Archived Assessment Report
| Program | Mathematical Sciences AS Degree |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | Which part of communicating a complete step-by-step mathematical solution, including the use of correct notation and terminology, do students struggle with most? |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | Outside of our department - Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | Outside of our department - Please see the Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | Final Exam - we will use a rubric to assess how students communicate mathematical results on the final exam | Math 1510, Math 1520, Math 2530 | Create support within each class to strengthen student mathematical communication skills, with special emphasis on the identified area where students struggle most based on our data collection. |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | Please see Computer Science for assessment | Please see Computer Science for assessment | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | Please see the Lab Sciences for assessment | Please see the Lab Sciences for assessment | Please see the Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | Our rubric was not measuring individual categories, as we thought (notation, organization and written communication). Instead, we got an average score with 60% of students meeting our overall communication learning outcome. This represents the percentage of students with an overall score of at least 3/4 in two categories and 2/4 in the remaining category. | This supports our assumption that students do need to strengthen their communication of a mathematical idea. However, given the way the rubric was incorrectly set up we are not able to identify which of the three areas (notation, organization or written communication) that students struggle with most. | This result shows that are students are still learning how to communicate mathematics effectively. |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | Please see Computer Science for assessment | Please see Computer Science for assessment | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | The math department will actively emphasize the use of correct notation, terminology, organization and verbal/written communication of mathematics in the Calculus Sequence. Faculty will be encouraged to give direct feedback on these items on a regular basis throughout the semester. |
| Type of Change | |
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No. However, the tool does need to be updated so that we can directly compare results within the three areas of communication we wany to measure and not just an overall score. |
| What data motivated the change? | With 40% of our students not meeting our desired threshold for mathematical communication, we aim to address this issue. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | When student see that it is not only their answer that matters, but how they explain their work in a organization fashion using correct notation and terminology, they will begin to make efforts to reflect this on their work. Most especially if it becomes a small portion of their grade, but at the very least if it becomes an emphasized expectation of the course. |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| What data motivated the change? | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| What data motivated the change? | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | Same rubric on the final exam, but with changes made to how to rubric is implemented so our data can be explored more fully. | The Calculus Sequence: Math 1510, 1520, 2530 |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | Please see Computer Science for assessment | Please see Computer Science for assessment |
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment | Please see Lab Sciences for assessment |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Second Round Results | Intepretation of Results, Pre- and Post-Change | Follow up questions, possible next steps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the organization of ideas, content and/or formulas. | We only saw slight improvement of 63% of students meeting our overall communication learning outcome. | How can we provide students with more structured practice in explaining mathematical reasoning in plain language? Would incorporating targeted feedback on units and descriptive responses during the semester improve verbal communication scores? Are there specific types of problems or contexts where students demonstrate stronger or weaker communication skills, and how can we leverage that insight in instruction? | |
| 5. Develop proficiency in introductory computer programming skills. | Please see Computer Science for assessment | ||
| 6. Develop skills pertaining to laboratory sciences, general sciences, and/or engineering. | Please see the Lab Sciences for assessment |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
We did see improvement to student achievement, but it was minimal. Therefore it is difficult to say whether our changes led to the observed improvement.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
Not in terms of enforcing/implementing any formal changes. However, it has made us aware that we should spend time emphasizing the correct use of notation, terminology, verbal arguments and the organization of ideas. It is easy to think of these things as obvious, but to a student new to the process of solving complicated mathematical problems that involve multiple procedural steps it may not be clear how the above helps strengthen their understanding and mastery.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
We didn't find a direct way of considering "Practicing Community" within our program so we interpreted it as the ability to communicate mathematical ideas to others (the community). This was a change from how we have done assessment in the past where we simply checked if students could find the correct answer. Instead, we shifted our assessment focus to evaluating how well they explained their solution process. This included examining the use of correct notation, terminology, organized reasoning, and verbal arguments. It was enlightening to see that while many students can solve problems correctly, those who struggled often did so because of difficulties with the underlying concepts and how to express them.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
N/A