The Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community
College was accredited by the North Central Commission on Institutions of Higher
Education in February of 1993. At
this time, the visiting team recommended a focus visit for assessing student
academic achievement within three years.
Throughout the four years following that visit, the administration and
the faculty have been continually involved in the process of improving and
fine-tuning the evaluation of learning process.
Some programs have been successful, others have not worked out as
efficiently as LCOOCC would have liked. The
fact that our teaching faculty has remained relatively stable during the
preceding 3 or 4 years has been a definite plus factor.
Everything we hoped to accomplish, has not been fully accomplished.
We further must recognize that not every faculty member has
enthusiastically endorsed or augmented the suggestion for learning evaluation.
The recommendation of the Academic Dean is:
1.
That each faculty member carefully read this updated booklet and
study the various proposals and suggestions for learning evaluation.
2.
Every member of the teaching faculty is urged to use the method of
evaluation put forth in this booklet.
3.
Whenever and wherever a teaching faculty develops, tries and is
successful using any other evaluation process, that faculty member is requested
to share that information and the results with other members of the faculty.
The assessment planning and design process began seriously at Lac Courte
Oreilles Ojibwa Community College in 1992.
The faculty committee and the Academic Dean met to discuss possible ways
of assessing student learning and matching appropriate teaching methods to the
process. Students completed
instructor evaluation for each course. These
responses were summarized by the Dean’s office and discussed with each
instructor. Midterm and final
grades were issued. Each faculty
grade report was reviewed by the Academic Dean for consistency, problems were
identified, and the number of students completing each course was evaluated and
stated as a percentage.
Course evaluation methods were stated for each course by faculty on a
standardized syllabus form developed by the Academic Dean.
However, the outcome of evaluation by each faculty member varied and did
not necessarily measure improvement in student learning or teaching methods.
At that time, an assessment plan was designed by the faculty committees and Academic Dean as follows:
While the above assessment activities
were on-going, each department developed student assessment criteria for each
individual course as students began and completed a course.