2013-2014 Annual Program Assessment Report
College: Humanities
Department: N/A
Program: Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program
Assessment liaison: Jody Myers
1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). Provide a brief overview of this year’s assessment plan and process.
JS 200 OL and JS 200 (entry level courses) and JS 300 (junior level) students are being assessed at two points during the semester,
within the first three weeks and the last three weeks, using writing assignments aligned with the SLO being assessed. The instructors
of these courses work with Jody Myers (Coordinator) to choose SLOs to assess, the results of the assessment, and to implement
course changes to improve learning. For this cycle, participants consisted of:
JS 200 OL, Spring 2014: 26 lower and upper-division students
JS 200, Spring 2014: 10 lower-division students and one junior (2 were Jewish Studies majors)
JS 300, Spring 2014: 21 upper-division students
RS 378, Spring 2014: 15 upper-division students, 7 lower-division students
HIST/JS 427, Spring 2014: 25 upper-division students (25 were history majors)
These are GE courses containing a broad cross-section of majors.
2. Assessment Buy-In. Describe how your chair and faculty were involved in assessment related activities. Did department
meetings include discussion of student learning assessment in a manner that included the department faculty as a whole?
Instructors of Jewish Studies courses are informed of the Program SLOs. Jody Myers, Coordinator, evaluated instructors’ syllabi prior
to the start of the semester with reference to the Program SLOs. This assessment involves two faculty members who teach both
entry level and advanced courses.
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3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
Students were assessed on their written communication skills with reference to Program Learning Outcome 3: "describe Jewish
cultural developments as a function of a dynamic created by political, economic, and cultural forces." Evidence of students’ learning
on this measure would be evident in written work responding to questions about assigned readings.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)


Critical Thinking
Written Communication
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
Embedded questions were used in all three courses. For JS 200 OL, student posts and responses to weekly discussion questions at the beginning
and end of the semester were evaluated and compared. For JS 200 and RS 378, student essays at the beginning and end of the semester were
evaluated and compared. For JS 300, student written homework responses at the beginning and end of the semester were evaluated and
compared. For HIST/JS 427, the assignments being evaluated were 600-word posts that students wrote on their blogs, and a fundamental
component of them was a link to the source of information. A full class hour (75 minutes) workshop prepared students for this aspect of the
assignment.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at different
points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment points used.
Students in each class were evaluated at different points in the semester, enabling the instructor to see changes in achievement. This method
also permitted the instructor to assess different levels of achievement at the lower-division and upper-division level.
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3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from the
collected evidence.
Students’ written communication and engagement with the readings improved over the course of the semester.
Specific data gathered for analysis included the following.
In JS 200, all students had to redo the first major writing assignment given in the first three weeks of the semester because they
failed to cite their sources, despite classroom instruction on this topic. The grade distribution was: 4 A, 2 A-, 1 B, 1 C, 1 D, 2 F (for
failing to turn in the assignment). In contrast, all students who turned in the major writing assignment due at the end of the
semester cited their sources adequately, and the grade distribution skewed higher: 4 A, 1 B+, 1 B, 2 B-, 3 F (for failing to turn in the
assignment).
In JS 200 OL, one student got a zero for failure to cite sources on the first assignment. Not all students completed this assignment, because this
counted as one of the Homework Assignments given throughout the semester. There are seven assignments, and students have to complete
only five. There were some rewrites for the weekly Discussion Questions during the first 4 weeks of class, but not for this specific assignment.
The grade distribution was: 9 A, 2 A-, 1 B. The second assignment’s grade distribution was 4 A, 2 B, 1 C, 1 D.
In JS 300, all students received passing grades on both the first and last assignments. The grade distributions skewed slightly higher by the end
of the semester. For the first assignment the distribution was: 6 A, 2 A- , 1 B-, 3 C. For the second assignment, it was: 6 A, 1 A-, 1 B+, 1 B, 3 B-.
In RS 378, half of the students had to redo first major writing assignment because they failed to cite their sources, despite classroom
instruction on this topic. After those who chose to redo the assignment submitted their revision, the grade distribution for the class
was 4 A, 2 A-, 2 B+, 3 B, 3 B-, 1 C, 1 C-, 2 D-, and 4 F (for failing to resubmit the assignment). In contrast, on an April writing
assignment, all students cited their sources adequately. The grade distribution also skewed higher: 8 A, 5 A-, 4 B+, 2 B, 1 B-, 1 F
(because paper was not submitted).
All HIST/JS 427 students who turned in assignments cited their sources in both the early-semester and late-semester assignments.
Six students did not submit the first assignment, and four did not submit the last one. As the vast majority of students in the course
were History majors, whose prior CSUN courses place a heavy emphasis on citation of sources, they were already expecting takehome writing assignments to include citation of sources. This accounts for the high degree of compliance. The students who had
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the most difficult time with this assignment – and this is reflected in the non-completion of the assignment – included 2 non-History
students (Communications and Philosophy).
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible changes
include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in program, changes
in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs, new or revised
assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
Further study of a revised version of the writing policy tested this year (see #8) will be done in 2014-2015 to determine whether and
how to implement it more broadly across JS courses. Discussion of the writing policy with all JS faculty will be undertaken.
4. Assessment of Previous Changes: Present documentation that demonstrates how the previous changes in the program resulted in
improved student learning.
No documentation is available.
5. Changes to SLOs? Please attach an updated course alignment matrix if any changes were made. (Refer to the Curriculum
Alignment Matrix Template, http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
None
6. Assessment Plan: Evaluate the effectiveness of your 5 year assessment plan. How well did it inform and guide your assessment
work this academic year? What process is used to develop/update the 5 year assessment plan? Please attach an updated 5 year
assessment plan for 2013-2018. (Refer to Five Year Planning Template, plan B or C,
http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
This assessment is consistent with the 5-year assessment plan. The upcoming 5-year assessment plan is still under construction.
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7. Has someone in your program completed, submitted or published a manuscript which uses or describes assessment activities in your
program? Please provide citation or discuss.
No
8. Other information, assessment or reflective activities or processes not captured above.
The Coordinator and the two faculty members involved in this year’s assessment project worked together to design language for a
writing policy based on previous years’ assessment findings. Previous years’ assessment projects and more informal faculty
observations have noted that students’ written work, especially in lower-division courses, has often been substandard and has
reflected insufficient engagement with reading assignments. We hypothesized that holding students more strictly accountable would
encourage students to read the material and proofread their work more carefully.
During Spring 2014, three classes were involved in an assessment project designed to improve student writing: JS 200OL, JS 200, and
JS 427. JS 200 is a gateway course, and JS 427 is an upper-division course.
Instructors of these courses agreed to add to their syllabi and enforce this policy:
I. Writing produced on a computer (i.e., not handwritten during class) must be at least 90% correct in these areas in order to
be accepted: capitalization; complete sentences; and spelling errors. If these errors appear in more than 10% of the
writing, the paper or online discussion post receives zero credit. An option to rewrite for the possibility of full credit is
available for the first three weeks of the semester. After that, the re-writing option does not exist. Writing submitted with
these significant errors will be down-graded as follows: The highest possible grade for a piece of writing in which any of
these errors are present is a B+. When there are a significant number of these errors, the highest grade possible is a C+.
II. Second, for writing responses requiring students to reflect upon or analyze the reading, students must include a
parenthetical reference to the assigned reading title and page. There will be no credit for writing assignments that do not
include the reference. Students will be given an option to re-do for the first three weeks. After that, there is no option to
re-do.
During Spring 2014, the JS 300 instructor will be revising the pre-reading study questions in order to optimize student understanding
and critical assessment of the reading. Data will be collected comparing Fall 2013 work to Fall 2014 work.
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One instructor remarked, “This semester I had 2-3 students in both JS 200 & 300 classes that had very poor writing skills, that went beyond
being able to accurately cite sources. Some did look at the responses I wrote to them for their assignments and did make suggested
improvements; others chose not to. The policy of giving the students a chance to rewrite their assignments during the first 4 weeks was helpful
and effective, as was requiring them to include their sources.”
One RS 378 student remarked, “I initially panicked when I read the strict policy regarding writing errors, as writing has never been an area I feel
confident or strong in. The policy has in reality done me a massive favor, by forcing me to visit the learning center and confront my problems
head on.”
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