SLO Assessment Cycle at the Course Level – Connecting to Student Learning

The assessment of the Student Learning Outcomes of courses occurs at SRJC for two main reasons:

• On one level, it is a part of the SRJC’s effort to meet accreditation standards regarding effective practices and accountability. This is why there are formal procedures for documenting course SLO assessment, results, and departmental response to results.
• More importantly, on a broader level, assessment is an essential element of determining how well students are gaining the skills, knowledge, and abilities taught in a course. It is the basis on which pedagogical decisions are made regarding the content, teaching methodology, student activities, and materials.

The following overview of the assessment cycle for courses provides links to supporting information, examples, procedures for documentation, and forms.

Writing Student Learning Outcomes for Courses

At this point, all courses at SRJC have the Student Learning Outcomes listed in the Course Outline of Record. The following basic guidelines are for faculty who are developing SLOs for new courses or revising SLOs of current courses.

Definition: A Student Learning Outcome is a statement of the knowledge, skills, abilities, or values students should acquire in a course. An SLO usually subsumes multiple objectives, allows for assessment, and anticipates the application of learning outside of the classroom or in future educational contexts.

The SLOs of a course are usually developed through collegial discussion among faculty who create, revise, and/or teach a course. When writing SLOs, it helps to envision exactly what the student would be able to do in the real world or the next level of the program after completion of the course.

A course may have one to five SLOs, depending on the length and depth of the course itself. SLO statements tend to be more global statements when compared to course objectives, which describe more specific skills or abilities. SLO statements also:

• Refer to what students should be able to do after they have completed the course. In other words, they are not course assignments, and the statements do not include the method of assessment.
• Use active verbs that reflect how the learning can be observed or measured with emphasis on higher levels of critical thinking. You can find lists of active verbs associated with the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains on the following linked pages:
  Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains
  Anderson and Krathwohl’s Taxonomy 2000
• Are supported by the content of the course, the kinds of assignments students complete, and appropriate methods of assessment.
• Connect with the SLOs of any certificates or majors that the course is related to.

Read more about identifying and composing Student Learning Outcomes for courses on the More About Writing Course SLOs.

Assessing Course Outcomes

The purpose of identifying and assessing Student Learning Outcomes in a course is to determine the degree to which students are gaining the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are taught in the course.

Using “embedded assessment”

Often assessment occurs as part of the course’s regular activities, such as tests, projects, papers, or demonstrations of skills – the same assignments used for grading students. In addition to providing the information for grading, assessment results can provide a picture of how well students in general are learning. This kind of information may confirm effective practices or may suggest that certain aspects of the course such as curriculum, materials, teaching methodology, sequence, or even the SLO, itself need to be changed to improve student learning.

“Closing the Loop”

When changes are initiated to address one or more SLO, it’s logical to follow up with another assessment to determine whether the changes made a difference. The conclusions drawn from this second assessment may indicate that concerns have been addressed or that further changes are in order. Using results to determine the effect of changes, re-assessing, and deciding on the next step are often referred to as “closing the loop” – that is, completing one assessment cycle. Depending on the situation, the cycle may begin again immediately. Ongoing assessment is part of effective teaching because it can reveal patterns, successes, and new possibilities.

Methods of Assessment

The action verbs used in the SLO statements give a general indication of how students’ achievement of the outcome could be demonstrated. That is, sometimes critical thinking skills may need to be expressed orally or in writing, while other times, the application of skills has to actually happen and be observed. Often both forms of assessment may be involved.

It’s important to make sure that the method of assessment actually addresses the SLO itself.
Example: If the SLO says that students will be able to “identify and discuss ethical issues in the profession,” an objective test alone would not be a wholly adequate form of assessment because students are not actually discussing their ideas.

The following includes types of assessment that might be used for some of the SLOs listed above.

Course SLO Assessment Procedures

Departments are responsible for conducting and recording assessments of all course SLOs. The following basic steps are based on the Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Procedures approved by the Academic Senate in spring 2011.

1. Through collegial discussion, each department makes a three-year plan for the assessment of the SLOs of all active courses.
2. Each semester faculty participate to meet the goals of the plan. Regular faculty are expected to participate as needed; part-time faculty are encouraged to participate with any available departmental support.
3. At the beginning of the semester, every faculty member or faculty group leader who is assessing course outcomes fills out parts 1 and 2 of the SLO Course Assessment Report form and notifies the department chair that assessment plans are underway.
4. After the end of the semester, or whenever the assessment has been completed, faculty who are involved analyze the data, summarize the results, and discuss implications of the results and follow-up plans. Parts 4, 5, and 6 of the SLO Course Assessment Report form are completed and submitted to the department chair.
5. The Department chair keeps assessment forms with department records and, at the end of semester, provides the supervising administrator with a list of courses that have been assessed or are in the process of being assessed.
6. TheDepartment chair provides support for recommended assessment follow-up: departmental presentation and discussion; changes in curriculum, pedagogy, materials, etc.; re-assessment; acknowledgment of effective practices.
7. Tracking of course assessments is officially recorded in the PRPP (Program and Resource Planning Process documents).

SLO Assessment Showcase, Resources, and Forms