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Big Bend Community College 2022-2023 Assessment Report

Submitted by Sean Twohy

08/28/2023

Recaps

Big Bend’s Assessment process is in the middle stages of completing a 7-year assessment cycle. The focus of the assessment during this time is to create a stable and predictable assessment process. We are guarding against big changes to the assessment process and working toward creating clarity and comfort for faculty using the process.

Assessment Report Process Recap: Work has been done by the committee to think in long term, the way in which the 7-year plan is done. The process for assessment will be as follows:

  1. In 2019-2020, IO1 was assessed. In 2020-2021, IO2 was assessed. In the 2021-2022 year, IO3 was assessed. In the 2022-2023, faculty focused on completing program-level assessments, or following up, or closing the loop, on assessments that needed additional attention. College- wide assessment of Institutional Assessments will resume in 2024-2025.
  2. The college is in the midst of a two-year grace period (2022-2023, 2023-2024), wherein programs and departments are focused on assessing courses and outcomes that they did not complete during the previous three years. They may also focus on closing the loop on assessments that were initiated in the previous three years.
  1. Beginning in the 2024-2025 year, the 7-year assessment cycle will continue as follows:
  1. If you do not have any courses with the designated IO for the year being assessed, you may substitute Program-level Outcomes during that year. For example, if the English Department does not have any courses with IO2, they may choose to focus on an alternative program outcome.

Assessment Videos Recap: The committee continues to commit to its focus in making assessment simple and available, through Assessment videos that allow faculty to access basic expectations and processes for the year. These videos can be found on BBCC’s website, under “Instruction and Assessment”. In the video for 2022-2023, faculty were encouraged to assess based on the 7-year plans, assessing for improvement, and provided with an end simplification of the assessment process.

Assessing for Improvement Recap: The committee continues to focus on its commitment to making assessment a tool for improving courses, student experience, achievement of learning objectives, and campus-wide expectations through focusing on assessing for improvement—as opposed to assessing for competency. This focus means that assessment reports should not generally be used confirm that outcomes are being met—but to explore ways in which we can improve the process of meeting those outcomes. As an incentive, faculty were offered a gift card for assessing for improvement.

A Process for Additional Guidance: The Assessment Committee came up with a process for guiding faculty through the assessment process, focused on sending out quarterly reminders to faculty—based on the 7-Year plans each department or program has submitted. This process is currently being implemented, year to year. This process charges the Assessment Committee members with reminding faculty of their obligations for assessment, throughout the year.

New Feedback Rubric: In an attempt to continue to make assessment a process of continual improvement, the Assessment Committee met during the summer to provide feedback on every report submitted. While, in the past, an email was sent to faculty who wrote reports which did not meet standards, the committee committed itself to providing feedback to everyone, this year. Feedback will be given to faculty during Fall In-service.

Updated Form Language: The Assessment Committee felt that one of the reasons that faculty might have been failing to Assessment for Improvement could be something as simple as confusion related to the language of the form. As such, the committee update the form language to explicitly ask the question: “What is the problem/concern you are attempting to resolve through this assessment?” This change occurred very late in the year and the outcomes of it will be better seen through next year’s assessments.

Assessment Reports Summary

Assessment must be understood through the objective of instituting outcomes, teaching to those outcomes, reflecting on those outcomes, and improving upon those outcomes. However, these outcomes must be understood through the course, program, and institutional level. In alternating fashion, working toward those objectives is sometimes tied to the three institutional outcomes and, other times, focused on continuing assessment reflections and improvements from previous years or working on program- level outcomes unrelated to the three Institutional Outcomes. During the 2022-2023 school year, faculty were not tied to any specific Institutional Outcome and, instead, provided the year to work toward completing assessment needs tied to previous assessment reports and individual program outcomes. Typically, assessment reports are divided by whether faculty worked toward common outcomes or related activities. However, the assessment reports for the 2022-2023 year reflect not the coordination of assessments—but the individualism required by faculty to set goals, teach to those goals, reflect, and revise their teaching in a fashion specific to their style, students, and classroom needs. This being said there were some things that came from these assessments which reflected common themes or objectives. These included a commitment to following up on past assessments, connections to institutional data and goals, and assessing for improvement.

The Assessment Committee received 53 assessment reports, which correlated with the 7-Year Plans of programs across campus. These reports outlined the plan, results, and analysis of assessments designed to measure student learning outcomes and improve instructional programs. Some of the results of those plans are as follows:

Following Up on Past Assessments and Closing the Loop

Assessment of courses and programs is tied to a 7-year plan each program and department has created. While, in some years, the goal of assessment is to work toward larger, campus-wide, objectives, the committee has provided “gap” years, wherein the goal is to allow faculty and programs to meet some of the more specific needs they have [in relation to their 7-year plans]; 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 are two such years. One of the larger objectives of these gap years is to allow faculty the opportunity to follow-up on past assessments and to close the loop.

In Physics 221, the instructor did a follow-up on a 2017 assessment, where they had attempted to improve midterm and final exam scores by allowing a make-up exam. While the instructor found this to be useful in improving the scores on the exams, the instructor wanted to further improve the outcomes and decided to implement a flipped-classroom setting in Fall of 2022. Success of this model was demonstrated by an increase of final exam scores and. Additionally, while some students had scored below 60% on the final exam in 2017, nobody scored below 70% in 2022.

In BIOL 100, the instructor continued an assessment from 2021-2022. This assessment had changed late work/extension policies for students, relaxing standards to allow students more flexibility. This assessment is elucidated on further in a subsequent section on institutional Data.

In NUR 120, the instructor followed up on some data that the Assessment Committee had received over the previous year of assessing Institutional Outcome Three (related to workplace skills). In that assessment, the committee found positive connections between the use of group work in the classroom and meeting outcomes—as well as generally improving the way students behave toward, and network with, their peers. The instructor used group work to help facilitate improved exam scores. The course went from having five students not meet the 78% benchmark [related to fluids and electrolytes] to only two students not meeting that benchmark. The instructor is going to look for ways to continue to incorporate additional group work into the course.

The Agriculture program also used group work to help facilitate student competency related to evidence-based critical thinking—the details of this assessment are outlined in a subsequent section of the report.

The Math Department attempted to use group work to improve overall success across four courses (131, 132, 146, and 254). Overall, the department found a positive correlation between low-stakes group work and overall success. They will continue to try and incorporate group work and to offer more in-person sections where group work can be better facilitated.

In HUM 214, two instructors worked on improving already present group work at the end of the quarter by placing students in groups throughout the quarter. While the data was not conclusive on whether the changes made had direct positive correlations with student outcomes, the instructors did find that their own perspective was changed in how they approached the course as a whole—allowing better staggering of topics, rather than a large culmination of information at the end of the quarter.

Connections to Institutional Data and Goals

Another goal of having gap years is to allow faculty the opportunity to look at the ways in which individual courses may be reflective of, and have impacts on, larger institutional achievement data, systemic concerns, or institutional goals. While all of assessment is meant to work toward improving and understanding these connections, allowing a little more individualized freedom in assessment focus allows faculty the space they need to really explore.

In AVF 253, the program found that the length of completion of the course had increased from an average of 77 days (2015-2016) to 105 days in 2022-2023. The college, as a whole, has worked hard to provide pathways toward timely completion of degrees, and length of time to complete a degree is correlated with overall completion rates. While some of this can be connected to issues that came about during COVID, the program still sees the issue as an important one. The program noted that Institutional data between 2019 and 2022 showed that higher summer completion rates were correlated to lower student success rates. The Flight Program plans to improve these completion times through increased standards for solo requirements and increased access to Senior Flight Instructors, but also sees the administration as important in helping to define the limiting factors related to the availability of aircraft.

Over the last few years, Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism have come up routinely as areas of concern. Faculty and the administration have had the difficult task of defining steps and procedures related to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. In LIB 101, the instructor is working toward stopping some of these problems before they arise by increasing student awareness and understanding of these issues. The instructor developed a tutorial that delivers a completion certificate related to these issues and the certificate is currently being adopted by various courses and programs across campus.

In Physics 221, an instructor noticed that women in the class had the worst overall scores. While this was not the overall objective of their assessment activity, they noted it as a place where they, and the college, may want to continue to work toward increasing and providing support for women in STEM.

The Counseling Department worked toward improving outcomes for students on academic probation through an enhanced advising program. This program provided additional information, resources, and follow-up by the advisors. The program saw success in that 80% of students on probation in Fall persisted and enrolled in Spring Quarter. Additionally, 15 of the 25 students enrolled increased their GPA in Winter Quarter. This work is vital in ensuring that the college meets its vision toward student success, its mission to be a bridge, and its guiding principle to educate all.

In SPAN 122, the instructor included an assignment which aimed to articulate the historical and political connections between Spanish speaking countries and the United States. The hope was to generally increase important cultural, political, and historical connections. This sort of work is important in meeting our guiding principle of honoring our role as a Hispanic-Serving Institution.

In ENGL 216, the instructor looked at the diversity in the films used in the course and connected it to institutional data related to the success of the course. The instructor saw that decreasing diversity in films, as it relates to the inclusion of characters and stories related to historically marginalized groups, correlated with a decrease in overall success rates in the course. While this data does not positively affirm diversity as the cause of success, it is an interesting connection and one the instructor plans to continue to look at.

In BIOL 100, the instructor continued an assessment from 2021-2022. This assessment had changed late work/extension policies for students, relaxing standards to allow students more flexibility. The instructors then looked at success of students in the course across multiple data points. Overall, they found student success improved from the last ten years from an average of 70% to an average of 77%. However, the data becomes more interesting when broken into various parts. Students with economic disadvantage have historically seen success rates as 15% lower than students of higher income homes. That gap has been closed and now both groups are at 81% success rates. Due to this, the instructor plans on continuing their extension policy.

Assessing for Improvement

One of the most important focal points of the last five years has been to get faculty in the mindset of assessing for improvement. Assessments, in the past, focused on assessing for competency. Very often, faculty and programs would submit an assessment which essentially outlined an outcome and showed that the outcome was being met by showing student proficiency in meeting that outcome. While demonstrating competency in teaching is important, the Assessment Committee decided that competency should be the base standard that all faculty are meeting. In order to make the formal assessment process meaningful, the committee wanted to allow faculty to use assessment to demonstrate places where they felt their students may not be meeting outcomes, and to give faculty a place to demonstrate what steps they took to try and get students to improve.

In ART 101, the instructor was having trouble getting students to talk during critiques. The instructor provided additional guidance sheets and rubrics to encourage more interactions and conversations. The instructor found this was very successful and is planning on continuing to continue to develop and use the process.

In EDEC 202, the instructor found that students were not grasping the magnitude and importance of childhood trauma as a concern and social issue today. The instructor added lessons and modules to increase the student understanding of the importance of this issue. The students went from 41% thinking the issue was important to 100% of students seeing the issue as either VERY important or EXTREMELY important. In EDUC 190, the instructor also started with a problem, but the problem was in the instruction. The instructor found that the course was missing measurable items for students to use to evaluate their own practices. The instructor created and implemented additional rubrics and observational forms and found it resulted in “MUCH better observation reports from students.”

In AGR 272, the instructor found that students had trouble with critical thinking—specifically in providing referenced supporting data to answer questions. The instructor organized students into groups. Those groups were given specific data from which they had to answer given questions. The instructor then had those groups come together to discuss and to allow students to see how answers can vary based on the type of information received.

In Accounting 203, the instructor saw that the course did not have enough explicit assignments related to journal entrees that track manufacturing costs for a manufacturing entity. The instructor added instruction and assignments and found a 31% increase in students being able to successfully produce the correct journal entry. The instructor did a similar assessment in ACCT 233 and was able to increase student proficiency in producing a correct journal entry from 67% to 100%.

The CDL program improved student success rates in pre-trip inspections from 50 to 80% by including a pre-trip inspection booklet for studying.

In CS 104, the instructor saw that the students were not comfortable in working with computer hardware. The instructor spaced out three labs to increase comfort in working with computer components and saw an average success of 95% in meeting outcomes related to this area.

In CHEM 121, the instructor saw concerns with lab safety and changed the method by with lab safety instruction and expectations were delivered. They found noted improvement in lab safety.

In ENGL 216, the instructor included an assignment in order to try and improve the quality of quotes found in the textbook. Students had historically found quotes that were from the first two pages of the given chapter, which only vaguely tied to the chapter—if at all. The instructor had repeatedly told students to find quotes from outside of this part of each chapter but students continued to do so— presumably out of a desire to not have to read the entire chapter of the textbook. The new quote assignment placed more emphasis on finding the quote itself. An overall improvement was seen between 2021-2022 and 2022-2023—as the percentage of quotes pulled from the first two pages of a chapter dropped from 64% to 44%. The instructor plans to further emphasize finding good quotes by using group work. This should give students support and feedback regarding their choices in finding quotes.

Reflection and Response to Faculty Assessment Reports

The 2022-2023 assessment effort shows a clear connection to the work that we, as a committee, have been doing. The goal of providing a clear and simple process can be seen in the quality of assessments we have received, but also in the timeliness of their submission. By the first week of June, the committee had received almost half of the submitted assessment reports. Compared to the five reports submitted in the first week of June of the previous year, this is a great measure that faculty continue to see assessment as something manageable and worth doing. Things like assessment videos, one-on-one conversations, clear forms, and follow-ups has had an impact on the reports and their quality.

The fruit of specific goals of the committee can also be seen in the report. The ongoing goal of having faculty complete course and program-level reports and close loops from previous years has steadily increased, year by year. However, the bigger success comes from the fact that faculty are using the outcomes of institutional assessments to influence and direct their teaching in subsequent years. During the 2021-2022 year, the report submissions suggested a correlation between group work and course success rates, student engagement, and course enjoyment. In 2022-2023, Seven faculty used group work as a way to improve on some aspect of their teaching, even though the assessment this year did not explicitly ask them to do so.

Faculty also worked to make connections between the campus, as a whole, and their own classrooms. While this was the first year the committee had attempted to get faculty to draw connections between institutional achievement data and their own courses, many faculty rose to the occasion. And even more faculty used campus-wide goals, concerns, objectives, values, and culture to influence how they devised and reflected on their assessments this year.

Lastly, working toward getting faculty to assess for improvement, rather than to assess for competency, has continued to gain traction. Nearly half of faculty submitted reports which began with a problem, implemented a solution, and analyzed the results. While there is still great room for improvement, this is something to be proud of.

Between Fall of 2019 and Spring of 2022, the Assessment Committee implemented an assessment process which attempted to drive faculty from doing assessments that were narrowly focused and poorly organized, into campus-wide efforts that produced clear and useful data. The focus on Institutional Outcomes has provided a framework by which the committee, faculty, and administration can understand assessment at the course, program, and institutional level—and the ways in which those assessments connect to each other. As we push through two years of allowing faculty room to fill in gaps in assessment, it is clear that the ongoing work being done by the committee and the college as a whole is driving interesting and important results.

Reflection and Response to Program-level Assessment

Within the college, there are many programs that work to complete assessment at the program level. This is to say that, like courses, programs set outcomes, work to meet those outcomes, look at how well they are meeting those outcomes, and revise to better meet outcomes in the future. The Academic Transfer Program (as it is related to the DTA and AAS degrees) is very large and so the assessment work completed by it is very broad. On the academic side, the college uses coordinated assessment work related to the three institutional outcomes to draw conclusions about how well the transfer program is meeting its goals and what changes might be needed to better meet those goals. For example, in regard to Institutional Outcome One (communication), the program saw a general tendency for students to only do reading as it directly pertained to their grade in the class. In other words, if students were told to read, but not held directly accountable for that reading, they didn’t tend to do it. This information gave faculty valuable ways to understand how workload in a class might need to be accounted for. The data collected in regard to this assessment was only possible through a coordinated effort.

While all programs on campus work on at least one of the three Institutional Outcomes, the Workforce Programs on campus are also working through assessments of their own, as they relate to program- specific outcomes. The outcomes of these assessments are understood through reflections made in program audits, as well as through the course-level assessments done by faculty across these programs.

In the Early Childhood Education program, they wanted to create a more streamlined and efficient assessment process and to update their courses and materials to better reflect common practices today. Over the course of the last three years, they revised many redundant program outcomes, transitioned courses between online and face-to-face modalities, and incorporated more OER texts into their courses. These changes reflect an ongoing relationship between meeting industry standards and working to improve the standard of the industry.

In the Agriculture program, they saw issues with math proficiency, across multiple courses in the program. They adjusted their advising to allow students to take additional math courses before entering into the general chemistry series. They also added math modules to the beginning weeks of many of their agriculture courses. The agriculture program has set goals related to increasing critical thinking, increasing industry expert interactions with students, and continuing to increase math literacy in its students.

The AVF program had concerns related to an increase in time it took for students to complete ground school, along with a desire to update skills related to current technology and materials related to textbooks and exams. They revised exams, text materials, and added additional class time to reflect some of these concerns. Additionally, they offered additional ground school and helped to stop declining completion rates. They plan to limit the amount of time allowed to complete ground school, in order to encourage students to stay within cohorts and be more successful. Additionally, they plan to update equipment and revise additional trainings and curriculum.

In the Accounting program they advanced the outcomes of the college-wide assessment done regarding Institutional Outcome 3. During that assessment cycle, many of the faculty looked at the ways in which group work impacted their courses and found benefits related to students feeling more of a sense of community and improvements in learning. The program increased group work in courses and found higher completion rates and higher average grades. They intend to continue this work and try to find ways in which it can be implemented in online courses.

The IET program saw deficiencies in math skills and industry specific skills and analysis. They added math reviews before sessions and did detailed reviews of math portions of problems. Additionally, they added many supplemental materials, provided immediate feedback after each chapter, and increase group assignments. They saw significant progress in areas related to PLC learning/programming, electronic circuits and student satisfaction in regard to ease of accessibility. The program intends to increase workshops related to math and computer literacy and to increase group assignments.

Assessment Committee Plans for 2023/2024

In regard to the 2023-2024 Assessment plans, the college is focused on continuing to push the assessment process in place. The assessment process will stay the same, and the assessment team is working toward creating a repeatable and simple schedule for the assessment committee members to follow. Additionally, the committee would like to find ways that they can have individualized conversations with faculty, and provide a more personal touch related to assessment.

Sharing and Discussing the 2022-2023 Assessment Report: The report will be shared and discussed at Fall In-service. Additionally, the Assessment Committee will continue to discuss and look at the report to determine any additional steps that need to be taken. Finally, faculty will also be given individual feedback related to each report they submitted, via the new assessment rubric.

Training for Assessment Committee Members: The Committee has worked to improve the expectations and process for committee members. Roles are slowly being outlined. We hope to make a video which outlines the motivation, expectations, and timeline for many of the assessment activities (prepackaged plan, Fall In-service, report writing, accessing reports on SharePoint, etc.). By clarifying the process of what is expected of the committee, it will help to give members the broader understanding needed to help their peers across campus.

Assessment Accountability: The Assessment Committee is going to continue to spend time this year focusing on holding faculty accountable for their Assessment plans. This will include looking at the 7- year plans and sending faculty quarterly reminders to complete and submit reports for courses being taught that quarter.

Preparing for Two Years of Program/Departmental-Level Assessment Plans: For the past three years, the Assessment Committee has had faculty working on Institutional Outcomes for their assessment. The 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years are being used to allow programs to meet the rest of their Program-level Outcomes, should they need to. Because of this, the Assessment Committee needs to continue to find new ways of helping faculty meet their Assessment goals and requirements in the future.

Define the Purpose of Assessment: The Assessment Committee will be under new leadership, for the 2023-2024 school year. This change will require additional coordination between the past Chair and the future Chair of the committee.

Integrating Assessment and Program Audits: Assessment is campus-wide. However, the Professional/Technical/Workforce programs have traditionally had the additional burden of completing a yearly Program Audit. More recently, the Program Audit has become an expectation of divisions, departments, and programs on the Academic/Transfer side of the college. As the Program Audit and Assessment share many common goals, processes, and practical applications, finding ways to combine and connect the two processes will help to reduce redundancy and fortify the clarity of results.

Assessment Work During Zero Week: In the past, assessment planning has been a one-hour slot on the day of In-service, during Week Zero of Fall Quarter. This time has not been productive in meeting the goals of the committee. This year, the committee will have faculty meet, during week zero, in the Library Labs, on a day outside of In-service. Faculty will need to create an Assessment Plan before they leave the room and that assessment plan will be approved by the Assessment Committee at the time of submission. This will allow faculty to work with the committee, and other faculty members, together, and will help to cut down on confusion and errors.

Increase one-on-one conversations between faculty and committee members: During the 2022-2023 year, some efforts were made to work one-on-one with faculty, on their assessment reports. While assessment has, for the last five years, been focused on creating clear and simple processes for completing assessment, some of the more personal conversations between faculty and the committee have been lacking. The committee hopes to work on some of these more personalized conversations during the 2023-2024 year.