Application for
Presenting at the
Fall Forum 2005 Assessment
Conference
Title:
“Completing the loop: Curriculum
Feedback
From The Assessment Of Experiential Leaning”
Applicants:
*Melvin W. Simms, Associate Professor
and Coordinator,
Department
of Cooperative Education and the
Northeastern
University
617-373-4244
617-373-5121
Fax
m.simms@neu.edu
Mark Erickson, Cooperative Education
Coordinator/Academic Coordinator
Department
of Cooperative Education and the
617-373-3458
617-373-5121 Fax
ericks@ccs.neu.edu
Nora Jemison, Cooperative Education Coordinator/Academic Coordinator
Department of Cooperative Education and the
617-373-4038
617-373-5121 Fax
n.jemison@neu.edu
Presentation Type: The form of our presentation would be a joint presentation with participant interactions and discussions.
Presentation Focus: Assessment of experiential learning and curriculum integration. [How-To’s]
Proposed Audience: Beginners, veterans, and faculty in academic programs with an experiential component.
Equipment Needed: Powerpoint
projector and cables. Internet
connection, if possible.
Abstract
Completing the loop: Curriculum Feedback
From the Assessment of Experiential Learning
In the
Completing the loop: Curriculum Feedback
From The Assessment Of Experiential Learning
Proposal Presenters: Melvin Simms, Mark Erickson and Nora Jemison
INTRODUCATION
With computer technology
becoming increasingly important in a knowledge-based society, it is critical
for our educational institutions to prepare students for this environment. Research is continuously being done on
predicting performance and success of students majoring in computing. However, little effort has been expanded to measure
and integrate classroom success and out-of-classroom competencies. The Department of Cooperative Education, in
collaboration with the
PURPOSE
The presenters will
discuss the implementation phases of an ongoing assessment process within
HISTORY OF PAST
ASSESSMENTS
The first phase of our project assessed students’ perceptions of where they acquired their knowledge and/or skills (the classroom or co-op). Phase two surveyed students and their supervising co-op employers. Phase three surveyed students, employers and the faculty; this phase also saw the development of the on-line evaluation. Currently phase four is the simultaneous development of rubrics, based on college curriculum objectives, continued assessment of students by their employers, as well as, the assessment of the students’ perceptions of the quality of their assignments. All of these assessment phases are being incorporated into a larger project, the development of an ePortfolio.
The development of the ePortfolio
is being funded by the National Science
Foundation in
Even in on-campus settings, science education has moved beyond the
traditional classroom, where instructors maintain direct oversight over
students, to include new forms of lab instruction, collaborative research
projects, and independent study. These other new forms of instruction, as well
as, the cooperative education model, both raise questions about what is learned
in each setting, how the acquired skills can be assessed, and how this learning
can be integrated into the overall curriculum.
We are
attempting to improve our assessment process with the development of
rubrics. The rubrics will be used to evaluate
student learning in different settings. The development of the rubrics has
facilitated discussions among academic faculty, co-op faculty, employers and
students. The creation of the rubrics has, also, impacted the design of the ePortfolio.
The portfolio system is being re-designed based on the rubric development and will
begin a second stage of being piloted during the fall of 2005.
The creation of the rubrics has followed current practices in the area as outlined by Moskal, (2000), Herman, Aschbacher and Winters (1992), and the materials developed by many K-12 systems, including that of the Chicago Public Schools (2000). As the literature emphasizes, to develop a scoring rubric we first identified the learning objectives to be assessed. This complex process was begun by CCIS faculty as part of a curriculum re-design. Now that the learning objectives are in place, the rubric team [Mel Simms, Mark Erickson and Viera Proulx (Computer Science faculty member)] has expanded the process by beginning to develop preliminary standards (rubrics) for levels of student performance for each of the learning objectives. The first rubrics in Computer Science are based on the “Programming” and “Communications and Learning” objectives of the college.
As part of the rubric
development process, we are creating specific criteria to rate each the student
on each learning objective. Students
will be rated using a 5 level model of attainment: novice, advanced beginner,
competent, proficient and expert (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986)
We are using focus groups consisting of students, faculty, and employers to assess and revise the first set of rubrics. Once the rubrics are completed for all learning objectives and revised, again with input from the focus groups, we plan to test these preliminary standards for utility by applying them to actual examples of student work. On the basis of this reality check, the standards will be refined and consolidated to best reflect the actual work that students create in the classroom, in field experiences, and on co-op employment.
We continue to struggle with the development of the rubrics to measure competencies students develop in the workplace versus in the classroom. These struggles are enabling us to determine how the workplace and classroom combine to create a comprehensive, integrated education model. Fundamental to this integration is an understanding of what constitutes a "good", i.e. high quality, co-op assignments.
QUALITY ASSIGNMENTS
As practitioners in the field of cooperative education, we often have an intuitive sense about a particular co-op assignment's quality. But beyond that sense, how does one determine quality in a more systematic way? The CCIS co-op faculty has begun to develop a theoretical model of quality based on student, employer, and academic faculty input. Potential applications of the finalized model include: methods to help employers assess and improve the quality of jobs, concrete minimum standards for co-op assignments, and opportunities for student self-assessment of co-op opportunities to give them more control over their own learning process.
As the assessment of quality assignments has progressed, the quest to define and understand quality has become part of a broader, institution-wide focus on better-integrating learning across the co-op workplace and the classroom. Thus we have incorporated assessment of quality into our process.
RELEVANT QUESTIONS TO
BE ADDRESSED
SUMMARYDuring our presentation we will outline and show examples of how we are using assessments to enable students to share in their own learning success. Assessment of learning in both the classroom and the workplace must take a variety of forms. Our goal is to develop a system for documenting learning in practice oriented education through ePortfolios Presenter Profile(s)
Dr. Simms has 19 years of educational experience in
teaching mathematics at the secondary level and has worked for the
past 22 years as a Faculty Cooperative Education Coordinator for CCIS and
Northeastern's Department of Cooperative Education.
Mr. Erickson has spent 9 years in career services and academic advising.
For the past 8 years he has performed dual roles as Cooperative Education
Coordinator and as the
Coordinator of Academic Advising for CCIS.
Ms. Nora Jemison has spent 8 years in career services,
cooperative education, and academic advising.
For the past 5 years she has performed dual roles as Cooperative
Education Coordinator and Coordinator of Academic Advising for CCIS.
References
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Alexander. What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited.
Baxter-Magolda,
Marcia. Knowing and Reasoning in
College: Gender Related Patterns in Students’ Intellectual Development.
Bergman, K., Langer, P., Porter, V.,
Proulx, V., Simms, M. .
Curriculum Improvement
in Practice Oriented Biology and Computer
Science Programs using Student
Portfolios. NSF Project. Northeastern University. Sept. 2002.
Chickering,
Arthur and Reisser, Linda. (Rev. ed.). Education
and Identity.
Dreyfus, Stuart
E., and Hubert L. Dreyfus. Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition
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Herman, Joan, Aschbacher,
Pamela, and Winters,
Kuh, George. “In Their Own Words: What Students Learn Outside the Classroom”. American Educational Research Journal 30 (1993): 277-304.
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George, John Schuh,
Successful
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Simms, Melvin, and Mark Erickson, “Validating the Work and Technical Experience for the Academic Curriculum Through Assessment”, Paper presented at the Cooperative Education Association Conference, Atlanta, GA, March 2001.
Simms, Melvin, Mark Erickson, and Viera Proulx, “Validating the Work Experience Component of the Curriculum for the Academic Skeptic and Unbeliever”, Paper presented at the International Conference on Practice-Oriented Education, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, April 2001.
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