Campus Spotlight: TILT Assignment Design

• Amarillo College: Using TILT for Effective Assignment Design

  Pilot campus teams utilized the TILT Framework to make a significant impact on student learning outcomes and student success. With a project focus on its Criminal Justice program, Amarillo College designed applied learning, writing intensive, and capstone assignments that aligned with the transparency framework components of purpose, task, and criteria for success.

  One capstone project in the Criminal Justice program involved designing a prison. The design of this assignment was intentional and clear; the instructor provided clear guidelines for students to follow and outlined why the assignment was being given. Below is the example of Amarillo College's TILT assignment design for the Criminal Justice program:

  

Campus Spotlight: Culturally Responsive Practices

• Kapi’olani Community College: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

  At Kapi'olani Community College, engaging the student voice and experience in classroom practices was key to enhancing and designing responsive assignments to improve student success and engagement. For example, faculty in the Psychology pathway asked students to reflect on their individual experiences to inform and improve classroom resources, assignments, and areas of focus. Described below is the Psychology pathway faculty’s approach to integrating inclusive and culturally responsive teaching and learning:

  • Students challenged class materials based on their lived experiences and discussed how culture impacts hypotheses and/or theories.
  • Students examined a wide range of personality theories, including a list of key concepts that a theory of personality should address. Then, in the goal of being equity-minded and student-centered, each student was asked to create their own theory of personality based on their life experiences using the tools provided in the class.
  • Students explored topics within the field of psychology that are of personal interest, relevance, or value to them. This allowed the instructor to better understand the specific areas of psychology to which students are drawn. The instructor then provided additional resources, or emphasized relevant theories, to help them better understand those topics.
  • Through the reflection components of students' work, faculty utilized qualitative analysis to identify themes related to the core values of the student body as a whole. As faculty continued to develop curricula, they tried to improve upon existing methods or weave additional opportunities for students to apply principles of psychology to better understand how those--and related--values are expressed and developed across cultures.

Campus Spotlights: Assessment

• Indian River State College: VALUE Sampling Plan Narrative

  The twenty pilot campuses were required to submit a detailed sampling plan narrative to provide background and a rationale for their VALUE sampling methods to clarify the campus’ approach, criteria, and rationale for sampling methodology.

  Indian River State College (IRSC) assessed Critical Thinking across HIPS (i.e., writing intensive and collaborative assignments) within the Social and Behavioral Science meta-major. The project team wanted to better understand how and where students were learning essential knowledge and skills throughout decentralized departments for the Associate in Arts (AA) degree.

  IRSC provided a VALUE sampling plan narrative that captured the goal to better understand students’ demonstration of Critical Thinking, a foundational general education and transfer skill within the Social Science meta-major. The IRSC team worked with faculty across multiple disciplines within the Social Science meta-major to align their assignments with the Critical Thinking VALUE rubric to ensure intentional design and validity of assessment data. Each discipline was limited to the number of artifacts they could submit to ensure equal representation across the meta-major. The project team also worked with their internal Institutional Research office to collect specific student demographic data to ensure an unbiased and representative sample of student artifacts to be scored. The project team employed the Blackboard Outcomes Assessment Tool to collect artifacts. They then generated a random sample of student data, which was compared to institutional data the AA degree pathway to identify any major outliers or gaps in the sample’s representation.

• San Jacinto College: Repositioning Assessment by Improving Capacity

  Some of the pilot campuses felt that quality assessment of program learning outcomes had been overlooked and needed revitalization. The San Jacinto College team focused on improving the institutional capacity for assessment and evaluation with emphases on inter-faculty training, equity-minded design of assessment rubrics, and utilization of readily available assessment technology for the collection and analysis of student data. Pilot programs included Medical Radiography, Child Development, and the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (all have outside accreditors in addition to regional accreditor).

  The project team recognized the assessment work already being accomplished at the institution, including inter-rater reliability, interpretation of VALUE rubrics for evaluation methods, and refining sampling methodology. The team then reflected on how the project would advance these assessment-based efforts and reposition assessment as a necessary, fundamental tool for understanding and achieving equitable student success. The goal of this work was to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration among faculty and leaders to augment the scaffolding and formative assessment of program outcomes, and to increase the real-time availability of learning outcome data for continuous evaluation and instructional improvements.

  Implementation of this assessment work included the following actions:

  • Selected faculty assessment fellows to create Blackboard training modules on general education outcomes, their assessment through signature assignment work, rubric criteria and interpretation, etc.

  • Worked with select faculty to develop assessment rubrics for programmatic outcomes that are equity-minded and attend to programmatic accreditation requirements.
  • Worked with select faculty and pilot programs to collect and analyze data through EAC Visual Data (a Blackboard-based tool) to make assessment more agile and accessible for faculty.

• Community College of Baltimore County: Program Reviews & Curricular Mapping

  At the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), the project team focused on assessing and reviewing their general studies (GS) pathway, a highly enrolled transfer program that impacts a large percentage of the student population.

  Part of the project team’s assessment process for the GS program included developing a system for program review and curricular mapping for General Studies students and utilizing the Written Communication VALUE Rubric as a metric for assessing signature assignments in the program. Because GS is a transfer program and lacked an effective assessment mechanism, the institution recognized the need for assessing GS student outcomes in order to meet the requirements of transfer institutions and to build the skills necessary for entering today’s workforce.

  As part of the GS program review process, the CCBC team embedded transfer student success data and collaborated with cross-departmental stakeholders, including the GS coordinator, the CCBC program review committee, the dean of curriculum and assessment, and the general education assessment coordinator to build intervention strategies for GS students.

  The GS program review process revealed several key findings, which translated into several implementation actions by CCBC:

  • The GS meta-major was removed, and advising protocols were created to infuse GS students into one or more academic pathways, based on student interest and/or transfer goals.

  • CCBC-specific rubric template was modified for general education outcomes direct assessment through the addition of standardized language adapted from the VALUE rubric frameworks.

  • Disaggregated program review data, transfer data, HIPs data, and VALUE data were utilized to develop continuous improvement interventions and map curricula.

• St. Petersburg College: Implementing a Comprehensive Assessment Plan

  In realizing the importance of a standardized and scalable assessment approach, St. Petersburg College recognized that there was a limited understanding of VALUE rubric-based assessment among institutional faculty. With this knowledge, the project team implemented efforts to build capacity for implementing VALUE rubric-based assessment across departments and programs.

  To build a broader understanding of the VALUE rubric-based assessment framework, the project team shifted some of their focus and resources toward professional development opportunities with the intention of increasing interest in a large-scale adoption of a strategic assessment framework across additional departments and over a more substantial timeframe.

  Professional development opportunities included returning to AAC&U’s Institute on High-Impact Practices & Student Success and attending AAC&U’s summer Institute on General Education and Assessment. To maximize the benefits, the project team was intentional in the selection of key faculty members to send to each of the team-based institutes in order to advance the goals of building holistic HIPs that incorporate assessment, and standardizing a VALUE-based assessment approach across the institution.

Campus Spotlights: Professional Development

• Amarillo College: Professional Learning

  Amarillo College has taken the idea of professional development and turned it into “professional learning,” creating a space where faculty learn by and with one another and where faculty are recognized as “agents of their own growth.” The institution has built faculty capacity to further professional learning opportunities and provided support for conferences, travel, etc. Through collaboration with the Amarillo College Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), professional development has evolved into professional learning cohorts.

  Professional Learning Cohorts:

  • Professional development is compensated.
  • Faculty learn within a cohort of their peers to implement new student engagement strategies in the classroom.
  • The cohort approach helps to better identify and track high-impact practices across the institution.
  • Institutional Effectiveness/Center for Teaching and Learning collaboration builds faculty capacity.
  • Faculty “share out” their experiences with peers and Institutional Effectiveness/CTL staff.

  Characteristics of Professional Learning:

  • Recognizes faculty as agents of their own growth
  • Emphasizes that learning is an experience driven largely by the learner
  • Incorporates active learning
  • Is collaborative, sustained, and job-embedded

  What Professional Learning looks like at Amarillo College:

  

• Finger Lakes Community College: Building Capacity for Faculty Development Opportunities

  The Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) team focused on building capacity and space for professional development activities to reflect on teaching and learning practices, student learning data, assessment plans, and idea sharing between faculty members. Described below is the FLCC team's approach to supporting and sustaining professional development.

  Teaching And Learning Days:

  • The event is scheduled at least twice per year.
  • Faculty gather to spend time reviewing and considering teaching and learning in programs, general education, and across the institution.
  • Reflective activities focus on assessment plans, student learning data, and talking about and sharing experiences/ideas with faculty peers.
  • Each general education course and each program submit a survey to document reflections and conversations.
  • Sessions on both Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the First-Year Experience are hosted within the curriculum.
  • Participants take a holistic look at written communication across the curriculum.
  • Assessment coaches work with programs and provide support for norming, assessing, and conducting Teaching and Learning Conversations (TLCs).
  • A robust portal for data sharing creates a feedback loop for the Teaching and Learning Day event and for future data-driven institutional decision making.
  • Disaggregated data are used to challenge learning assumptions and norms.
  • Teaching and Learning Day portals provide faculty with spaces where they can meet with one another in “rooms”; upload rubrics, assessment artifacts, and pillar outcomes; and fill out assessment forms and participant surveys for an interactive professional development experience.

  

• South Texas College: HIPs, Assessment, and Data Professional Development

  At South Texas College, the project team reshaped their project focus by recognizing the need for more professional development opportunities surrounding HIPs implementation, assessment, and data to better serve their students and achieve intended student learning outcomes. To build capacity for more professional development opportunities, the campus implemented college-wide, peer-to-peer professional development sessions on HIP implementation and assessment in conjunction with the annual South Texas College Data Summit.

  An institution-wide effort, the data summit invites every program at the college to review its data points as a group. During the summit, faculty peer teams break out to review key performance indicators, institutional effectiveness assessment plans and objectives, and program learning outcomes assessments. Rather than reviewing these as three separate components, the summit urges faculty members to review these elements as three angles on the same goal of designing and creating targeted high-impact practices.

  The project team’s involvement in the summit was a great success, based on faculty feedback and evaluation. After this summit, which allowed faculty to collectively discuss program-relevant and contextualized data, the project team noticed a significant shift at the college among faculty, with an intentional focus specifically on the design and implementation of high-impact practices and reevaluating learning outcomes assessment.

  The project team mobilized the power of faculty-led, “discipline-agnostic” professional development opportunities to catalyze institutional change and create high-impact practice and student learning improvements that are adaptable and scalable across any department or program.

• Indian River State College: Faculty Coaching

  At Indian River State College (IRSC), the project team focused on scaling its efforts beyond participating faculty by developing a professional development experience resulting in reflection, sharing, feedback, implementation, and support. The goal of this professional development was to design a general education curricular experience for students that was engaging, relevant, and structured.

  Coaching was used to support faculty in aligning the outcome, assignment, and teaching practices. This approach allowed coaches to become partners with others through a thought-provoking and creative process, often leading to transformative change. Coaching was used to promote deep learning and the intentional and transparent design of assessments and teaching practices. They promoted reflection about existing teaching practices, helped faculty set realistic goals for improvement, and provided structures for faculty stay on track to meet their goals.

  To ensure intentionality in teaching practices and to strengthen assessment data, coaches asked probing questions such as:

  • What would a demonstration of student learning of critical thinking look like in your program?
  • Can you help me understand what you are currently doing to support students’ demonstration of critical thinking?

  The following tasks provided structure to the coaching model of professional development at IRSC:

  • Coaches were identified and each read The Art of Coaching Workbook: Tools to Make Every Conversation Count by Elena Aguilar.
  • Each coach was assigned three faculty members. Coach assignments reflected interests, needs, and existing resources of faculty applicants.
  • A coaching checklist was developed to outline “steps in the process” to ensure consistency across each team.
  • A set of common coaching questions was developed to promote consistency among coaches and to ensure deep student learning.

  As a result, the coaching model supported the development of intentional and transparent teaching and assessment practices, helped foster a common language and faculty comprehension of the AAC&U VALUE Critical Thinking Rubric for assessment, and formed meaningful and engaging partnerships to maximize students’ critical thinking skills. Faculty and students reported an increase in the quality and outcomes of student work and the teaching and learning experience.

• Waubonsee Community College: Faculty-Led Institutes & Learning Opportunities

  The Waubonsee Community College team drew inspiration from the annual AAC&U Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success to create and host their own, faculty-led Equity and High-Impact Practices (E-HIPs) Institute.

  The global pandemic and heightened racial justice movements made the inequities that persist in student learning and access to high-impact practices even more apparent. In response, the project team intensified and refocused its priorities to develop equity-based, high-impact learning experiences for students and to re-center efforts around intentional, equity-focused faculty development and discussions.

  Waubonsee faculty collaborated on two HIPs Institutes with guest speakers from Northern Illinois University and Oakton Community College. The program included sessions and development focused on the following areas:

  • Developing inclusive syllabi and inclusive teaching practices
  • Improving the classroom climate
  • Integrating student voices in the classroom
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching practices
  • Writing intensive courses and problem-based learning
  • Workshops on high-impact practice assignment design

  The development of this faculty-led institute on equity and high-impact practices remains an important component of the project team’s steps toward equitable strategies to support and improve learning outcomes for all students.

Campus Spotlight: Measuring Progress

• Kapi'olani Community College: Indicators for Progress

  There are many observable actions that might indicate that a campus is making progress. At Kapi'olani Community College, the team identified the following indicators of project progress in their concentrations:

  • Revisions of current and/or additions of new syllabi and assignments with an equity-minded lens.
  • Increased critical discussions and re-assessment of their classroom and teaching practices.
  • Regular review of course curriculum for hidden forms of oppression and make appropriate changes.
  • Revisions of current and/or additions of new equity-based questions in course evaluations.
  • Critical and careful selection of content, materials, textbooks, readings, examples, etc.
  • Increased use of a variety of formative/authentic assessments.
  • Increased number of faculty utilizing high-impact practices.
  • Greater interaction, connection, and mutual understanding between faculty and students.
  • Specific inclusion or exclusion of courses in a particular concentration would change, suggesting increased intentionality of equity in decision-making.
  • Change of student learning outcomes and re-mapping of course assignments to course outcomes, suggesting refinements in the understanding of what constitutes critical thinking and how it helps all students achieve the course outcomes.
  • Purposeful monitoring and reporting of diverse student populations within Concentrations transferring from community college to in-state and out-of-state four- year college.

Key Takeaways

• Assignment Improvement

  • Be intentional about including culturally responsive teaching practices in assignment design; consider your students’ demographics and cultural contexts as your team designs assignments in the Implement phase.
  • Design assignments that are transparent in nature and provide students with clear instructions, expectations, and criteria for success.

• Direct Assessment of Student Learning

  • Research and employ best methods for direct assessment of student learning outcomes, in consideration of the environment and needs of your institution.
  • Examine disaggregated assessment data to understand where persisting equity gaps exist among student groups. Utilize this to make data-informed, equity-conscious decisions at the course, program, and institutional levels.
  • Triangulate student success data to inform institutional decision-making, ask authentic questions related to student learning outcomes, and improve student learning.
  • Consider using the VALUE Scoring Collaborative as a rubric-based approach to direct assessment that is designed to analyze and score student-produced work based on indicated learning outcomes.

• Professional Development Opportunities

  • Create professional development opportunities for faculty that intentionally target areas of teaching, learning, and assessment that need strengthening or lack understanding.
  • Recognize the necessity for equitable access to online teaching and learning. Utilize the many resources developed by entities like the Online Learning Consortium to ensure your online teaching practices sustain accessibility, quality, and equity.

• Measuring Progress

  • As your campus team moves through the implementation phase of the process, consider how you will monitor and measure progress.
  • Revisit the “Evidence of Success” portion of your action plan to reflect on how implementation has aligned with these outcomes and what still needs to be done.