Assessing the University Learning Objectives - The Vision
- GE, Major Departments, and Student Affairs work together in partnership to help students achieve the ULOs (University Learning Objectives).
- ULO Consulants coordinate the educational improvement efforts of all three divisions.
- Students perceive the entire curriculum as a coherent and mutually reinforcing learning experience.
What is the role of the ULO Consultants?
To identify ways to improve student attainment of the ULOs through ASSESSMENT, PEDAGOGY, AND CURRICULUM
- To gather evidence of student learning through direct and indirect assessment
- To offer pedagogical suggestions electronically and through Center for Teaching & Learning workshops
- To convey curricular suggestions to the appropriate curriculum committees, most intensively during academic program review
- To help develop, and advise faculty on the use of, a scoring rubric or other assessment methods related to the ULO, including facilitating norming sessions and discussions of assessment results
- To engage the ULO committee in reviewing scoring sessions where the ULO rubric was applied in order to ensure validity and reliability
- To analyze student learning data reported by the faculty to pinpoint areas in need of attention from an institutional perspective, and make recommendations to programs when asked to
- To help programs to develop survey questions on the ULO and to analyze the results
- To develop content for the ULO website
- To inform the Academic Assessment Council and the GE Governance Committee quarterly and provide an annual report/presentation to be shared with the Academic Assessment Council, the College Assessment Councils, the GE Governance Committee, and the Academic Senate
Who are the ULO Consultants?
There are currently five consultants leading campus-wide assessment efforts working with their committees to measure and improve student attainment of the university learning objectives.
- DIVERSITY ULO Consultant - Dan Villegas (dvillega@calpoly.edu)
- LIFELONG LEARNING ULO Consultant - Navjit Brar (nbrar@calpoly.edu)
- WRITING ULO Consultant - Brenda Helmbrecht (bhelmbre@calpoly.edu)
- ETHICS ULO Consultant - Pat Lin (palin@calpoly.edu)
- ORAL COMMUNICATION ULO Consultant - Lorraine Jackson (ljackson@calpoly.edu)
About the ULO Committees and What They Do
Their main goal is to improve student learning at Cal Poly and to align with the current WASC Self-Study which emphasizes the integration of student learning and its assessment.
- The ULO Committees are composed of primarily faculty but also staff from across divisions: GE, major departments, and Student Affairs.
- It is the Committees' charge to help draw together and coordinate ULO work being done by the different divisions.
- The Committees also serve as a central repository for information on the teaching, learning, and assessment of the ULOs. To take one example, "How well are Cal Poly students writing? How is this measured? Have there been measurable improvements?"
- The ULO Committees, with campus-wide input, DEVISE SCORING RUBRICS so that the assessment of student learning will be valid and reliable across the different divisions and throughout a student's academic career. In this way, we can track students' development as they achieve growth in the attainment of the learning objectives. For purposes of accountability, we can also determine the value added by a Cal Poly education.
- The ULO Committees ANALYZE the assessment data and then CLOSE THE LOOP, advising the three divisions on where specific pedagogical and curricular changes can be made in order to improve student learning. Importantly, the Committees, working with the Center for Teaching and Learning, offer faculty development workshops, which serve as a central venue for conversation across divisions and which provide teaching strategies for faculty on how to implement changes. This approach provides for robust faculty engagement with an assessment process that leads to potentially improving the learning environment.
- Once faculty have made changes, the ULO Committees coordinate another round of assessment (three-year cycle) to determine how much student learning has actually improved, as measured against the baseline established during the previous assessment.
- The assessment process is thus ongoing and sustainable.