Tuesday, May 21
Morning—Dr. Wright's review of key assessment principles
Afternoon—Interpreting and reporting Common Writing Assignment data

Eighteen people attended the morning session during which our consultant reviewed the four stages of the assessment loop, taking time at each stage to clarify principles, discuss precedents at other institutions, show how our Common Writing Assignment fits in, and respond to many questions. Discussion focused particularly on the stages of interpretation (making information out of data) and use (engaging the information in program planning) since these are the stages that we are entering now. Ideas we may want to follow up on include:

• finding ways to make the assessment process more transparent and immediately useful to students (distributing rubrics widely, offering models of good responses on a website, inviting students into the interpretive communities, getting anonymous aggregate results back to participating students within the semester of their participation, etc.)
• finding the right balance of concrete and abstract teaching and learning for our situation (ping pong image) and using the assessment process as a means both for connecting the two poles and also for informing students of the importance of that connection.
• finding a metaphor for assessment at CCC, one that fits our vision as a school (examples from Alverno, Harvard, a Jesuit university, a Franciscan university, an adult-education college, etc.). Suggestions included: journey, transformation, moving, juggling. The metaphor quest will continue through the year.

In the afternoon session, the eight team members plus information synthesizers (Simonds & Gardner) worked with Dr. Wright to refine the Common Writing Assignment graphs and conclusions in preparation for our report on the year's assessment implementation. Dr. Wright presented guidelines for communicating assessment findings, including points on formats, components, audiences, and confidentiality. We reviewed the eight graphs into which our CWA data had been distilled so far and suggested clarifications and conclusions for each. Kurt and Karen will make the revisions and send them to team members for further comment early next week. Team members will send responses to Evelyn, who will compile a final draft for one more circulation to the Team before including it in a complete report to the Dean. Further agreements included:

• The final report will comprise an introduction, statement of methodology, results (including the graphs), conclusions & recommendations, suggestions for use, observations about the process, and a summary. This will go to the Dean with suggestions for dissemination of different parts to various audiences.
• We'll suggest that the President (and others in the vertical communication channel) receive the summary segment. We'll suggest that department chairs receive the results (including graphs) plus conclusions and recommendations, with an invitation to take part in the interpretive community as well as to use the results for informing decisions about program improvements. We'll encourage chairs to request further information from the raw data if they need it for program planning.
• Website postings will keep the graphs protected for now, protection to be reconsidered next spring. On the SLAT homepage, we'll post the complete report but add password protection for the graphs. On the IAP, we'll post the complete report minus the graphs but including the verbal renditions of conclusions and recommendations.
• Evelyn will prepare a flyer to be distributed to all staff at Commencement next week. The flyer will let people know that CWA results are in, and it will contain the two most global graphs to encourage people to ask Team members for more information.

Homework: Read three articles about assessment in math.

Wednesday, May 22
Morning—Consultant's guiding principles for next implementation
Afternoon—Design of quantitative analysis assessment for Gen Ed goal 2, Dev Ed 4

In the morning, Dr. Wright began with comments about external validation and measurement of growth over time, referring to her earlier discussion with the Dean. She then elicited our reasons for making the choices that we did about the CWA this year, allowing those reasons to guide us as we plan our Common Math Assignment for next year. We spent most of the morning discussing different frameworks for understanding higher order thinking, deep vs. surface leaning, and levels of understanding.

• We looked at articles about math assessments elsewhere and discussed trends: toward assessing deeper levels of understanding and the ability to handle complexity, toward transparency and sharing of process and results with multiple audiences, and toward support of active learning. The goal is for assessment to rise to our highest standards rather than drive our standards downward into oversimplifications.
• The list of our own values underlying the CWA included: a) content or face validity, b) balance of local thinking and information from national models, c) distillation of criteria to reveal the big, pervasive questions, d) implementation design that evoked discovery and learning for us as well as for participating teachers and students, e) open-ended process and structure f) genuinely useful results (combating the sense of futility that often accompanies data collection and evaluation).

In the afternoon, we discussed at length Peter's compilation of essential skills for students completing Math 080. Lynn suggested that we build our quantitative skills assessment on the front page article of the morning's Hartford Courant, which presented a graphic representation and tables showing census information about the spread of poverty in Connecticut towns. With that in mind, we reviewed the Peter's essential skills list and identified one "holistic" competenceãmathematical reasoning applied in problem solvingãand four "analytic" criteriaã1) number sense, 2) understanding and use of variables, 3) understanding and use of graphs, 4) connection between mathematical information and verbally-expressed issues of general interest. Dr. Wright presented several rubrics used in math assessments elsewhere, and by the end of the afternoon, we had agreed:

• Peter, Lynn, and Kathy will draft a Common Math Assignment format that will include questions addressing the four analytical criteria within the holistic competence. It will be based on a single newspaper article of wide general interest. The questions will allow graduated degrees of understanding, from base to ceiling. The Team will review the assignment by the end of June and make suggestions for changes. The math cohort will present a revised draft at our first fall meeting.
• Participating teachers will be asked to add a final brief essay question that would connect the mathematical analysis of the article with a topic relevant to the specific course syllabus. Teachers will also be asked to grade both the mathematical and essay segments, including these grades in the final course tally in order to assure serious effort from students. The grades can be weighted appropriately for each field and situation. Teachers will get answer sheets for the math questions, and students who show evidence of serious effort on that segment will receive awards (probably small calculators).
• Students will write the assignment out of class within ten days. They can consult with study groups or tutors, and they must type their responses, submitting an anonymous as well as a signed copy, following our CWA pattern.
• The math cohort will create a scoring rubric in two versions: one to guide our norming and scoring, and another (using the Vermont model presented by Dr. Wright) to allow students to rate themselves as they complete the work.
• We'll time the assignment in order to allow scoring and return of results before the end of the semester, so that participating students and teachers can see model papers and the anonymous aggregate results.

Homework: Review the goals of the seven programs that have completed the assessment format.

Thursday, May 23
Morning—Development and unpacking of program goals; Team's role therein
Afternoon—Review of agreements for actions

The morning began with Lynn's "power strip" design for clarifying where and how different constituents of the assessment process can plug in to the Team's services. The power strip shows distinct student learning activities for which we can provide help within the academic division plus connectors to other activities in the areas of student services and institutional effectiveness. Then Peter presented his voluntary labors with the CWA design that we'd agreed on. He offered a fully-developed first draft of an assignment based on the Courant "Web of Poverty" article that we'd discussed. The Team scanned Peter's eleven questions and made suggestions, expressing excitement to see the ideas of the previous day embodied so readily. We agreed to the following:

• The math cohort will work further with this draft, adding language for the assignment cover page, sketching out a rubric, suggesting a title that might focus more on the social science value of the work, etc. They'll e-mail this to the team by June 18 so that those who gather for the AAHE conference in Boston can look at it together. We'll all send back comments for the revision that we'll discuss at our first fall meeting on September 4.
• Evelyn will look for money to support the project (color copies, calculator prizes, etc.). She'll also add a second side to the Commencement flyer to alert teachers to the possibility of participating in this next Gen Ed/Dev Ed assessment. We hope that teachers will sign on in time to embed the project in their syllabi, but we can count on at least six participants from within the Team for our fall round.
• The timeline for the CMA will be:
  • September 4 – 13—refine final version of CMA and distribute it to participating teachers with lots of support and explanation.
  • October 18—all CMA samples collected.
  • October 25—CMA samples scored.
  • November 8—spreadsheet analyzed, graphs drafted
  • November 22—graphs and conclusions, preliminary recommendations, revisions of CMA for spring
  • December 6—Flyer to participating teachers and students on results, with CMA model answers. Questionnaires to volunteer teachers.
• Lynn will revise her power strip picture for dissemination to various groups that may want to use our resources.

In the afternoon, Dr. Wright presented some models that showed how a broad goal (eg. "understanding the scientific method" ) can be "unpacked" into more specific and measurable elements. We looked briefly at the goals of the seven programs that have undertaken this process so far at CCC and discussed how the Team can support the extension of the process to other programs. Before ending with a silly game, we agreed:

• To devote the fall term to assisting the Social Service program, getting goals clarified and unpacked for the general program and then for the specific options. We'll try to demonstrate how this process complements and simplifies Program Review.
• To ask the Dean to devote a Professional Day in February to assessment, at which the progress in Social Services can be spelled out and perhaps rewarded, and at which Dr. Wright would present the work at CCC within the broader context of key issues and national experiences. The afternoon session would be devoted to program goal development and unpacking, following the models we've completed locally.
• To focus the spring term on goals development for other programs up for Program Review.
• To leave to departments (under direction of the Dean) the responsibility for aligning course outlines with program goals, but to make clear our availability for support.

Homework—various people will follow through on above commitments the results of which we'll all share by e-mail and some in person at the AAHE conference. Evelyn will send everyone a list of home e-mails for summer communications.

Next meeting: Wednesday, September 4, 1-3, Room TBA