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Showing posts from December, 2018

Assessment of Schoology usage by faculty

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An estimated usage of Schoology spring 2018 based on student surveys suggested that on the order of 83% of the national site college faculty were using Schoology in support of their courses. At that time a separate survey of faculty  reported that 90% of the faculty at the national site were using Schoology learning management system. The national site faculty survey, being an anonymous self-report, was thought to over-estimate Schoology usage among national campus faculty. Faculty who were not using Schoology might have been less inclined to submit a survey as Schoology usage is mandated at sites connected to the Internet by fiber optic cable. In December 2018 survey forms were distributed to 37 faculty mailboxes at the national site, a meager six surveys were returned. The sample size was too small to draw any useful conclusions. A separate unpublished analysis of student logins done in December 2018 by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness indicated that 95% of the st...

Assessing general education science program learning outcome 3.5

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General education science program learning outcome 3.5 states that students will be able to: Perform experiments that use scientific methods as part of the inquiry process. This outcome serves institutional learning outcome eight quantitative reasoning where students will demonstrate the: Ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations; comprehends and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats. Taken together, the assessment for program learning outcome 3.5 ought to provide evidence of an ability to create data supported documents that communicate results of experiments performed using scientific methods. In science classes with a laboratory component, laboratory reports provide documentation of students engaging in gathering data, analyzing data, and discussing results. The laboratory reports may also includ...

Obtaining TracDat data from Schoology

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Entering data into TracDat remains a manual procedure at this institution. This task can be facilitated in upcoming terms by setting up Schoology to associate course learning outcomes with assignments during the term. This makes data entry into Schoology as quick and as painless as possible. Enter you course learning outcomes in the Resources section of Schoology. This only needs to be done once: the learning outcomes, called learning objectives in Schoology, remain in place term after term. I have my course learning outcomes organized in folders. To add course learning objective, choose a Custom Learning Objective. Enter your learning outcome. Learning outcomes usually do not have a title on course outlines, the title has to be invented. Enter one outcome as one objective (ignore the plural in the Description above!) One can also include specific learning outcomes as seen above, although only course level outcomes are tracked in TracDat.  As on...

Assessing Learning in Ethnobotany

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SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany proposes to serve four program learning outcomes through three course level outcomes. The course serves learning outcomes in general education, the Micronesian studies program, and the Agriculture and Natural Resources program. PLO SC/SS 115 CLO GE 3.4 Define and explain scientific concepts, principles, and theories of a field of science. 1. Identify local plants, their reproductive strategies, and morphology. GE 4.2 Demonstrate knowledge of the cultural issues of a person’s own culture and other cultures. MSP 2 Demonstrate proficiency in the geographical, historical, and cultural literacy of the Micronesian region. 2. Communicate and describe the cultural use of local plants for healing, as food, as raw materials, and in traditional social contexts. ANR 2 Demonstrate basic competencies in the management of land resources and food production. 3. Demonstrate basic field work competencies related to management of culturally useful plant reso...

Assessing Learning in Physical Science

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SC 130 Physical Science proposes to serve two institutional learning outcomes (ILO) through four general education program learning outcomes (GE PLO) addressed by four course level student learning outcomes (CLO). This report assesses learning under the course level learning outcomes which in turn support program and institutional learning outcomes. Note that this course has a focus on "doing" science, on science as a process, a way of understanding the natural physical world and the mathematics that underlies many physical systems. The course does not focus on memorized facts. The course is centered on science as being that which can be measured, observed, evidenced. The course is intended as a counter to memorized science. Once one shifts to memorized facts as the basis of a science, then any set of memorized facts can be seen by the learner as equally valid. Somewhere down at the bottom of that slope are those who are convinced the earth is flat, climate change is not h...