An Overview of General Education Assessment at Queensborough, 2002-14

To provide a foundation for assessing student learning outcomes, the QCC Academic Senate adopted its first statement of (general) educational objectives in May 2002. Curricular objectives were written, and an individual course assessment process was piloted (2003-04) linking general education and curricular and course objectives. A college-wide course objectives form and a course assessment form were developed, and a database (2004-05) was designed and implemented for the course objectives form, allowing queries that could identify courses with common general education or curricular outcomes.

One query report, for example, showed that the Educational Objective most frequently selected as important for the first group of 26 courses assessed was “use analytical reasoning skills and apply logic to solve problems.” The report also listed the activities in each course which addressed the educational objectives selected, so faculty members could see how common objectives were approached in different courses and disciplines.

In 2004-05 a revised academic program review process was instituted, with a five-year schedule (2004-2009) for reviewing all academic programs. Through the Six-Step Assessment of Educational Objectives, this process embedded both general education assessment and assessment of curriculum specific student learning outcomes, and incorporated results from individual course assessment. In 2005 Queensborough revised its Mission Statement, and in May 2007 the Academic Senate approved a revised statement of Educational Objectives  along with a list of sample learning outcomes for each objective.

In Spring 2013, the College launched its first Assessment Institute, an intensive workshop for faculty, conducted over several weeks, and facilitated by the Dean for Assessment, Institutional Effectiveness and Accreditation and the Outcomes Assessment Manager. Held each semester, the Institute has created a new template for reporting course assessment of general education outcomes.  Examples are available on the course assessments page.

One of the goals of the College’s Freshman Academies, beginning in 2009, was for QCC faculty to create, adopt, or modify rubrics for assessing each of the College’s ten Educational Objectives, and for faculty across the college to begin using these rubrics to assess general education outcomes in courses.  With initial assistance from a consultant, faculty prepared rubrics for six of the Educational Objectives (Communication, Critical Thinking, Quantitative Reasoning, Integration, Values, and Collaboration/Diversity), and published them in the 2010 Assessment Handbook.  In the next few years, faculty cohorts, led by Faculty Coordinators for the six Freshmen Academies, applied these rubrics in their classes.  See Academy Course Assessment Reports, 2009-11.

During the review of the Freshman Academies, during 2012-13, the College determined that a larger scale approach was needed for assessing general education outcomes. Once CUNY discontinued the CUNY Proficiency Exam in Fall 2010, the College no longer had a standard general education measure for all graduating students. The Six-Step Assessment of Educational Objectives, embedded in the academic program review process since 2004, was intended to ensure that all programs assessed for general education as well as program-specific learning outcomes. However, the assessment results from individual courses were often too narrow to tell faculty how well students were performing overall in meeting the College’s Educational Outcomes.

With the Fall 2013 launch of the expanded Queensborough Academies, the College proposed a new approach to General Education assessment, with faculty evaluating student artifacts from courses across the disciplines, using a common faculty-designed rubric for each Educational Outcome. During 2013-14 the ten Faculty Coordinators for the five Queensborough Academies, with guidance from the CETL Director and the Academic Assessment Manger for Learning Outcomes, undertook a pilot General Education assessment project, with reports submitted at the end of the Spring 2014 semester.

The Interim Vice President for Strategic Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Effectiveness, in consultation with faculty governance leaders, established a General Education Assessment Task Force to include a representative from each academic department and from the Academic Senate Committees on Assessment and on Curriculum.  This group met for an intensive two-week workshop in June 2014 to begin work on its charge for the year.