ASSESSMENT
The six goals of the baccalaureate degree:
Creative and Critical Thinking
Students will use evidence and context to reason, reach conclusions, and think innovatively by considering questions, problems and issues from different perspectives and by being open to testing and reconsidering ideas and changing them if necessary.
Quantative and Symbolic Reasoning
Students will learn and apply mathematical and symbolic concepts to analyze, solve, and communicate about problems by purposefully deepening understanding of quantative relationships, graphs, maps, media, pictures, and more, and by applying quantative reasoning skills to solve problems in the context of the arts, humanities and sciences.
Information Literacy
Students will seek, evaluate and use information from many sources by assessing and evaluating information effectively from sources such as the Internet, print media and people, and by being responsible for gathering and using information ethically and legally.
Communication
Students will write, speak and listen effectively, and appreciate the composition and diversity of many types of audiences by developing skills to have effective two-way communication with another person, as well as in small and large groups, and by expressing ideas, propositions, and beliefs in coherent, concise and technically correct ways.
Self in Society
Students will know themselves and will develop an appreciation and understanding of how they can most effectively interact with others who are and aren’t like them, and make an impact by their base of knowledge to consider and address issues of significance at the local, state, national, and global levels, and by committing to life-long learning and personal development.
Specialty
Students will become a specialist in their major and will use that knowledge to benefit themselves, their community, their employer, and society at large by examining the history, methods, techniques, vocabulary, and unsolved problems in their academic fields of study, and by understanding how their specialty relates to the methods and concepts of other disciplines, and by looking for cross-disciplinary opportunities and activities.
Assessment Timeline:
Under discussion but most likely a two-year cycle, with a round of assessment that is tested and completed so that changes based on this can be implemented in Fall 2010---and assessed afterward.
What MCC Has Done:
*Piloted a process and tools
*Engaged faculty participants
*Assessed student work at multiple points in journalism, com. studies, and cross-sequence com courses
*Revised prompts; implemented the change; ready to reassess the change
*Completed a Com 101 assessment; will assess again this Fall semester
*Drafted an alumni survey
*Drafted a senior exit survey
*Examined student comments about internship experience/ their preparation
*Posted the MCC “syllabus”
What MCC Needs To Do:
*Assess work of the remaining sequences
Challenges for This Year:
*Assess in the other sequences
*Pilot and revise the technology tools and process
*Develop student surveys (300-level classes)
*Finalize and post the senior exit and alumni surveys
*Develop a common internship survey
Surveys are indirect measures but would complement the direct measures obtained by assessing capstone projects.