Comprehensive Assessment Tracking System

Life Sciences Assessment: Moving to PLO assessment

Contributors: 
micdx72901's picture
Michael Farabee
BROAA00004's picture
Bronwen Steele
JEFDL26501's picture
Jeffrey Miller
WEIEY53711's picture
Weiru Chang
SHA2079113's picture
Shannon Manuelito
CAT2041730's picture
Catherine Parmiter
MOH2146086's picture
Muhammad Sandhu
JAR2170941's picture
Jarod Raithel
jes2175006's picture
Jessica Ebie
NEI2051537's picture
Neil Raymond
Monday, August 17, 2020 to Monday, January 3, 2022
What is the Need/Assessment?: 

Using the Life Sciences Assessment (LSA) tool to measure student attainment of the Life Sciences division's PLOs.

Describe the necessity for this change: 

The Life Sciences Division has identified 3 programs that our courses support.  We now need to measure how well our students are attaining our stated PLO's for these pathways.

Describe what will be (or was) implemented to affect change: 

LSA was rolled out to all sections (FT and adjunct taught) of all classes in the Allied Health pathway (BIO156, 201, 202, 205) and STEM pathway (BIO181, 182) over 3 semesters.  Individual LSA questions were aligned to the PLO's for each pathway and a pre/post methodology was used to compare student performance at the "beginning of pathway" vs "end of pathway" to determine if students were improving as they moved through the pathway.   

Interpret, compare and describe the results of the change: 

The initial CATS, submitted in 2020, looked at our first data set where the assessment was implemented by FT faculty only and overall performance was measured, rather than attainment of individual PLO's.

Initial analysis of the newer large data set shows increases in student learning across all pathways measured.  However we have identified some weaknesses in the tool.  We are closing the loop by improving the tool to more closely address specific PLOs.

After analyzing the information, what are the next steps?: 

1.  Review the LSA tool and edit and/or replace some questions.  Replace with questions that are more directed at our stated PLO's.

2.  Disseminate the updated LSA 2.0 via Canvas to all sections of our courses (FT and Adjunct taught) and continue the process of data collection.

3.  Now we have a methodology established to collect large data sets from multiple sections we can roll it out to our third pathway, the non-majors courses.

Abstract: 

In AY19/20 Jeff Miller created a Life Sciences Assessment tool that uses 24 questions to measure understanding of general biology concepts along with critical thinking, reading comprehension and data analysis skills in a biological context.  The tool was used in multiple BIO course sections primarily taught by FT faculty and a CATS by Shannon Manuelito (Aug. 2020) analyzed the results.  Subsequently we have refined our approach to using this tool and implemented it in both FT and Adjunct taught sections   We have identified three pathways that our BIO courses support (Allied Health, STEM, Non-Majors) and we have developed PLO's for these pathways.  The analysis presented here uses a pre/post methodology to look at overall performance on the assessment, and also maps particular questions to specific PLO's to measure PLO attainment. We see an increase in attainment across the board (all pathways, all PLO's), but we are able to identfiy areas where increase in minimal and therefore develop our instruction in those areas.  We have also identified questions in the tool that we can edit so it more effectively meets our needs. 

Division/Department: 
Completed Full Cycle: 
Yes
Course Number: 
BIO100
BIO105
BIO145
BIO156
BIO160
BIO181
BIO182
BIO201
BIO202
BIO205

Comments

CAT2041552's picture
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Hi Rachel,

I am excited that you and your team are assessing your PLOs!  Please reach out to SAC if you need any support.  This is an excellent example of meaning conversations within your division:  refining your assessment tool to help support student learning.  

I look forward to reading more about your findings.  

Great work!

Catherine 

RACYC00002's picture
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0 users have voted.

Thanks Catherine. 

I just finished this up and uploaded the supporting documentation.  It's completed now.  

CAT2041552's picture
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0 users have voted.

Hi Rachel,

Thank you for adding supporting documentation and for closing the assessment cycle.  

I hope you have a nice weekend!

Catherine 

REBZS76641's picture
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0 users have voted.

Rachel and Life Sciences Division - this is AWESOME! I just emailed my division a link to this. I really believe that if we can get more aligned that we could really help streamline things for our students. While we are covering the competenices, we are not emphasizing the same things. Chemistry, physics, and calculus instructors are getting students with different skill sets since we are not all in agreement with  what to emphasize. We really need to get more streamlined and on the same page.  Great job.....thank you.