Faculty & Staff
Self Governance » Assessment of Learning Committee
Minutes
JULY 13, 2001
In attendance were Drs. Mark Haase, Robert Supernaw, Quentin Smith, Thomas Thekkumkara, Cindy Raehl, Michelle Condren, Jim Stoll and Craig Cox attended via telephone conference call.
Dr. Mark Haase, Chairman of the 2001-2002 Assessment of Learning Committee called the meeting to order, made welcoming remarks and the members of the committee introduced themselves.
Dr. Haase advised the committee that several committee members had attended and participated in the 2001 AACP Institute on Assessment on Jun 1-5, 2001. Dr. Haase stated that out of the estimated twenty schools that attended our Assessment of Learning program was far more advanced in the development of a reliable assessment instrument.
Dr. Haase opened the floor up for discussion regarding the need to revise Tech's Top Ten due to the redundancy contained within the categories and the inability to effectively test some of the areas. Dr. Haase referred the committee to his memo previously sent to the committee in June with several proposed suggestions for ability categories. A copy of this memo was also handed-out at the meeting and is attached hereto and included as part of these Minutes. Dr. Haase suggested we use Dr. Supernaw's suggested list which is Item "E" in the memo. Dr. Supernaw advised that at the Institute they learned that you cannot effectively test problem solving which is not the same as testing critical thinking. When you test problem solving you don't know if you are testing their ability to solve a problem based on their knowledge or just their knowledge base. This list also contains technology because we previously had nothing in Tech's Top Ten on technology, drug delivery and/or information processing and this list also consolidates the population-based questions. This also combines the categories of ethic management and professionalism. If we test using less categories and more questions per category then we will produce more reliable results.
Dr. Raehl suggested that we present the possible choices to faculty in a survey and allow them to rank the categories they feel are important. Dr. Raehl reminded the committee that we would need to develop a proposal and present it to the faculty at the next faculty meeting for their feed-back and approval. She stated that this would allow for an "electronic brainstorming" session. She suggested we also send the survey to alumni and adjunct faculty.
Dr. Condren suggested that we keep the objectives the same for the next few years, while we combine the ability categories this year for a short term fix while we streamline the system and eventually be able to weight our test questions, as opposed to tackling the entire Tech's Top Ten. Because if we are going to revise the Tech's Top Ten ability categories we also need to redefine the specific ability statements for each level. We hope to progress with the same basic instrument the same instrument and keep our objectives the same with the more specifically redefined ability categories, streamline our system and eventually weight the test questions. Question regarding if we needed to stay with the same ability statements for this year's exam for purposes of credentialing and the reliability/validators placed on the exam. The committee was in agreement that the total revision and redefining of Tech's Top Ten would not be able to be done on a short period of time and would need to be done jointly by the credentialing committee and the assessment committee.
Quentin made a motion that we prepare a questionnaire to send to faculty to allow them to, for now, combine Tech's Top Ten for use this year with the major goal of eliminating redundancy.
Dr. Raehl stated that we needed to publish our findings and data on our Assessment process. Dr. Haase stated that he had already spoke to the previous Assessment Committee chair, Dr. Reza Mehvar and Dr. Mehvar has already begun to prepare a manuscript based on the work to date.
Prior to the next meeting Dr. Haase requested that everyone think about possible consequences of poor performance on the annual assessment exam and to bring those ideas to our next meeting on July 31. The Committee was in agreement that we needed to "put teeth" into our exam and that their needed to be consequences to the students for failure to pass or take the exam. This is something that will be worked on jointly with the credentialing committee or at least be having parallel discussions.
There was some discussion about the date of the next Assessment exam. Spring versus winter and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The test was initially moved to winter in an attempt to give ample time to provide the students with their results and to be able to work on any areas that needed improvement. It takes approximately two weeks to run the answer sheets and to compile all of the data in grade levels and ability statements from the exams and at least a month to prepare individual report cards for each student.
Dr. Supernaw stated that currently the credentialing committee is using the system of (1) warning (2) not allowed to take any new classes (3) suspended from school. The committee was in agreement that right now we would not hold a student back from progressing for not passing the exam. As the exam is not prescriptive enough but it does show indications of deficits in learning.
Primary business at next committee meeting will be to set a date for the 2001/2002 Assessment Exam and to make some decisions on consequences for not taking and/or not passing exam.
The meeting was adjourned