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Session 3613

Imbedding Assessment and Achievement of Course Learning Objectives with Periodic Reflection

Franklin G. King and Shamsuddin Ilias North Carolina A&T State University

Abstract

By now, all engineering programs in the U.S. have a set of program outcomes (POs) that have been designed to meet the latest ABET requirements A critical issue related to implementing and sustaining the current ABET criteria is how to effectively use valuable faculty time to get the assessment data needed to evaluate a program and to make improvements in a program. In the program at North Carolina A&T, the POs are achieved using contributions from each of the courses in the curriculum. Each of the chemical engineering courses has a course-assessment committee that is responsible for developing and reviewing the set of learning objectives (LOs) for the course. The course instructor is responsible to design the course, teach the course, assess the student learning, assess the achievement of the LOs and write an assessment report to the course committee. The course-assessment committee is also responsible for reviewing the instructor’s assessment that the course objectives were or were not met. The program outcomes assessment evaluates the LOs in the entire program to ensure that the POs are met.

To ensure the achievement of the course LOs, the instructor should prepare a course plan and view the course LOs as a list of skills and topics that the student must learn in the course. The course plan is the blueprint of how the course will be taught and how the LOs are to be achieved. In the past, an instructor prepared a course syllabus based on his interests and assessed student achievement based on his internal standard. Most instructors conscientiously presented the students with a series of lectures and exams that they felt were designed to meet a standard they set for the course.

Under the new paradigm, courses must be taught and assessed with the achievement of the course LOs and the program POs in mind. These new planning and documentation requirements have caused and continue to cause issues with faculty. If the continuing commitment of faculty is not maintained, any outcomes assessment plan will fail to produce the intended results.

In this paper, we suggest that faculty follow an “Imbedding with Periodic Reflection Model” and adopt outcomes assessment (OA) as a regular tool that they use to assess learning as they progress through the courses they teach. If they use OA as part of their normal method of teaching, they will have less resistance to completing a report and maintaining the OA plan for the program. To follow this “Imbedding with Periodic Reflection (IPR) Model,” the instructor should develop a plan to teach the course so that students achieve the course LOs. They should then deliver the course and assess whether the LOs were met. Instructors should make periodic reflective comparisons between student learning and their course plan and adjust their plan if student learning was not achieved, adding supplemental instruction, further assignments and further assessment of the topic/skill. The reflective cycle is then repeated throughout the course. The authors use the method in a sophomore mass and energy balances course, a junior-senior process control course and a two-semester senior design sequence.

“Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering Education

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Ilias, S., & King, F. (2003, June), Imbedding Assessment And Achievement In Course Los With Periodic Reflection Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11805