Implementation Timeline

Kennedy-King College Assessment of

Student Learning Project:

Writing Across the Curriculum

Kennedy-King College

Philosophy

The Kennedy-King College philosophy, derived from the

philosophy of the City Colleges of Chicago as defined

by the Illinois Master Plan for Higher Education and the

Illinois Public Community College Act, is to accept all

eligible students and to provide them with an education

appropriate to their needs that will allow them to achieve

the kind of economic, cultural, and social life they desire.

Mission

Kennedy-King College is dedicated to providing high

quality, comprehensive, accessible education and training

opportunities that respond to changing community needs

and that enables individuals to reach their full potential

and successfully compete in the global marketplace. To

this end, the College adopted the following purposes:

Offer quality curricula that prepares students to

successfully compete in the workforce or to achieve higher

education goals. Provide a comprehensive general

education program in the liberal arts and sciences.

Provide an educational delivery system that upgrades

skill levels, enhances employability, and responds

to changing needs of the local, regional and national

labor markets. Provide adult programs for basic

educational attainment, English language proficiency,

and lifelong learning throughout the community.

Provide a comprehensive, systematic, student support

system that enhances students' opportunities for

successful matriculation.

Ensure that students who complete programs are

academically, socially, and vocationally competent

individuals.

Next Steps

As a result of the initial project implementation, the Assessment Committee, in conjunction with the Speech Department, has worked in developing Speech Across the Curriculum (SAC), to assess the oral effectiveness of student presentations

Speech Across the Curriculum (SAC)

• Using a Speech Department designed rubric, SAC

assesses the effectiveness of student presentations

based on oral communication student learning outcomes

• Initial assessment occurred Spring 2013 and data being

compiled and analysed Fall 2013

Department Assessment Plans

• Revisiting of General Education departments and

Career Programs assessment plans

• Departments will provide progress reports

Outcomes and Resources

• Developed an Assessment Mentoring Program where

members of the Assessment Committee serve as

liaisons for campus departments

• Held an Assessment Colloquium where departments

discussed their departmental and program assessment

endeavors

• Developed Assessment Committee by-laws

• Developed an Assessment Webpage to inform the

KKC community of meetings, updates, and projects

• Conducted annual assessment week activities that

included quizzes, classroom “moment of assessment”,

and assessment posters

• Conducted assessment of general education outcomes

for oral and written communication and human diversity

Implementation Timeline

Assessment Committee

Purpose

Student learning is at the heart of Kennedy-King College’s

mission. The Assessment Committee works to facilitate the

development and implementation of an organized and

sustained assessment process to evaluate and improve

student learning that makes Kennedy-King College an

institution of academic excellence. Recognizing the

important role that all faculty have in assessment, we work

together to implement an effective process of assessing

student learning, to constantly improve teaching and

learning, and demonstrate to internal and external

constituents the effectiveness of current learning methods.

Prior to 2011

Kennedy-King College entered into the Academy in Fall

2009. During the initial roundtable, two projects were

sketched out as part of the student learning project for the

institution. One was to develop a cohort around an

entrepreneurship course that included general education

courses such as Math, Business, English, and Speech. In

doing so, the goal was to infuse general education

outcomes into the business course through written

assignments, math computations, and presentations.

The other project focused on students’ progress in

learning communities that coupled developmental

education courses with general education ones. Those

students worked in cohorts starting at the point of

registration until they transferred fully into credit courses.

The idea was to assure those students were meeting

specific general education outcomes.

After a year of working on developing those two projects, it

was determined that they were too narrow and specific

and did not cover the criteria established by the Academy.

Therefore, the Academy requested KKC to develop a new

project that captured more general education programs.

In 2011, KKC secured the use of Writing Across the

Curriculum, a project that was already implemented, albeit

unsuccessfully up to then, to use as part of the Academy

Project.

Writing Across the Curriculum

Kennedy-King College has long fostered and maintained a

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative because it

helps to ensure that the College is pursuing the general

education goal that its graduates “communicate effectively

in speech and writing.”

Each academic year, the committee collects writing

samples from multiple disciplines. These samples are

scored using a standardized rubric to measure the overall

effectiveness of student writing. These results are

compiled in the annual WAC Report. These reports are

kept on file in the faculty resource room for reference and

documentation purposes.

Sample Results

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Some advantages

• Higher WAC participation than at any time in College’s

history

• Providing an improved image of student writing

• Fostering a larger culture of assessment

Some drawbacks

• Rotation of WAC Committee members

• WAC Committee assumes major responsibilities for

scoring the writing samples

WAC Progress 2012-2013

In 2011, Writing Across the Curriculum was retooled with better sample submission process, improvement in the scoring process, and improvement in the feedback loop.

Specifically, the Committee has worked to make the analytical

scoring rubric more "usable”:

Another significant change to the project has been its

incorporation into the College's larger efforts to assess its

general education outcomes. With the assistance and support

of the Office of Instruction, the Committee has adopted a more

systematic sample submission process. In conjunction with the

WAC Committee, the Office of Instruction generated a

spreadsheet listing 24 specific general education courses,

which are required to submit writing samples to the Committee.

Each of these samples will be accompanied by a coversheet,

which will provide information regarding the individual students'

intended major, their tenure at the College, and the number of

credits they have attained. The intent of this change is to make

the data generated by the WAC project more robust and

inclusive.

The Committee also had a goal of presenting the data to the

entire campus, which was achieved during Faculty

Development week at the beginning of the Fall 2012 semester

and has continued in Fall 2013. For two years running, the

Committee has prepared and presented a PowerPoint

presentation highlighting its findings.

Recommendations have included the following:

• Provide writing rubrics to all students

• Encourage use of the Writing Center and expand

embedded tutoring program

• Encourage use of computers/technology for writing

assignments.

Additionally, there was college-wide participation in Assessment Week activities in November 2012 and another is planned in November 2013.

Composition Organization Style Sentence

Structure Usage Mechanics

1 101 90 76 66 61 64

2 155 155 142 135 145 145

3 103 112 141 144 126 134

4 18 20 18 32 35 34

Composition Organization Style Sentence

Structure Usage Mechanics

1 27% 24% 20% 18% 17% 17%

2 41% 41% 38% 36% 38% 38%

3 27% 30% 37% 38% 36% 36%

4 5% 5% 5% 9% 9% 9%