Student Learning Outcomes

1
Student Learning OutcomesLOCAL SENATES

• Academic Senate for California Community Colleges
• Curriculum Institute
• July 2004
• Greg Gilbert

2
New Standards
In June 2002, the Accrediting Commission for
Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), a division
of the Western Association of Schools and
Colleges (WASC), approved new accrediting
standards which went into effect for academic
year 2003-2004.
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The four standards are

• Institutional Mission and Effectiveness
• Student Learning Programs and Services
• Resources
• Leadership and Governance

4
Rights Responsibilities

• The Education Code and Title 5 provide the basis
  for local senate authority. AB 1725 decoupled
  community colleges from K-12 and repositioned
  them within the states Master Plan for Higher
  Education.

5
Local senate authority includes Academic and
Professional matters, many of which are referred
to in the ten-plus-one (see below) and serve as
the basis for college governance policies that
are established between local senates and their
governing boards. Within the ten-plus-one,
accreditation is item seven.

• 1.  Curriculum, including establishing
  prerequisites.
• 2.  Degree and certificate requirements.
• 3.  Grading policies.
• 4.  Educational program development.
• 5.  Standards or policies regarding student
  preparation and success.
• 6.  College governance structures, as related to
  faculty roles.

• 7.  Faculty roles and involvement in
  accreditation processes.
• 8.  Policies for faculty professional development
  activities.
• 9.  Processes for program review.
• 10. Processes for institutional planning and
  budget development.
• 11. Other academic and professional matters as
  mutually agreed upon.

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Local faculty expertise is vital to the
completion of a successful self-study,
particularly as the new standards rely on SLOs.
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Faculty Want

• Assessment that supports our work or at least
  does not deny its importance
• Assessment that recognizes the complexity of
  teaching academic subjects
• Assessment that respects us as professionals and
  our students as individuals
• Assessment that will not be misused to provide
  simple, damaging, and misleading information.

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The Academic Senate SLOs

• For several years now, the Academic Senates
  strenuous opposition to the adoption of the new
  standards has been very public. Since 1969, the
  Senate has passed 114 resolutions dealing with
  accreditation. Of those, 30 resolutions have been
  adopted since Fall 2000 in opposition to the new
  standards, particularly the ACCJSs reliance on
  SLOs and the resultant culture of evidence.

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Resolution 201. F02

• Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
  Community Colleges urge local senates to assert
  the right and responsibility of faculty to
  determine appropriate measures of student
  learning and achievement (such as grades,
  certificates, and degrees), and that absent
  clear showing of the inadequacy of current
  measures faculty need not develop additional
  outcome measures simply to satisfy the
  Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior
  Colleges (ACCJC) requirements for continuous
  documentation and improvement of student learning
  outcomes.

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2.01. F03 Protection of Privacy and Data

• Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
  Community Colleges encourage local senates to
  work in cooperation with local bargaining units
  to create security barriers between collected
  data and individual instructors, students, and
  class sections Resolved, That the Academic
  Senate for California Community Colleges
  encourage local senates to employ methodologies
  that aggregate Student Learning Outcomes data,
  such as summaries, reports, and fact sheets, so
  that they may, in effect, create a blind between
  individual class sections and the institution
  and Resolved, That the Academic Senate for
  California Community Colleges stress adherence to
  the 1974 Federal Family Educational Rights and
  Privacy Act (FERPA), as well as statements on
  academic freedom and privacy adopted by the
  Academic Senate and the American Association of
  University Professors (AAUP).

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2.02. F03 Support for Faculty Implementation of
Student Learning Outcomes

• Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
  Community Colleges recommend that colleges and
  districts provide adequate institutional support
  for any faculty-driven process that coordinates,
  manages, and integrates Student Learning
  Outcomes.

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•  
• THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the California
  Federation of Teachers direct human and/or fiscal
  resources to help the American Federation of
  Teachers community college locals develop policy
  and contract language to ensure faculty primacy
  in the determination and use of student learning
  outcomes for evaluation of academic programs,
  faculty and support staff, and
•  
• BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California
  Federation of Teachers approach the Academic
  Senate for Californias Community Colleges to
  jointly identify and promote best practices for
  local Senate/Union collaborations in the
  determination and use of student learning
  outcomes and other college accountability
  measures, and
•  
• BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the California
  Federation of Teachers work vigorously to defeat
  legislative attempts to diminish the voice of
  community college faculty in local collective
  bargaining issues including, but not limited to,
  the determination of educational objectives,
  statewide evaluation measures, and compensation
  criteria.
•  
• Approved by the CFT Convention March 20, 2004

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A Cautionary Tale

• While certain aspects of the new standards may
  contribute to instructional and institutional
  planning, the Academic Senate believes that the
  standards are fundamentally flawed.

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Particularly,

• in their requirement that the institution
  demonstrates its effectiveness by providing
• 1) evidence of the achievement of student
  learning outcomes and
• 2) evidence of institution and program
  performance (ACJCC Standards I.B)
• In their requirement that faculty evaluation be
  attached to effectiveness in producing those
  learning outcomes ( III.A.1.c).
• Moreover, the suggestion that the institution
  provide evidence of the continuous improvement
  of student learning (I.B.1) is not realistic in
  that it depends on elements beyond the control of
  faculty and administrators.

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. . . That

• SLOs are simplistic and cannot encompass the
  diverse circumstances of our student base.
• SLOs can produce little meaningful aggregated
  data for reporting purposes beyond the
  institution.

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. . . That

• SLOs cannot adequately represent the complexities
  of a discipline.
• SLOs are recommended by the new standards as a
  basis for faculty evaluations (III.A.1.c).

17
. . . That

• the new standards constitute a paradigm shift
  that privileges assessment over scholarship.
• the ACCJC is at fault for, ironically, not
  responding to requests that they provide evidence
  that SLOs improve student learning beyond the
  criteria utilized by the former accreditation
  standards.

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. . . That

• the new standards are an expensive and unfunded
  mandate with reference to training and production
  demands on local faculty who already sit on a
  range of committees, teach courses and work, on
  average, more than fifty hours per week.

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In sum,

• the Academic Senate objects to various aspects of
  the new standards as unsubstantiated by research,
  illogical, reductive, expensive, invasive,
  costly, time consuming, and insensitive to local
  bargaining rights.
• An additional discussion of the Senates
  opposition to the new standards may be found in
  the document, The New Accreditation
  Standards-Guidelines for the Field, as well as
  in the various resolutions passed by the Senate,
  all of which are available at the Academic Senate
  website .

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2.01 S04 Local Senate Oversight of Measurable
Student Learning Outcomes

• Whereas, The new accreditation standards require
  that colleges incorporate measurable student
  learning outcomes at the course, program and
  institutional level and
• Whereas, Curriculum, degree and program
  requirements, grading policies and student
  preparation and success are academic and
  professional matters, wherein local academic
  senates have primacy
• Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
  Community Colleges urge local senates to pass
  resolutions directing appropriate standing
  committees, in cooperation with their
  accreditation liaisons, to develop recommended
  guidelines for defining, identifying and
  assessing all measurable student learning
  outcomes and
• Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California
  Community Colleges urge local academic senates to
  direct these groups to report their recommended
  guidelines to their local academic senates for
  review and approval.