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Snyder,Inc. Organizational
Development and Education Research Division
SACS
Assessment Simplified "David's program is
comprehensive. It appeals to faculty because it applies to learning. It
appeals to administrators because it works
for all curricula, across diverse platforms. It
helps instructors increase quality of instruction and it allows learning
outcomes to be tracked. And
it allows an assessment process to be accomplished in much less time
than any of us ever imagined possible.
Dr. Ronald Wright, Vice President
for Academic Programs at Cleveland Community College, has joined our efforts at
Snyder,Inc. as a program development partner, after seeing our critical thinking and technical writing program achieve results for his faculty. Dr. Wright will be helping us to insure that every aspect of
our measurement tools and process specifically meets the numerous
procedural guidelines required by the state. In brief, we feel (and Dr. Wright
can confirm this) that we have taken what might be a 500-page assessment
chore and boiled it down to an assessment process that could be tracked
using a simple and brief measurement tool that will yield a simple and
easily-compiled report.
The
Big Picture SACS guidelines are lengthy, but
these extracts from the guidebook for colleges cover the major points. "The institution must have a clearly defined process by which the curriculum is
established, reviewed and evaluated.
The process must recognize
the various roles of the faculty, the administration and the governing
board. "Instructional techniques and
policies must be in accord
with the purpose of the institution and be appropriate to the specific
goals of an individual course. Instruction must
be evaluated regularly and the results used to ensure quality
instruction."
Challenges The challenge facing most
education leaders is obvious--SACS has given mandates for schools and
colleges to "raise the bar" with regard to continuous process
improvement and integration of curriculum development and assessment,
but no guidelines on how
Solutions Our assessment program is unified.
First it, involves the incorporation of staff development
programs to help instructors to weave simple critical thinking and
scientific/technical writing exercises into their classrooms.
The exercises help students learn the technical writing skills
they will need for the real world, while at the same time boosting their
critical thinking/reading comprehension abilities. Second, we use a simple tracking
sheet to insure that all programs or courses contain a two-part list of
mirrored core competencies: one side of the list contains all of the
subject competencies that every department has agreed are important for
program or course Expectations for how many subject
and application areas students must be able to convincingly describe in
technical essays are established for three parts of the measurement
process:
Third, cohort criteria are
established so that effectiveness in teaching can easily be tracked
according to teacher, program, department, type of student, or any other
important variable. Fourth, we have developed a second
assessment tool where student feedback can be used comparatively to assess the
accuracy and implications of the data collected from educators. Fifth, we have constructed a
simple process whereby all the information described above can be used
to improve the quality of instruction and classroom experience. Sixth, we provide assistance in
writing up the results of the process described above to meet SACS
assessment deadlines.
Next Steps Educators who are interested in
this process are advised to first call Dr. Ronald Wright at Cleveland
Community College to see whether the proposed program might meet their
needs. His number is 704.484.4093. His email is wright@cleveland.cc.nc.us. Other references about the quality
of our work include Steve Mazingo, superintendent of Greene County
Schools. He can be reached
at 252.747.1339. Or you can email him at steve@greene.k12.nc.us.
If after contacting these people for references you feel that you need more information or would like to book an initial consultation, please email me at dsnyder@mindread.net.
Thank you for your interest.
David Snyder |
