Archived Assessment Report
| Program | Anthropology AA Degree |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | Do students meet level 2 criteria: Issue, cultural context, and value systems are mostly thoroughly and thoughtfully explained. |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | Do students meet level 2 criteria: Issue, cultural context, and value systems are mostly thoroughly and thoughtfully explained. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | The purpose of this assignment is to give students the opportunity to showcase their ability to discuss issues of cultural relativity, ethical reasoning, sustainability. The assignment should involve these three criteria through an assignment that involves both discourse as well as collaboration, teamwork, or constructive feedback. | ANTH 1115, 1160, 1155, 1140, 2130, 2140, 2160, 2265 | Level 2: Issue, cultural context, and value systems are mostly thoroughly and thoughtfully explained. |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | The purpose of this assignment is to give students the opportunity to showcase their ability to discuss issues of cultural relativity, ethical reasoning, sustainability. The assignment should involve these three criteria through an assignment that involves both discourse as well as collaboration, teamwork, or constructive feedback. | ANTH 1115, 1160, 1155, 1140, 2130, 2140, 2160, 2265 | Level 2: Issue, cultural context, and value systems are mostly thoroughly and thoughtfully explained. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | About a quarter of students did not perform satisfactorily for this criteria. Almost half performed satisfactorily. Another approximate quarter of students excelled at this skill. | Yes, the results relate to the question of whether students were meeting the minimum skill for this criteria. The distribution appears to be a bell curve, with most students performing adequately. | About a quarter of students need further support for this skill. |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | About a quarter of students did not perform satisfactorily for this criteria. Almost half performed satisfactorily. Another approximate quarter of students excelled at this skill. | Yes, the results relate to the question of whether students were meeting the minimum skill for this criteria. The distribution appears to be a bell curve, with most students performing adequately. | About a quarter of students need further support for this skill. |
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Organization of ideas is a basic skill that every student needs to have. We first plan to promote the tutoring center and specifically the writing center more strongly. Secondly, we will devote time early in the semester to organization of ideas. This takes the form of small group work and evaluating what constitutes good work and what can be improved in others. Many of us already do this early in the semester, so we will reiterate these skills mid-semester. |
| Type of Change | |
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No, the changes only require a reinforcement of the practices we are already implementing. |
| What data motivated the change? | About a quarter of students struggle with this skill. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | The planned changes will lead to a decrease in struggling students by half. That is, only one eighth of students will struggle with this skill after receiving a mid-semester refresher in organization and coherence. |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Appropriate communication is a basic skill that every student needs to have. We will devote time early in the semester to the importance of audience. This takes the form of small group work and evaluating examples of what constitutes good consideration audience and what can be improved in other examples. Many of us already do this early in the semester, so we will reiterate these skills mid-semester. |
| Type of Change | |
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No, the changes only require a reinforcement of the practices we are already implementing. |
| What data motivated the change? | About a quarter of students need further support for this skill. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | The planned changes will lead to a decrease in struggling students by half. That is, only one eighth of students will struggle with this skill after receiving a mid-semester refresher in organization and coherence. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | Explain from the perspective of a traditional society the impact that tourism, eco-tourism, commercialism, research, or industry has had on their culture and environment (GenEd Criteria 3a). Based on this information, discuss what you feel is an ethical solution or the ideal solution to the issues at hand (Criteria 2a [program] 3c [GenEd]). Read two of your peers’ remarks and provide thoughtful and collegial feedback of at least 5 sentences each (2 b [program], 3e [GenEd]. | ANTH 1115, 1135, 1160, 1155, 1140, 2130, 2140, 2160, 2265 |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | Explain from the perspective of a traditional society the impact that tourism, eco-tourism, commercialism, research, or industry has had on their culture and environment (GenEd Criteria 3a). Based on this information, discuss what you feel is an ethical solution or the ideal solution to the issues at hand (Criteria 2a [program] 3c [GenEd]). Read two of your peers’ remarks and provide thoughtful and collegial feedback of at least 5 sentences each (2 b [program], 3e [GenEd]. | ANTH 1115, 1135, 1160, 1155, 1140, 2130, 2140, 2160, 2265 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas | This was mapped together with Outcome 3c. (3c. Ethical Reasoning 2a. Demonstrate organization and/or coherence of ideas, content, and/or formulas). For us, Level 1 was actually the highest possible outcome and Level 3 was the lowest. I am going to reverse this in the next cycle. A total of 40.78% students passed at Level 2. A somewhat smaller percentage, 36.89%, reached the highest level for this outcome. So, more than 3/4 the students (77.67%) were competent in this area. A total of 22.33% did not reach the minimum threshold and need supportt in this area. | Ethical reasoning and presenting a cogent analysis of ethics is likely challenging for students who have never been asked to reflect on the ethic of societal institutions or systems. I think it is challenging for instructors as well to teach content, teach standard practice of presentation, and social analysis. I think the findings here are encouraging, however. That said, we will implement practice or formative assessment in a discussion before asking student to coherently analyze an institution or practice. This way, students can receive feedback on their arguments before a higher-stakes assessment. Secondly, we need to re-adjust our assessments such that the use of AI is not interfering with the results. Our plan is to meet in December to formulate an assessment tool that limits the use of AI or incorporates it in a transparent way. | |
| 7. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context | This outcome was mapped with 3e relating to civil discourse. (3e. Civic discourse, civic knowledge and engagement – local and global 2b. Produce communication appropriate to audience, situation, venue, and/or context). For us, Level 1 was actually the highest possible outcome and Level 3 was the lowest. I am going to reverse this in the next cycle. A total of 36.89% students passed at Level 2. A somewhat larger percentage, 47.57%, reached the highest level for this outcome. So, more than 3/4 the students (84.86%) were competent in this area. A total of 15.53% did not reach the minimum threshold and need support in this area. | Some students, especially online students, are likely turning to AI to generate their writing and in some cases, even writing where they are asked to reflect and provide feedback to other students. It is possible that students struggling with civil discourse and outsourcing the problem, resulting in them not meeting the minimum threshold. We have started addressing the issue of how to communicate in a collegial but substantive way by creating a module that addresses basic student skills for college success. This semester I have piloted a video with embedded questions for credit. The questions relate to how to be an effective college student. In the future, we can develop more quiz videos for credit that specifically address the use of AI and the value of engaging with other students in a substantive way. |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
Yes, we saw an overall decrease in students not meeting the minimum threshold and fewer students needing support.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
Yes, our changes are more about modelling to students how community is built within anthropology at CNM. We, however, will be adjusting our assessment tools in the upcoming cycle as well. We are beginning to systematize zine projects by sharing resources like zine templates and ways to display zines. We are working collaborate on OERs to highlight students work such that larger anthropology communities can be built. We also are brainstorming how we can have exhibits of student work that bring students from different classes together. It is our hope that building actual community with our department at CNM will augment the skills students need to understand the importance of community and community action more broadly.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
I think this theme is quite applicable to anthropology, and we learned that many students are deeply concerned about how their actions and consumer behavior can affect societies around the world. Many are also deeply concerned with sustainability. Most students did quite well in these last two cycles, perhaps because they are personally invested or interested in the subject as they have real-world implications. For us, we agree that we need more more community-building activities and projects in anthropology. For that reason, many of us are working collaboratively on zine projects and final projects. Our next meeting agenda concerns how we can unite different classes by sharing and circulating student work, zines and projects, among the classes. We are also discussing how to build community by showcasing student work in our openly licensed textbooks. this way students from other classes can see the work of other students.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
One question we have is how generative AI has affected these results. Students are very clearly turning toward AI to produce their writing as opposed to refining or to understand where their weaknesses lie. We are wondering whether online courses are more prone to the overuse of AI than in-person courses and how we can collectively ameliorate this situation. It is our hope that an increased focus on community and community projects as opposed to "product," such as a completed assignment, will make strides toward improving the investment student make in their education. We aim to create a curriculum where students can showcase their work and take pride in it, and form a lasting community with their peers. As such we plan to 1) incorporate student work into the OERs and submit anthropology zines to the CNM Zine Repository, 2) increase collaboration between classes (such as Día de los Muertos Displays and zine distribution), and 3)create collaborative student project exhibits.