Assessment of Student Learning

The assessment of student learning is a responsibility shared by the General Education Program and the academic departments.

With the exception of LEH300 and LEH301, all courses in the General Education Program are offered by individual departments, and the assessment of student learning is properly conducted by the faculty in these disciplines. Therefore, the assessment of student learning in English Composition (ENG110 and ENG120), in mathematics (especially the courses required in General Education, MAT132, MAT171, MAT172, MAT174, MAT175), courses in foreign languages, and courses in the natural sciences are being conducted by the relevant departments.

Rather, it is the shared learning objectives—both the General Education fluencies and the applied competencies in the Distribution Areas—that are the focus of assessment by the General Education Program.

The students learning objectives that have been defined for each of the Distribution Areas are being systematically assessed in a process that is being developed and refined for the first time in the spring 2010. This assessment follows upon an intensive period of study and collaboration among the faculty teaching in these areas, during which time (beginning in spring 2004 in the early years of the program) the instructors gathered regularly to discuss and define the goals and overall learning objectives of each distribution area. This work in a series of workshops (the minutes can be found in reports on this site) also described the integration of the objectives into specific courses, how to communicate these objectives to students and faculty, and finally how to assess the learning outcomes in the distribution areas. The methods under discussion for the assessing of student learning in the Distribution Areas are described below.

Student learning objectives represented by the core fluencies will be assessed at the final stages of the General Education curriculum, in the capstone LEH300-LEH301 courses. The methods planned for this assessment are presented in the section on Core Fluencies below.