final version of the self-study document - Keuka College's Middle ...

have now been changed. Given the newer Gen Ed assessment plan approach, the
instructors teaching the suite of courses in this learning goal will meet with a designated
Curriculum Committee member to review these data and determine the next steps for
improvement.
Gen Ed Assessment Example: Freshman Writing Sequence Assessment Report
Appendix 4.34 Writing Assessment Report details an assessment project by the
composition faculty to improve learning in the Gen Ed course ENG 112 College Writing
I. This course focuses on the Gen Ed goals “Written Communication” and “Information
Literacy.” Composition instructors, including both full time and adjunct faculty, read a
sample of English 112 final research essays and scored them using the Keuka Writing
Rubric. The report details the overall strengths and weakness of the students’ writing
competency, and based on the collected evidence, makes recommendations for changes.
Last year’s assessment results and subsequent changes focused on improving students’
ability to support their arguments:
“Last year’s assessment work highlighted the struggles that students were having
in two particular areas: support & development, and editing. With that in mind,
writing faculty introduced several modifications to their courses designed to
address these (and other) deficiencies. In the first place, conversations among the
writing instructors point to a greater emphasis on spelling, punctuation, and
grammar skills this year – skills which, in the past, we tended to assume that the
students should already have mastered. Instructors have also demonstrated a
greater focus on improving development and support in the papers through
techniques such as structured conference worksheets that require students to
reflect on the appropriateness of their sources. The issue of organization is very
closely related to this and some writing faculty have continued to make changes
in order to improve students’ capacity for writing organized arguments: for
instance, faculty have experimented with strategies such as reverse outlines and
dedicating more conference time to the issue.”
The information literacy assessment results led the composition faculty to suggest, among
other things, a change in the assessment measure:
“1. Rework the Information Literacy Exam. Faculty agreed that the Information
Literacy Exam in its current form is an unsatisfactory measure of student
achievement. It doesn’t measure what students can do, and analysis of the exam
suggests that it has not kept pace with the sorts of skills that students need in an
online research environment. However, there was also agreement that an exam of
some sorts is both appropriate and necessary, and a more sophisticated exam will
allow us to pinpoint specific areas of strength and weakness.”
The final English 112 research essays provided a solid assessment opportunity, allowing
for faculty to address more than one general education outcome with one artifact. In fact,
a valuable finding for the composition faculty was the point that students are able to
locate useful sources to support their arguments, that is, they can access information
effectively, but generally do not employ them well or integrate their sources into their
Page 15 of 31 Chapter 4: Inst. Effectiveness & Assessment