ࡱ> ]_^q` +bjbjqPqP 4N::#6lC*: )))))))$}+h-)D# D#D#))$$$D#)$D#)$$z'' $#΋#'&(*0C*',.$..'.'` )!r$!\!M ))$ C*D#D#D#D#$ Teaching and Learning Project Assessment Report General Education: Biological and Physical Sciences Fall 2008 What we wanted to learn about our students: General Education Student Learning Outcome: Students will read critically and communicate effectively as a writer and a speaker. Research Question: For students enrolled in general education courses, how well are they demonstrating the ability to read critically? Investigating this question is part of our 11 year plan to assess the five student learning outcomes for the general education program at Ӱɴý. The concept of the GE seminars derived from the pilot teaching communities that we conducted from 2004- 2007. The idea is to provide a structure in which faculty can collaboratively investigate how well students are demonstrating the abilities that we have deemed the primary outcomes of a general education. It is based on direct measures of student learning and is an embedded course assessment. Staff Development related to Critical Reading: January 2008: 2 day flex workshop conducted by Linda Elder of Critical Thinking Foundation. Ms. Elder focused on close and critical reading strategies for classroom instruction. (approximately 40 faculty/staff attended) August 2008: GE Retreat held at San Damiano; there were 30 participants. What we did: Faculty who teach general education courses met for three 2 hour workshops throughout the Fall semester. At the first seminar, we watched a video produced by students at Chabot College entitled Reading between the Lives in which students discussed their experiences, or lack thereof, with reading in their classes. After discussing the student perspective presented in that video, we worked in interdisciplinary small groups to read an excerpt from an art history text. We posed questions about the reading based on the critical thinking model we were introduced to by speakers from the Critical Thinking Foundation. For seminar 2, faculty brought in reading selections they intended to assign their students, and had their colleagues read the selection and attempt to answer critical thinking questions based on it. The purpose of this exercise was to get feedback from proficient readers outside of their own discipline; this feedback was intended to help faculty articulate how well they expected students to answer the questions posed. At the third seminar, we heard from a panel composed of the GE facilitators who reported on how well their students had done on their assignment. Our original plan was to have faculty work in small interdisciplinary groups to do the same, but there was a momentum toward discussion in response to the panel presentation, and so we stayed in one large group for a more generalized discussion. All faculty were asked to turn in their individual assessment results to the facilitator for their GE Area: Communication/Critical Thinking (Alex Sterling, facilitator) Biological or Physical Science ( Scott Cabral, facilitator) Creative Arts/Humanities ( Curtis Corlew, facilitator) Behavioral/Social Sciences ( Shalini Lugani, facilitator) FALL 2008 GE BOX#FT/PT FACULTY #FT SECTIONS%#PT SECTIONS%COM/CT6/8833%1667%BIO/PS8/102061%1339%CA/HUM15/172652%2448%BS/SS10/194560%3040% # full time faculty teaching GE in Spring 08: 39 # full time faculty who participated in at least 2/3 seminars: 23 Ken Alexander, Jeanne Bonner, Scott Cabral, Curtis Corlew, Kurt Crowder, Estelle Davi, Dennis Gravert, Durwynne Hsieh, Don Kaiper, Mark Lewis, Shalini Lugani, Cindy McGrath, Karen Nakaji, Danny Ramirez, Lucy Snow, Jeannine Stein, Alex Sample, Alex Sterling, Jancy Rickman, Katalina Wethington, Kathy Willet, Nancy Ybarra, Dave Zimny GE Area: Biological and Physical Sciences List faculty participants and courses included in assessment: Biology Physical Science Courses Assessed Jeanne Bonner PHYS 35 Scott Cabral ASTRO 10 Kurt Crowder PHYS 15 Dennis Gravert CHEM 25 Durwynne Hsieh BIO 50 Mark Lewis BIO 10 Jancy Rickman BIO 20 Kathy Willett BIO 7 Summary of Assigned Readings and Critical Thinking Questions: Assigned Reading/ Instructor Critical Thinking Questions Jeanne Bonner Twopages about automobile collisions from Serway and Faughn, College Physics What concepts, theories, laws or principles are at play here? What information, facts or data is presented? Scott Cabral one page about psychological responses to immensity of the Universe from Boisvert, Religion and the Physical Sciences What assumptions does the author make about the readers background knowledge? What is the authors point of view? Kurt Crowder six pages about the equivalence of acceleration and gravity from Lieber, The Einstein Theory of Relativity What are the points of view that are discussed in this paper? What is the main conclusion? Dennis Gravert Two pages about the use of models to explain scientific phenomena from Zumdahl and Zumdahl, Chemistry What is the authors purpose? What information, facts, or data is presented? What do you think the author would say to a student who says that chemistry is hard because you have to remember all the exceptions to the theories? Durwynne Hsieh Introduction and concept pages for a lab of quantitation of bacteria. What is the purpose of the lab? What concepts or theories are presented? Mark Lewis Six pages that described the myths and facts about the scientific method from a Dr. Douglas Theobald article. Explain the authors argument against the idea that scientists can actually prove anything. What reasons does the author provide for stating that creationist ideas are unscientific? Jancy Rickman Three short essays from a majors Biology textbook. What are the implications or consequences of what the author is saying? How does this information relate to what you have learned in BIO 20 thus far? Kathy Willet A sidebar about ecological footprints from the BIO 7 textbook. What is the basic problem addressed by the reading? What are the implications of the material presented in the reading? What we learned about our students: # students assessed: # students assessed as proficient in critical reading: Percentage of students assessed as proficient in this GE area: Students Students Percent Instructor Assessed Proficient Proficient Jeanne Bonner 18 0 0 % Scott Cabral 163 138 85 % Kurt Crowder 26 6 23 % Dennis Gravert 22 13 59 % Durwynne Hsieh 31 28 90 % Mark Lewis 97 57 59 % Jancy Rickman 22 19 86 % Kathy Willett 31 11 36 % ---------------------- ---------- ----------- ------------- Total: 410 272 66 % Faculty observations/analysis of these results: Jeanne: The result is alarming, they were lost in details and unable to pull out main points. Scott: The most common mistake was mistaking a point of view that was quoted for the point of view of the author. Most students understood that the author expected the reader to know already that astronomers find the Earth to be less significant as time passes. Kurt: The percentage of proficient readers may be affected by the fact that the students had not been taught formally the elements of thought or the intellectual standards. The specific reason why most students were not proficient is not clear. They may not have known the meaning of the terms point of view and conclusion. Dennis: There were no cases were students completely missed the mark. The only problems were answers that were incomplete. The third question probably could be written with a prompt that better elicits a mention of models. Durwynne: The results may be due to problems with writing clearly rather than problems with critical reading. Mark: The results may be due to problems with writing, laziness, distractions at home, and lack of time. It is impossible to find the exact reason for any students nonproficiency. Because this assessment makes it impossible to find the cause of poor performance, the assessment is not useful for designing interventions to help students improve. There was also a wide variation in performance among different sections. The value of the assessment was that it showed that future reading questions should require students to interpret in a more creative way and relate the reading to their own experience. Jancy: Students writing abilities mask their reading abilities. Students had the hardest time relating the reading to what they already learned in class. Kathy: Some student did not see the big picture. Instead of using the evidence in the reading to reach a conclusion, some student attacked the evidence. Questions raised: What we plan to do next to improve student learning: Faculty Feedback/recommendations: Facilitators Feedback/recommendations: My notes from the third G.E. seminar on 112408 show that the session was a large group discussion. 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