Archived Assessment Report

Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill)	Focus Area
6. Communicate effectively.	Can students effectively communicate data they have collected, analyzed analyze and summarize in the form a written lab report?
7. Collaborate with peers to accomplish tasks.	Can students work in small groups of 3 to 4 students to complete a 5 week long project that they design, implement and analyze and write up in a collective lab report.
8. Relate science to personal, social, or global impact.	Can students relate scientific research on an important crop species to larger social and global impacts (i.e. food availability, climate change)?

Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill)	Description of Assessment Tool	Population or Courses Assessed	Hypothetical Analysis/Target
6. Communicate effectively.	Did students get a 70% or better in the discussion section of written lab report summarizing their work on a 5 week project on a controlled experiment.	2110L	Student data can be compared over several semesters as improvements to the project evolve.
7. Collaborate with peers to accomplish tasks.	Did students get a 70% or better overall on a group lab report summarizing their collective work on a 5 week project?	2110L	Student data can be compared over several semesters as improvements to the project evolve.
8. Relate science to personal, social, or global impact.	Did students get a 70% or better on the introduction of a group lab report that relates the importance of their study species to a large social or global problem?	2110L	Student data can be compared over several semesters as improvements to the project evolve.

Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill)	Summary of Results	Reflection on Focus Area	Intepretation of Results
6. Communicate effectively.	85% of students were able to meet this learning outcome.	The data support the learning outcome.	This show us that students are able to communicate with each other and present their finding in a scientific format.
7. Collaborate with peers to accomplish tasks.	82% were able to meet this learning objective.	The results support the learning outcome.	This shows up that this project supports the learning outcome.
8. Relate science to personal, social, or global impact.	81% of the students were able to meet this outcome.	The results are consistent with the original focus area.	This result was lower than expected. This may reflect the difficulty students have reading and understanding primary, scientific literature and relating it to larger concepts.

6. Communicate effectively.
Describe the change that was implemented.	No changes are planned. We would like to collect another year of data using this tool. We would like expand on the tools to analyze the data.
Type of Change	Change in course content
Change in Assessment Approach or Tools?	No, they will not require a change in the assessment tool.
What data motivated the change?	Easier data analysis tools like Graph Pad may increase students ability to analyze data and make graphical representations for better communication.
Hypothesis about the effect the change will have?	Improvement in data analysis and communication in graphical representations of data.

7. Collaborate with peers to accomplish tasks.
Describe the change that was implemented.	The students will be given more dedicated class time to work collaboratively writing their paper and will be required to submit a draft of their paper that they will collectively review.
Type of Change
Change in Assessment Approach or Tools?	NO
What data motivated the change?	82% of the students met the assessment goal and there is room for improvement
Hypothesis about the effect the change will have?	Submitting a draft of their final lab paper will improve their overall score on the results/discussion section of their paper.

8. Relate science to personal, social, or global impact.
Describe the change that was implemented.	Have students practice identifying the parts of a scientific paper and reading sections of a paper using guided questions and class discussion.
Type of Change
Change in Assessment Approach or Tools?	No
What data motivated the change?	81% of students met the assessment criteria demonstrating room for improvement
Hypothesis about the effect the change will have?	This will increase students ability to carefully read and interpret scientific literature.

Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill)	Description of Assessment Tool	Population of Courses Assessed
6. Communicate effectively.	The same assessment tools will be used to collect the second round of data.	2110L face to face lab
7. Collaborate with peers to accomplish tasks.	The same assessment tool will be used for the second round.	2110L
8. Relate science to personal, social, or global impact.	The same assessment tool will be used for the second round.	2110L face to face

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

Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.

Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?

What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?

Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.

1. Contact & Program Identification