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Assessing General Education in Major-specific Capstones
Opportunities & challenges in major-specific capstone courses
Craig PepinChamplain College (VT)
Joan HawthorneUniversity Of North Dakota
Tom SteenUniversity Of North Dakota
Capstones & Assessment & General EducationMaking connections
Capstones – Key Features
High Impact Practice
The “Last Best Place”
Integrates previous work in the major (and maybe Gen Ed?)
Making use of capstones for assessment?
"A review of programs ... revealed that many institutions have yet to turn this period toward assessment, . . . Reflection on and synthesis of liberal learning and learning for the world of work would seem to be a logical centerpiece of this assessment." (Jean Henscheid, 2008)
Making use of capstones for assessment?
2011 National Survey of Capstones (NRC) . . .
Used formal assessment = 55.7%
No formal assessment = 31.3%
Unsure ??? = 13%
Discipline-specific Capstones
Not all Capstones are in-majors
Cross-disciplinary vs. Inter-disciplinary
In-major can involve multiple programs
No matter how designed, D-S Capstones have great potential to connect students’ general education with their education in their majors.
The AGLS assessment/GE project10 institutions – common interests
Association General & Liberal Studies Assessment/GE Project
John Nichols (St. Joseph’s College, IN), Project Leader
Lumina Foundation funding
AGLS publication: Spring 2013
What is worthy assessment --> understanding our GE programs?
10 institutions – across the U.S. Diverse missions Diverse size Diverse program design/GE Common effort: What do our students learn in GE? How do we know?
ChallengesFor GE Assessment in CapstonesCommon problems
Capstones are often quite different
Challenge: divergent learning outcomes
Aggregating results looks easy . . . .
Majors may assess for disciplinary outcomes.
Challenge: can we add them together to produce valid evidence?
Power and authority are often diffused
Who are the deciders?
General Education is important but not everybody wants to help assess it
Challenge: How to build support among those who control the
capstones? Good assessment
is often sticky work …
and if poorly handled,possibly even toxic.
Some challenges can’t be anticipated
Assessment is, at its core, a subversive activity…Although most institutions operate the way they do because faculty, staff, students, and administrative leaders genuinely believe that the current structures promote learning, the current state of affairs at almost every institution is based on a delicate set of compromises and optimizations in which many parties have participated and which few care to alter. (Banta and Blaich, 2011)
Getting the work done:Strategies from the AGLS GE/capstone project
Challenge: Building support
“Institutional DNA” Culture, power
structures, resources
Incentive structures SoTL publications Teaching feedback
Shared values about higher education skills employers want Institutional missions
Challenge: divergent learning outcomes
Alignment of GE learning outcomes with professional accreditation requirements.
Choice of GE learning outcomes is crucial
Challenge: Aggregating existing assessments
Autonomy vs. uniformity: the tradeoffs
University of North Dakota Course and program
level Building culture of
assessment
Champlain’s hybrid Common assignment
parameters, but instructor choice
Challenge: Aggregating existing assessments
Independent scoring of student work: St. Francis (IN) and Champlain More comparable,
reliable Less faculty autonomy
Faculty are more likely to participate in assessment work if they can see some additional benefits for them.
A second option
How about your campus?assessing student work in capstones
Discussion: 4 Questions (+ 1)
1. Political obstacles?
2. Learning outcomes—most plausible?
3. Learning outcomes—most important?
4. Who needs to know? What do they want to know?
And…What questions do you have that you’d like good answers for today?
Please stay in touchHere’s how to contact us . . . .
Our contact information
Craig Pepin, Assistant Dean for Assessment, Core Division Champlain College, Burlington VT 05402-0670 [email protected]
Joan Hawthorne, Director of Assessment & Accreditation The University of North Dakota, Grand Forks 58202-8176 [email protected]
Tom Steen, Director of Essential Studies The University of North Dakota, Grand Forks 58202-7310 [email protected]
The AGLS Assessment Project
Nichols, J. (Ed.) Judgments of Quality: Connecting faculty best assessment with student best work. Association for General and Liberal Studies, Spring, 2013.
Copies available soon: order from AGLS office: (812) 376-7468 or [email protected]
The project will be featured at the 2014 AGLS Conference in Indianapolis, Sept. 19-21.
