Archived Assessment Report
| Program | HIST Humanities Gen Ed |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | --Students' ability to identify key concepts relative to intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | --Students' ability to identify key issues relative to sustainability and the natural and/or human worlds |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | Students will imagine they are writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, drawing on 2 secondary sources; or 1 primary and 1 secondary. Students could write about a current issue in a letter that might be targeted for a newspaper like the Albuquerque Journal; for example, regarding an environmental issue embedded in the history of racial/cultural inequities). Or, students could imagine they're writing a letter to the editor about something that has occurred in the past | All Spring 2024 History courses that are included in the State Gen Ed roster: HIST 1103 - Intro to Historical Study HIST 1110 - U.S. History I HIST 1120 - U.S. History II HIST 1150 - Western Civ I HIST 1160 - Western Civ II HIST 1170 - Survey of Early Latin America HIST 2110 - History of New Mexico HIST 2510 - Uses of History | Having a "real world" task such as students imagining they are writing a letter to a newspaper editor will increase engagement for both students and instructors. Simplifying/streamlining instructions will also increase student/instructor engagement. At the same time, clear instructions with examples about how to incorporate key concepts in intercultural reasoning, sustainability, and appropriate communication will strengthen students' ability to evaluate and meet the learning outcomes in question with an average score of 2 or better in each case. |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Students will imagine they are writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, drawing on 2 secondary sources; or 1 primary and 1 secondary. Students could write about a current issue in a letter that might be targeted for a newspaper like the Albuquerque Journal; for example, regarding an environmental issue embedded in the history of racial/cultural inequities). Or, students could imagine they're writing a letter to the editor about something that has occurred in the past | All Spring 2024 History courses that are included in the State Gen Ed roster: HIST 1103 - Intro to Historical Study HIST 1110 - U.S. History I HIST 1120 - U.S. History II HIST 1150 - Western Civ I HIST 1160 - Western Civ II HIST 1170 - Survey of Early Latin America HIST 2110 - History of New Mexico HIST 2510 - Uses of History | Having a "real world" task such as students imagining they are writing a letter to a newspaper editor will increase engagement for both students and instructors. Simplifying/streamlining instructions will also increase student/instructor engagement. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | Averaged scores - all classes Total students 305 Students' ability to identify key concepts relative to intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence 2.8 Students' ability to identify key issues relative to sustainability and the natural and/or human worlds 2.6 | This focus area, Practicing Community, is particularly relevant to History courses, as intercultural reasoning and sustainability are major themes in all of our classes. It was therefore not much of a stretch for us to incorporate this assessment into our Spring 2024 assignments. We were pleased by the interest that many students manifested in this assignment. We believe that this helps to prove at least part of our hypothesis - that a "real world" task such as writing a letter to the editor increases student - and instructor - engagement. It was indeed pleasantly surprising to have such a strong and enthusiastic response from History instructors across the board. Also, an analysis of our collected data demonstrated that we were quite consistent in the way that each of us scored the assignment, which is helpful in interpreting results. | We are pleased that our results yielded scores of 2 or better, as we had predicted. In fact, these results are quite high, at 2.8, 2.6, and 2.5. This seems to indicate that perhaps we could challenge students a bit more in the next round for Spring 2025. This could be because we did not ask students to self-reflect on the assignment in terms of the key concepts to be assessed. We did ask for a clear letter to the editor that incorporated themes of intercultural reasoning/competence, sustainability, and communication appropriate for a newspaper audience. We also asked for thorough citation of sources at the end of the assignment. However, a self-reflection component would have allowed students to think more deeply about the learning outcomes being assessed, and to demonstrate their ability to identify and evaluate these outcomes, and their relevance for making connections between past and present. We believe that identifying key concepts in intercultural reasoning/competence and sustainability of both the natural and human worlds are crucial to our current-day world, and that the ability to evaluate these concepts in a historical context can be inavaluable as students navigate the world today. We therefore feel that adding a self-reflection component to such an assessment would have challenged students to think more deeply about how these concepts apply to their own lives and to current-day issues. |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Students' ability to identify key concepts relative to intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence 2.8 Students' abilitiy to identify key issues relative to sustainability and the natural and/or human worlds 2.6 | This focus area, Practicing Community, is particularly relevant to History courses, as intercultural reasoning and sustainability are major themes in all of our classes. It was therefore not much of a stretch for us to incorporate this assessment into our Spring 2024 assignments. We were pleased by the interest that many students manifested in this assignment. We believe that this helps to prove at least part of our hypothesis - that a "real world" task such as writing a letter to the editor increases student - and instructor - engagement. It was indeed pleasantly surprising to have such a strong and enthusiastic response from History instructors across the board. Also, an analysis of our collected data demonstrated that we were quite consistent in the way that each of us scored the assignment, which is helpful in interpreting results. | We are pleased that our results yielded scores of 2 or better, as we had predicted. In fact, these results are quite high, at 2.8, 2.6, and 2.5. This seems to indicate that perhaps we could challenge students a bit more in the next round for Spring 2025. This could be because we did not ask students to self-reflect on the assignment in terms of the key concepts to be assessed. We did ask for a clear letter to the editor that incorporated themes of intercultural reasoning/competence, sustainability, and communication appropriate for a newspaper audience. We also asked for thorough citation of sources at the end of the assignment. However, a self-reflection component would have allowed students to think more deeply about the learning outcomes being assessed, and to demonstrate their ability to identify and evaluate these outcomes, and their relevance for making connections between past and present. We believe that identifying key concepts in intercultural reasoning/competence and sustainability of both the natural and human worlds are crucial to our current-day world, and that the ability to evaluate these concepts in a historical context can be inavaluable as students navigate the world today. We therefore feel that adding a self-reflection component to such an assessment would have challenged students to think more deeply about how these concepts apply to their own lives and to current-day issues. |
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | For Spring 2025, as a History faculty we decided to have students provide a brief self-reflection regarding what they learned about intercultural reasoning and issues of sustainability in the process of conducting the assignment. (Other than this, we used the same assignment as for Spring 2024.) |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No major change: administer the Spring 2024 assessment tool with the addition of the self-reflection statement. |
| What data motivated the change? | Spring 2024 scores were higher than the average of 2 we expected, indicating that the assignment was perhaps not challenging the students to think deeply enough about the SLOs: Spring 2024 1: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence combined score for all classes assessed - 2.8 |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | Hypothesis - a self-reflection added to letter to the editor assignments will help students to analyze more deeply about what they learned regarding intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence based on completing the assignment. |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | For Spring 2025, as a History faculty we decided to have students provide a brief self-reflection regarding what they learned about intercultural reasoning and issues of sustainability in the process of conducting the assignment. (Other than this, we used the same assignment as for Spring 2024.) |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No major change: administer the Spring 2024 assessment tool with the addition of the self-reflection statement. |
| What data motivated the change? | Spring 2024 scores were higher than the average of 2 we expected, indicating that the assignment was perhaps not challenging the students to think deeply enough about the SLOs. Spring 2024 2: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds combined score - 2.6 |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | Hypothesis - a self-reflection added to letter to the editor assignments will help students to analyze more deeply about what they learned regarding intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence based on completing the assignment. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | Same tool as used for first round Spring 2024 to be used for Spring 2025 - a letter to the editor - but with the addition of a brief self-reflection statement by students | All history courses offered: HIST 1103 - Intro to Historical Study HIST 1110 - U.S. I HIST 1120 - U.S. II HIST 1150 - Western Civ I HIST 1160 - Western Civ II HIST 1180 - Survey of Modern Latin America HIST 2110 - Survey of New Mexico History HIST 2240 - History of Vietnam HIST 2510 - Uses of History |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Same tool as used for first round Spring 2024 to be used for Spring 2025 - a letter to the editor - but with the addition of a brief self-reflection | Course(s) assessed second round All history courses offered: HIST 1103 - Intro to Historical Study HIST 1110 - U.S. I HIST 1120 - U.S. II HIST 1150 - Western Civ I HIST 1160 - Western Civ II HIST 1180 - Survey of Modern Latin America HIST 2110 - Survey of New Mexico History HIST 2240 - History of Vietnam HIST 2510 - Uses of History |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3a. Personal and Social Responsibility: Intercultural reasoning and intercultural competence | Just as hypothesized, scores were slightly lower for secone round, indicating that perhaps we did challenge students at least a bit more with the self-reflection statement. | We are agreed that self-reflections are excellent tools for assessing progress in student analysis of a range of SLOs. For future assessments / class assignments in general, how can we make self-reflections more rigorous and targeted for different SLOs? With assessments for Professional Skills we would like to develop further the modifications we've already implemented: --making instructions for students less fussy, more clear and straightforward --making our self-reflections more rigorous to require greater in-depth analysis from students | |
| 3b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Just as hypothesized, scores were slightly lower for secone round, indicating that perhaps we did challenge students at least a bit more with the self-reflection statement. | We are agreed that self-reflections are excellent tools for assessing progress in student analysis of a range of SLOs. For future assessments / class assignments in general, how can we make self-reflections more rigorous and targeted for different SLOs? With assessments for Professional Skills we would like to develop further the modifications we've already implemented: --making instructions for students less fussy, more clear and straightforward --making our self-reflections more rigorous to require greater in-depth analysis from students |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
We actually saw overall scores dip a bit lower as compared to Spring 2024 - but this is what we expected; we felt we were not challenging students sufficiently and believed that the self-reflections statement added to our assessment tool would be more rigorous in helping students to analyze the SLOs more deeply.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
We are still in the midst of long-term changes. Since we are all generally in favor of self-reflection assignments - as well as making our instructions for students more clear and straightforward - we realize that we can implement these changes in our individual classrooms in ways that are tailored to our own individual teaching styles.
A teaching seminar held in Spring 2025 for Liberal Arts faculty with guest speaker Catherine Denial based on her book A Pedagogy of Kindness further reinforcing techniques of clarity and self-reflection in student assignments.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
As History instructors, the concept of "Practicing Community" was something that really spoke to us. With this particular assessment, we developed an assessment tool that helped us relate past and present ideas of community involvement more fully than perhaps some other assignments. This is knowledge we can use moving forward, both with assignments for college assessment cycles as well as other classroom assignments.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
none