The Purpose of Assessment

The purpose of assessment is to improve teaching and learning through intellectual dialogue about measurable learning outcomes, to create a collaborative, dynamic, and continuous assessment process that engages faculty and personnel across the institution in the cultivation of student success, to utilize assessment to improve from within while maintaining a documentary record that demonstrates this improvement to the community, and to balance the assessment process between a meaningful and thoughtful practice, which is part of what educators do daily.

My department offers remedial reading and writing courses to both native and non-native speakers of English. The curricular objectives for lower level reading/writing and upper level reading/writing courses are as follows:

Lower Level Reading Course Curricular Objectives

Upon successful completion of the course, while using some college-level texts, students will be able to:

1)  Distinguish between details and generalities in texts.

2)  Paraphrase the author’s main ideas.

3)  Summarize passages by paraphrasing main ideas and adding a few sentences of supporting details (made up of paraphrases and/or quotes).

4)  Distinguish between facts and opinions in texts.

5)  Annotate texts using multiple techniques (e.g.. highlighting, marginalia, etc).

6)  Distinguish between an inference and a stated claim.

7)  Identify the author’s tone.

8)  Identify and comprehend the idea of transition words.

9)  Demonstrate effective group work skills through team project work and class reading groups.

10)  Use context clues, dictionaries and root/prefix/suffix knowledge to understand unfamiliar words.

11) Use test-taking strategies to better manage time and self-access answers.

Upper Level Reading Course Curricular Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the course, while using college-level texts, students will be able to:

1)  Demonstrate their ability to compare/contrast two readings on the same topic.

2)  Paraphrase and summarize reading passages, both in oral and written form.

3)  Recognize both an author’s purpose and point of view/bias.

4)  Annotate texts using multiple techniques (e.g.. highlighting, marginalia, etc).

5)  Distinguish between an inference and a stated claim.

6)  Identify the writer’s tone.

7)  Identify the organizational patterns of information in a reading.

8)  Demonstrate effective group work skills through team project work and class reading groups.

9)  Use context clues, dictionaries and root/prefix/suffix knowledge to understand unfamiliar words.

10) Utilize re-reading skills to answer comprehension questions during class, in the computer lab, at home, and during exams.

11) Improve multiple-choice test taking ability through a heavy focus on test strategies and question type identification.

Lower Level Writing Course Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1) Demonstrate facility in writing reading-response essays that have an introduction, body paragraph(s) and a conclusion.

2) Demonstrate competence with paragraph unity, using topic sentences when needed, transitions, the appropriate level of relevant supporting detail, and concluding sentences.

3) Analyze and summarize a variety of texts

4)  Use their understanding of the writing process to effectively complete assignments through planning, drafting, proofreading, and rewriting.

5)  Follow the stylistic conventions of word-processed academic papers, i.e. capitalization, double spacing, spaces between periods and new sentences, etc.

6) Follow basic conventions of Standard Written English (SWE), showing command of sentence boundaries, plural noun endings, subject-verb agreement, and show better command of simple, compound, and complex sentences than they did to begin the semester.

7) Demonstrate competence with peer editing/review of short essays.

8)  Demonstrate listening comprehension when listening to student writing and introductory college-level texts.

Upper Level Writing Course Curricular Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will:

1) Demonstrate facility in writing analytic, expository, and/or persuasive essays of multiple paragraphs (500 words) that introduce, develop, and conclude the discussion of an essay's topic with a unified, logical, and coherent focus.

2) Demonstrate the logical development of an essay by using transitional words, phrases and sentences variety both within and between paragraphs and between them.

3) Organize body paragraphs so that each paragraph develops one idea and supports the central focus of the essay.

4) Analyze and summarize a variety of texts, identifying and engaging in important ideas from the text and relating these ideas to other readings or personal experiences.

5) Utilize a writing process that includes prewriting techniques, such as brainstorming and free writing.

6) Follow conventions of Standard Written English (SWE), specifically using coordination and subordination to achieve sentence variety as well as an appropriate and consistent level of diction in their essays.

7) Write essays, in and out of class, with minimal global errors, showing a command of sentence boundaries and will be able to write an essay that contains very few local errors related to fragments and/or run-ons, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, pronoun agreement and reference, and basic punctuation and capitalization.

 8) Proofread effectively for surface errors such misspellings, as well as missing or misused apostrophes, articles, possessive nouns, prepositions, and content words.

It should be noted that designing and achieving curricular objectives is pivotal to student success, especially in acquiring reading and writing skills in the English language. If the curricular objectives are clearly stated at the outset of English courses and measurable learning outcomes are explained in advance, students can work toward acquiring them. The goal is for both faculty and students to understand how course outcomes, when assessed, can determine student learning as part of the overall program outcomes. Information obtained from assessment can be used to improve student learning and ultimate success.