Annual Assessment Report to the College 2009‐2010 College: _______Social and Behavioral Sciences Department: __Geography_________________ Program: _______________________________ Note: Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator and to the Associate Dean of your College by September 30, 2010. You may submit a separate report for each program which conducted assessment activities. Liaison: _____Ron Davidson________________ 1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s) 1a. Assessment Process Overview: Provide a brief overview of the intended plan to assess the program this year. Is assessment under the oversight of one person or a committee? Davidson has oversight, but the de facto assessment committee consists of Steve Graves, Darrick Danta and Davidson, who meet several times a semester to discuss program assessment. 1b. Implementation and Modifications: Did the actual assessment process deviate from what was intended? If so, please describe any modification to your assessment process and why it occurred. We decided to more narrowly assess two SLOs this year, while in previous years we assessed 7 SLOs. Previous assessments gave us a well‐
rounded view of student performance on capstone papers. Narrowing assessment to two SLOs would, we decided, help make assessment more manageable and efficient. The first SLO chosen for this year’s assessment was 4.3, graphic skill: “Student communicates effectively using maps, tables, charts or other graphics”. This was chosen because geography is a spatial and visual discipline, and while students have done reasonably well on this in previous years some faculty have identified this as a weakness in some students. One faculty member in particular reported last year that his students were having extreme difficulty understanding graphic data. The second SLO we chose to assess this year was 5.2, disposition, stating that “Students will demonstrate awareness of their individual role as global citizens”. This is also considered a vital outcome March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller of a geography education. In addition, it speaks to the values traditionally fostered by the sort of liberal, campus‐based education that is currently in crisis in California and nationally. We believe it is worth training an eye on our graduating seniors’ dispositions in light of the forces currently transforming institutions of higher education. 2. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project: Answer questions according to the individual SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional SLO, report in the next chart below. 2a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year? SLO 4.3: Student communicates effectively using maps, tables, charts or other graphics. 2b. What assessment instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO? A rubric developed by the department assessment committee. 2c. Describe the participants sampled to assess this SLO: discuss sample/participant and population size for this SLO. For example, what type of students, which courses, how decisions were made to include certain participants. The sample consisted of graduating seniors enrolled in Geography 490, the department capstone course. Our sample size was 19. 2d. 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. The assessment was done on capstone papers only. 2e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the data were analyzed and highlight important findings from the data collected. March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller Using a rubric with possible scores of 5 (exemplary), 3 (acceptable), and 1 (unacceptable), the average score for the year was 3.9. We feel that while this is not an unacceptably low score, it does suggest room for improvement. As in other assessment reports, this average conceals wide variation, with several outstanding examples, a few disappointing ones and most falling between “acceptable” and “exemplary”. 2f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Think about all the different ways the results were or will be used. For example, to recommend changes to course content/topics covered, course sequence, addition/deletion of courses in program, student support services, revisions to program SLO’s, assessment instruments, academic programmatic changes, assessment plan changes, etc. Please provide a clear and detailed description of how the assessment results were or will be used. The evidence collected on this SLO was not severe enough to warrant structural changes to the curriculum. However, individual faculty have already, or plan in the spring, to make numerous changes to their courses specifically to address this SLO. Examples include: ‐ Dr. Graves will include a new instructional unit in Geography 300 called “Making Graphs with SPSS”, and will also include lower‐order graphics exercises in Geography 107 and Geography 417. He has also updated his 340 (Economic) and 487 (Medical) classes to include expanded and reconfigured computer lab exercises designed to improve student ability to : 1) collect data and information from agencies such as health departments; 2) to solve problems using statistics; 3) to communicate findings using statistics and graphic devices. ‐ Dr. Craine has added graphics‐related exercises to his cultural geography class, including an activity in which students create original fonts to re‐brand corporate products with geographic themes; Dr. Craine has also found innovative ways to incorporate Youtube into his classes as a way to teach spatial interpretation of media. ‐ At a systemic level, Drs. Sun, Dark and Danta have identified a problem with transfer students’ GIS mapping skills due to their having taken poor‐quality introductory GIS courses in community colleges. They are discussing the possibility of no longer accepting community‐college introductory GIS classes as substitutes for our department’s introductory class. They will consider instead a new policy of placing students in GIS classes at CSUN based on their performance on an entrance exam. Some programs assess multiple SLOs each year. If your program assessed an additional SLO, report the process for that individual SLO below. If you need additional SLO charts, please cut & paste the empty chart as many times as needed. If you did NOT assess another SLO, skip this section. 2a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year? March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller SLO 5.2: Students will demonstrate awareness of their individual role as global citizens. 2b. What assessment instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO? A rubric developed by the assessment committee. 2c. Describe the participants sampled to assess this SLO: discuss sample/participant and population size for this SLO. For example, what type of students, which courses, how decisions were made to include certain participants. The capstone paper, which constitutes an original research project on a topic chosen by the student, is the ideal instrument for measuring this SLO. N=19. 2d. Describe the assessment design methodology: 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. The assessment was done on the capstone papers only. 2e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the data were analyzed and highlight important findings from the data collected. On a scale of 1‐5, the average score for this SLO was 4.0, with slightly higher scores for spring 10 than fall 09. This seems like a reasonably high average score, and confirms our assumption that students who enter geography self‐select in part on the basis of disposition – i.e. they tend to be environmentally‐ and socially‐conscious students. The annual survey of geography majors conducted by Dr. Graves revealed that one of the top reasons (60%)for becoming a geographer was "wanted to study the environment" and another (70%) was "love of outdoors". Only 18% reported "good pay" as a reason to major in geography. As an additional measure of disposition, we also know that a significant number of our graduates work for environmental and humanitarian (non‐profit) companies. Many others are employed in regulatory offices at various levels of government working on environmental quality and social justice policy/concerns. 2f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Think about all the different ways the results were (or could be) used. For example, to recommend March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller changes to course content/topics covered, course sequence, addition/deletion of courses in program, student support services, revisions to program SLO’s, assessment instruments, academic programmatic changes, assessment plan changes, etc. Please provide a clear and detailed description of each. Values of global citizenship permeate the discipline of geography, and the reasonably high score students received for “disposition” on the capstone paper does not seem to warrant major program changes. However, examples of what individual faculty have done or are doing to foster global citizenship values this year include the following: ‐ Dr. Hayes will add a unit to his spring Geography 459 class focusing on the conflicts over economic development and habitat preservation goals in southwestern landscapes. ‐ Dr. Cox, the director of the CSUN Institute for Sustainability, is engaged in many projects dealing with sustainability, global warming, and so on. ‐ One of our part‐time instructors, Greg Schwarz, recently invited a survivor of the Rwanda genocide to speak to his World Geography class; despite losing his entire family and both of his hands in the genocide, the speaker’s message was against retribution and “hate” and for the ethnic groups of Rwanda to live together peacefully. 3. How do your assessment activities connect with your program’s strategic plan? [Sorry – this would not type into the box provided for some reason.] Because our SLOs are spelled out in the strategic plan, the two are entirely connected with each other. Moreover, the emphasis this year on assessing graphic skills connects with the department’s mission to enhance its applied teaching and provide students with skills that will help them get jobs/careers. Assessing “disposition” connects with the department’s mission to “engage in meaningful service to our communities while fostering a greater understanding of processes that produce and alter the myriad patterns constituting the human and physical environments.” 4. Overall, if this year’s program assessment evidence indicates that new resources are needed in order to improve and support student learning, please discuss here. The department would very much like to offer more courses in graphics, statistics, and spatial analysis. The department chair, Darrick Danta, would like to see a regular rotation of our Geography 360 (Quantitative Geography) and 460 (Spatial Analysis and Comparison) classes each year, March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller but these are low‐enrollment, resource‐intensive courses that need extra support to be run. 5. Other information, assessment or reflective activities not captured above. While we focused on graphic skills and disposition this year, previous assessments and daily teaching and grading experience make clear that students mainly continue to need improvement in writing and critical reading. Much faculty energy was devoted in 09/10 to coming up with new ways to address these problem areas. Examples of new teaching practices include : ‐
Dr. Sun has added new assignments requiring students to critically read media reports to identify what is true or false about them, and to think about what the implications of such stories are on students as global citizens. ‐
Dr. Graves has altered the gateway (300) course in an effort to improve (yet again) disciplinary‐based writing skills by updating and expanding the "writing lab". This was partly as a result of his consultation with Sharon Klein's WRAD (Writing and Reading Across Disciplines) program. ‐
Dr. Dark has students in all of her classes write up some component of work that could be used as a capstone paper. In her Geography 408B, she has them write up every lab assignment in the scientific format (introduction, methods, results, discussion, literature cited, etc.). She also has students do their own literature review for each assignment. In addition, she created an assessment plan for our GIS program, available for viewing at \\courses\faculty\GISProgram\Assessment . ‐
Dr. Laity has implemented four changes to her term paper assignment in Geography 366 (Natural Hazards) class: she requires a specific structure (which she gives to them) which includes headings and subheadings; she requires at least 3 peer‐reviewed articles be read; she instructs students as to the correct use of citations in the text and correct formatting in the bibliography; and she now requires that the students submit their papers through Turnitin.com. ‐
Dr. Davidson now uses a “term paper contract” requiring students to read a minimum of 5 scholarly, geography sources for their term paper research or face getting a “0” on the project. This policy is informed by the concept of “pedagogic content knowledge” according March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller to which students should learn the interior structure of a discipline – its preoccupations, debates, ways of asking questions, identifying problems and so on. Requiring students to engage with challenging, scholarly geographic writing seems like an essential step toward meeting this goal. 6. 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. March 30, 2009, prepared by Bonnie Paller