AMCOA member should change as we move forward?

NOTION OF TRAVELING ROAD SHOW:

1. We think the role as resources to other campuses should expand through the travelling road show and digital repository initiatives. Promoting professional development on campuses through a travelling road show. It is important to bring assessment initiatives, strategies, support to campuses; this may help to address adjunct issue; importance of people on campuses hearing repeatedly the message

2. We would like to increasingly be a resource for shaping the direction of the LEAP State initiative if our campuses are amenable.

3. AMCOA might serve as a support or resource group for institutions4. Institutions should consider providing faculty release and the group should consider scheduling

the meetings carefully to accommodate faculty.

SHARING IDEAS; IDENTIFY WAYS TO POOL IDEAS

5. Create ways to facilitate more dialogue between faculty from different institutions and ways of pooling ideas; facilitate the exchange of ideas and practices across institutions; share institution-specific efforts

6. Encouraging people to “buy in to a culture of assessment7. Made sure this group is viewed as a “bottom up” group; a non-clique group8. Establish professional development networks9. Future role should focus on engaging; how to engage faculty in projects that lead to curriculum

and pedagogical changes: changes to enhance student learning

OTHER:10. Group discussion:

AMCOA group might serve as a vetting group; provide feedback for Phase II work and initiativesAMCOA group should continue the work it has been doing with respect to supporting campus and system-wide assessment

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C. Should there be more specific criteria or other criteria established for appointment of AMCOA members based on your response to “b”?

1. We do not need to set criteria, but the roles of AMCOA members should be clearly communicated to the campuses so that the best representatives can be selected, and in particular, so faculty involvement can be encouraged.

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