Starting in Fall 2009, EMCC's ECN faculty have developed and implemented the common ECN211 (Macroeconomic Principles) final exam. We first started by defining our discpline-wide Learning Objectives (LO) (see attached). We then created multiple choice questions related to each LO (attached), and we all included the questions as part of our independent final exams. Instructors recorded each students' response for each question in an excel spreadsheet and sent to me, who aggregated and analzed the results (See attached). We then each filled out a "Learning Outcomes Improvement Plan" (LOIP), a plan to focus on 3 areas where are students were weakest at and see if we can improve our teaching practices in those areas to improve the scores for next time (see attached). We plan to continue the assessment for the Fall2012 semester, and then to a meta-analysis across semesters to look for LO that scored consistently high or low, to see if they LOs or questions need refinement.
Comments
Great example of closing the loop with the improvement plan. Erik, did you get the chance to brainstorm possible reasons for the numbers you're seeing on certain questions with the other faculty teaching the course? For example, I may feel my students did poorly on a question because I covered the related material too quickly. Another instructor may have stressed that material yet gotten the same level of student performance. There may be a deeper reason for why they're "not getting it".
Good follow-up on something that Erik shared with adjuncts in the Assessment in Action session in Fall 2011. Glad to see that the methodology is still in place and future actions are planned.