About the Process:

About Outcomes Assessment and the General Education Program:

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A:  If you are not at all familiar with outcomes assessment, or with the particular way that it is being implemented at Montgomery College, you learn about either by attending one of the CTL workshops or Outcomes Assessment orientations that are held periodically.  Visiting this website will also be helpful, as well as going to our Resources page where we list other assessment websites at other colleges in the state and around the country.  Finally, you can also contact one of the Outcomes Assessment Coordinators:  Samantha Veneruso, English (R) (ext. 7904) or Ken Weiner, Mathematics (R) (ext. 5203) to learn more about the process.

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The most relevant portion of the 1940 AAUP statement on academic freedom reads as follows:

“Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.”

The Board adopted (June, 1978) Montgomery College policy on academic freedom speaks to the “… obligation of a scholar to examine all data and to question every assumption.”  (The complete statement is available in the Montgomery College Faculty Handbook.) Nothing inherent in the Montgomery College outcomes assessment process interferes or violates the academic freedom of the instructor.  Again, assessing outcomes is simply about faculty determining whether students are learning those things they deem most important, and then using the information to make changes where appropriate.

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A: Outcomes assessment does not in any way proscribe how faculty should teach their courses.  Its purpose is only to assess whether students are leaving the course with the skills, knowledge, values, and attitudes that faculty teaching the course have identified as most important.  Assessment results, however, may help identify best practices in teaching certain course concepts.

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A: No, although we strongly encourage that faculty develop a common assessment to be used by everyone, college-wide, teaching the course in the semester when the related outcome is being assessed.   For example, 10 to 15% of one semester exam, possibly the final, might be common for all instructors, or possibly that all instructors would use a common assignment once during the assessment semester.

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A: Absolutely and unequivocably not!!  Such a direction has never ever been contemplated by anyone, including administrators,  involved with outcomes assessment at Montgomery College college administrator, or for that matter by The Middle States Association who are strong advocates and requirers of outcomes assessment.

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A: To some degree yes, but we are committed to not allowing the outcomes assessment process become burdensome in a way that will interfere with faculty’s commitment to their teaching.  The vast majority of time faculty will commit to this process will be confined to intra and inter-disciplinary discussions of what are the most important student outcomes, how these can best be assessed, and what improvements, if any, are suggested by the assessment results.  Faculty will not be expected to handle the technical aspects, e.g., data analysis, for this process.

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A.  Absolutely not.  However, an important part byproduct of outcomes assessment is ensuring  that course embedded activities are in alignment with the learning outcomes that faculty have identified.  In other words, are faculty teaching the course providing sufficient student experiences to support the achievement of the intending learning outcomes?

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A: A course objective tends to be very specific, limited, and micro in nature, whereas an outcome is generally a description of a critical broad learning goal for the course.  In defining course outcomes, ask yourself  “at the end of the day, what are the 3 to 5 to 7 most important things, i.e., concepts, values, skills, attitudes, abilities,  that a student should take away from my course that would make me feel that it was a successful experience for the student? “  If you end up with a long laundry list of items, you are probably still thinking at the course objective level. 

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A:  The first competency areas listed to date are ones that MHEC expects the College to begin reporting assessment results for by 2007. However, the College recognizes that these five do not represent the full complement of competencies that student’s should acquire as a result of our general education program.  Consequently, the Academic Assembly and the General Education Committee have begun to develop additional competencies in areas such as the arts and global awareness.   Once fully defined and adopted, these competencies will be incorporated into the general education outcomes assessment process.

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A:  It is not expected that every general education course support every competency, particularly in a primary way.  In fact, some competencies may not be relevant at all to a particular course.

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A: The College is committed to taking a serious look at the current structure of our General Education Program.  This review will be under the auspice of the General Education Committee and will most certainly be a long-term initiative.  Such a study may lead to decisions about which courses are added, deleted, or remain on the distribution lists, or even whether distribution lists provide the best structure for a general education program. How many competency areas are supported by individual courses are likely to be just one component of the information supporting these kinds of decisions.

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A: Defining and assessing outcomes on a college-wide basis requires a great deal of faculty communication and buy-in of the assessment approach. Unquestionably, once the academic semester is underway scheduling meetings of faculty from multiple campuses becomes a logistical challenge. As an alternative to such meetings, we can set up WebCT sites for each workgroup/discipline that will greatly facilitate discussion of ideas, sharing of documents, and advise and consultation from the Outcomes Assessment Coordinators.