Archived Assessment Report
| Program | CHEM Science Gen Ed |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Can students in a non-majors course effectively discuss sustainability issues? |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | Can students work together in groups to identify an unknown compound? |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | With use of a rubric evaluate student ability to effectively discuss sustainability topics. | CHEM 1110L | 50% of students still participating in the online course pick a unique topic, post four sentences, and 1 correctly cited source. |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | Characterizing elements report sheet (lab report) - identification of unknown compounds (right/wrong answer). | CHEM 1215L | 70% threshold |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | 20% did not participate (3/15) 33% failed to properly cite sources but completed all other requirements successfully (5/15) 6.7% did not have a full citation - link only (1/15) 40% completed all tasks successfully (6/15) All students who participated successfully addressed alternative energy sources. | We are 10% short of the original goal however, due to the small sample size it is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions. | This shows us that more data is needed. Preliminary data suggests we need to focus on how to properly cite sources. |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | 82% correct on first cation 91% correct on second cation | Supports original hypothesis | This shows us that students were able to work together successfully as a team to analyze data and correctly identify unknown substances. |
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | We are going to clarify and modify the discussion prompt and rubric to directly require student's to specifically personal and social requirements of sustainability. Clearer directions on how to properly cite online sources will also be provided. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Yes. A modification of the rubric and the discussion prompt. |
| What data motivated the change? | Citations were the most missed component based on the rubric used. When looking back at the prompt and rubric provided, it was not clearly stated that students were to respond to the social and personal responsibility to sustainability. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | We will have more data, which will give a more accurate picture of the students success. The changes to the prompt and rubric will better align with the outcome we are aiming to assess. |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Given these results, there is little improvement left for this particular protocol. We plan to extend this question to a more complex process to identify unknowns using the calorimetry lab. Students will still be assessed as their ability to work as teams but will have to identify unknowns that require calculations in the process. We are extending from qualitative skills to quantitative skills. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Yes. Instructors will have to collect data for a different lab but still submit to a microsoft form. We will collect data for the unknowns in the calorimetry lab: specific heat, molar mass, and element identity. The quantitative data will be assessed in a 15% range for error - within 15% of the correct value will be yes the students can successful complete the required task as a team. The actual identity will be assessed as correct or incorrect. |
| What data motivated the change? | High percentages of success under the first protocol, but it only required qualitative analysis skills, not quantitative. We want to integrate both qualitative and quantitative skills which will better assess the students abilities to complete more complex data analysis tasks as a team. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | We will better assess the students abilities to complete more complex data analysis tasks as a team which help us identify areas of weakness for more targeted learning interventions. This also requires more extensive teamwork. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | Brightspace Rubric | 1110L |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | Microsoft form | 1215L all sections |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2b. Personal and Social Responsibility: Sustainability and the natural and human worlds | 6% did not participate (1/17) 18% failed to properly cite sources but completed all other requirements successfully (3/17) 6% did not have a full citation - link only (1/17) 70% completed all tasks successfully (12/17) All students who participated successfully addressed alternative energy sources. | N/A | |
| 2d. Personal and Social Responsibility: Collaboration skills, teamwork and value systems | 72.83% were able to correctly calculate the specific heat while 73.91% of students were able to correctly calculate the molar mass, both values within the 15% error range. However only 66% were able to correctly identify their unknown metal from these values. | In the future we can either alter the report sheet to help guide them more on how to draw these conclusions (i.e. make an physical observation of the metal) or have a discussion with students on how to use numeric data to identify something. Possibly error analysis or something of that sort. |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
No significant changes in student achievement were observed during the two-year collection cycle.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
Yes. We are going to edit and revamp some of our CHEM 1215L experiments and lab report documents. We need clearer instructions and report sheets to fill out. We also need to modernize some of the data collection and processing.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
Practicing community is an essential part of learning. Students need to learn how to discuss, problem solve and analyze data with others and it is essential that we continue to incorporate these opportunities in our courses.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
No significant external factors that could affect the program or assessment were observed during the two-year collection cycle.