WNCC 2010 Self-Study Report - Western Nebraska Community ...

After receiving the survey results early in the fall term of 2007, members of the Student Learning
Committee held several informal discussion sessions to which faculty members and students were
invited. The Student Learning and Assessment Coordinator and the Dean of Educational Services
also hosted meetings at Sidney and Alliance, along with three different ones at Scottsbluff. At the
sessions, the results were examined, and each participant got a copy of the benchmark results.
CCFSSE Survey
At the survey result discussion meetings, gaps in student achievement or opportunities for
improvement were considered. Instructors were asked to compare overall student responses with
their own internal practices for questions related to instructional activities. In other words,
instructors could recognize certain questions that tied most directly to activities or assignments in
their courses, so they were encouraged to look at the overall results to understand how their
students may have responded, and from there to explore ways in which they could improve the
learning in their classes by adding, modifying, or enhancing instruction.
During the same sessions, certain differences between student and faculty perceptions were also
noted, using such questions, for instance, as how often students are required to do a presentation.
Faculty members (combined full- and part-time responses) reported that students made
presentations in their classes very often at 10%, while students reported only at the rate of 4%. On
the question of how often students contributed to class discussions, 51% of the faculty responded
“Very Often,” although only 26% of the students surveyed believed that to be the case (RR 70).
Considering differences in responses for cases like the examples above led to discussions about
student perception and the degree of interaction in the class, as well as the degree to which
students recognized their active role in the learning process. Consequently, an element was
added to the Educational Services Strategic Plan with the goal to “Revise questions on the student
survey form and implement a new version with Class Climate system” to gather more data in
general as well as to get data keyed to the learning process rather than environmental factors.
As discussed elsewhere, the Division of Language and Arts decided as a group to increase
presentation opportunities within its course offerings, and the math instructors standardized
assessment projects and began to incorporate them into all the courses in the algebra sequence,
not only using the instruments for data collection but calling attention to them as explicit
assessment tools so that students realize that assessment of their learning is taking place.
Another instance where CCSSE information influenced the Strategic Plan for Educational Services
is reflected in the area of teaching oversight, where the strategy was to “Focus on instructor
evaluation guidelines for adjunct faculty members, especially to support new faculty.” This change
arose from disparities in responses between the full-time and part-time faculty estimations of the
degree to which the student engagement strategies highlighted in the survey were utilized (the selfreported
practice rate for part-time instructors being considerably lower).
Building on the idea of consistency and quality as key tenets of the CCSSE survey, plans were
outlined in the strategic plan for online instruction to “Adopt best practices model for online classes”
and to “Standardize creation, delivery methods, and site design expectations for online courses”
(RR 71).
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Western Nebraska Community College