Intro to Energy Assessing current industry events

Submitted by Frank Perkins on
Duration
-
What is the Purpose of the Assessment?

The current course really had no means to assess current industry events or writing or critical thinking skills.

Describe the necessity for this assessment

I needed a way to assess for student learning on current industry events and wanted to be able to assess critical thinking skills and writing skills.

Describe how the practice will be implemented

I created two writing assignments that were based on current industry events, Proposition 127 in Arizona and the Camp Fire in California. Both assignments required the student to research the events, write a two page report, and the report had questions that the student had to critically think about and develop their own opinions. For example students had to research to find out the cause of the Camp Fire then had to come up with ways they would prevent it from happening again.

Interpret, compare, and describe the results

The change provided me a means to determine if the student learning outcome of learning recient industry events was being accomplished. It also gave me two assignments where I could evaluate students critical thinking and writing skills and to be able to turn in an assessment to the Student Acamedic Achievement Committee.

After analyzing, and reflecting on the outcome, what are the next steps?

After reviewing both assignments, using the SAAC rubric along with my own to evaluate assignments I determined that the assessment was very useful in my class. I plan on continuing to have my students evaluate industry events with this format. It also worked at a great conversation starter for my class. My next steps are to keep up with current industry events so I can make new assignments for the Fall semester.

Abstract

One of the student learning outcomes of this class is to discuss current industry events. It is difficult to assess discussing events and generally the whole class doesn't participate in discussions equally. By creating a writing assignment to discuss and analyze events I gained a strong means to measure an SLO and both writing and critical thinking. The assignment was a good way to start off the class and to get student engagement for the day.

Division/Department
Completed Full Cycle
Yes
Course Number
PPT120
Assessment of the Month
Rating
Average: 5 (2 votes)

Comments

Becky Baranowski Thu, 09/19/2019 - 10:47am

Thank you for taking time to document what you have done in your class.  I love how you used current events in these assignments to make the content more relevant; this is especially important in your field.  Also, thank you for taking time to tie this into the SAC rubric.