The economics faculty at EMCC collaboratively assessed our students' quantitative reasoning abilities in fall 2015, aligned with EMCC’s Quantitative Reasoning rubric. The assessment required students to place themselves in the hypothetical role of a leader of a task force appointment by the new President of the United States to recommend a strategy for eliminating the US Budget deficit within a year To complete this successfully, students needed to address all areas of the quantitative reasoning rubric. Students averages were highest on “describe the problem” and lowest on “understand the problem”, indicating difficulty with table creation. Recommendations for improvements for the next iteration include practice with inter-rater reliability among the faculty with actual student artifacts from this semester, as well as providing resources for students on how to create tables to address the weaker areas discovered this round. Please see attached report and spreadsheet for a complete analysis.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| ecn-fall-2015-quantitative-reasoning-assessment-report.docx | 41.14 KB |
| all-ecn.xlsx | 18.81 KB |
Comments
Thank you for leading the way with this. The work you have done with this Gen Ed. assessment and your adjuncts is a great model for the rest of the disciplines.
Thanks Heather! We find that working together gives the assessment more context beyond just our individual classes or the college overall. It also sparks some interesting conversations at our semester meetings!
Erik,
You have accomplished so much with your adjuncts and getting them involved in projects. Great work!
Good comment on inter-rater reliability.
Smiles
Olga
Thanks Olga! I'm lucky to have great colleagues to work with.
This is a model more faculty-adjunct faculty need to follow! That said, what are you going to do with this information? Future plans?
In reply to This is a model more faculty adjunct faculty need to by Peter Turner
Pete, we're going to run it again in 2018. We made a few recommendations for improvements as part of our plan, such as practicing inter-rater reliability among the faculty and giving students resources for how to add tables to a document (a low scoring area for them). We'll see if those results will improve!
Very nice work. I need to get our common assessments written in a CATS. Every semester, I see yours and think "I need to do this!".
In reply to Very nice work I need to get our common assessments by Becky Baranowski
Becky, it's a great way to share and keep track of what has worked! I'd love to see more collaborative assessments among the faculty. It's really a great inquiry-based model for faculty development.
Eric, thanks for the inspiration (following Becky's comments above). It is helpful to read you CATS, you are very thorough.
Thanks Bronwen!
Erik, I have always appreciated your commitment to common assessments in Economics. You took it to a new level by collaborating on the EMCC Quantitative Reasoning Assessment! Your adjunct faculty are fortunate for your leadership and fellowship that directly impacts the success of your students. Kudos!
Thanks Ro!