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General Education Assessment

In collaboration with Institutional Effectiveness, submission of Summary Reports on General Education Assessment may be completed via Google Sheets. 2022-2023 assessment reports are due June 30, 2023.

List of Current General Education Courses

For a listing of all General Education courses organized by distribution area, please reference the General Education Courses.

Summary Reports Guidelines

  • Summary Reports are housed in Google drive and are organized by discipline.
  • Separate reports must be completed for each course and learning outcome assessed.
  • Departments offering General Education courses are required to report on their student learning outcomes from the General Education Student Learning Outcomes.  
  • Separate reports are required for each student learning outcome.
  • Data from various modalities (face-to-face, online, study abroad, etc.) should be reported separately but can be reported on the same form.
  • This form should be completed by academic units offering courses in the General Education curriculum.

Assessment Cycle

The recommended assessment cycle includes assessing in the fall semester (when possible), meeting as a department to discuss use of results in the spring, and submitting reports before the summer semester begins. The best assessment reports show that faculty have analyzed the data and discussed how to use their results to improve student learning. While some departments might still have General Education courses to assess after the spring semester, many have the opportunity to finish earlier:

A) If your department taught the course only in the fall, you can submit all of the reports in the spring, after faculty discussion.

B) If your department taught the course only face-to-face or only online this year and offered in fall, you can submit reports in the spring, after faculty discussion.

C) If your department taught only face-to-face in the fall with additional sections online in the spring (or vice-versa), you can submit the face-to-face reports this semester and submit the online assessment reports in the summer, after faculty discussion.

D) If your department taught the course (or modality) only in the summer semester, you can submit the assessment reports the following academic year, preferably in the fall, after faculty discussion.

Assessment Reporting

Departments submit their General Education assessment results using Excel worksheets. Be sure to follow the guidelines outlined in the Step by Step Assessment Cycle linked below. 

  1. General Education Assessment Report Sheets are housed in Google Drive.
  2. Reports are organized by discipline.
  3. Each course folder contains the reports required for submission. You can work directly in the Google Sheet, or you may download the form and enter the data upon completion.
  4. Any supporting documentation can be uploaded directly into the course folder.
  5. NOTE: When you offer multiple sections taught by multiple faculty members, individual faculty should not submit separate reports. The data should be compiled and discussed before completing the report. 

We recommend that the department chair or assessment coordinator distribute blank sheets to all faculty teaching General Education courses, collect them at the end of the semester, and then bring the group together to discuss and determine how to use the results to improve student learning. At that point, the chair or assessment coordinator aggregates the results (# of sections, # of students assessed, and # met or exceeded expectations across modalities), describes how the results will be used to improve student learning, and submits one sheet per SLO for each course. For example:

  • English composition courses only assess one of the two Communication SLOs and one report should be submitted per course.
  • Natural Science courses only assess Critical Thinking and only one report should be submitted per course.
  • All other courses assess two SLOs and should submit two assessment reports per course (one for each SLO).

NOTE: Gordon Rule Writing courses should also assess one of the two Communication SLOs and should therefore submit between one and three reports per course.

 

Helpful Resources