Academic and Support Programs Share Outcome Goals for Wildcat Wow Presentations

Northwest Vista College Academic Disciplines and Academic Support Services led the second Wildcat Wow presentations on Nov. 22. These sessions are a chance to hear the best and brightest achievements presented to college leaders and the NVC community.

More than 80 faculty were present and took part in the second session and over 38 programs presented on outcomes. The last Wildcat Wow Day is Dec. 13 where the presenters are from College Services, Student Success, and the President’s Area. Below are just some of highlights of the programs.

Integrated Reading and Writing Advocacy Center:

• Measure: Success of INRW students in course who are tutored in Advocacy Center (C or above in the course).
• Target: 80 percent. Result: 86 percent of students who visited the INRW Advocacy Center for at least four full sessions passed their class with a C or better.
• Improvement Plan Idea: Collaborate with instructors = group goals. Meet/check in with all instructors 4x a semester.

Supplemental Instruction for INRW- JH 110

• Goal/Target – Achieve a 70% success rate for HB 2223 eligible students taking a Supplemental Instruction -supported corequisite INRW/ENGL 1301 course.
• Actual: 78% Success for students attending SI sessions
• Improvement: Implementing an online SI program for Hybrid/Online Corequisite Courses utilizing Zoom on Canvas.

College Level Writing Center

• We compared success rate for Composition I students using our services with students not using our services. Students using our services had a success rate of 91.32%, versus 76.55% for the general population.

Writing Across the Curriculum Lab

• Students will gain confidence in their ability to complete and/or revise written assignments.
• 98% of students reported increased confidence in their ability to complete and/or revise their assignment.

Math Labs

• Measure for both categories: Students who come to the Math Labs will be as successful as their peers who do not attend Math Lab.
  • Math Lab for Cooperative Learning: The final grade difference between students who received less than four hours of tutoring and those with more, which includes all developmental and college level math courses. Success rate: The target for untutored students was 64 percent and for those receiving four plus hours of tutoring, increased to 71.6 percent
  • Math Advocacy Center: Final grade difference between students who received no one-on-one tutoring and those that did. In the fall of 2018, results of 73.7% surpassed original target of 71.7% and for spring 2019, the results of 60.7% did not meet goal of 61.6%

Learning Assistance Services

• Goal: 80% success in high-challenge courses for students who use Learning Assistance Services
• Result: For courses whose success rate is consistently under 70%, students using our services succeeded at 81.63%

Accounting

• In 2018, several Accounting faculty streamlined assessment methodology using a data-driven continuous approach in collaboration with one of its content providers.
• Using “Adaptive Smartbook” approach, faculty ensure a minimum of 80% mastery of the task information.
• ACCT 2301 has achieved and has remained off of the High Challenge Course List
• Result: 1 out of 7 CLO’s in ACCT 2301 reached 80% mastery or better; and 4 out of 6 CLO’s in ACCT 2302 reached 80% mastery or better

Anthropology

• Communicationwas a huge success for us this year, with a 4.62% jump for our Natural Science (NS) courses and a whopping 9.54% jump in our Social Science (SS) courses, our students continue to leap beyond our 75% target, scoring 92.42% and 95.74% for Natural Sciecnes and Social Sciences courses respectively.

Fine Arts

• Improvement Plan: Align department assessment with NVC’s three-year cycle (teamwork). Focus on implementing action plan, monitoring improvement& adjustments over three-year period.
• Provide more opportunities for students to practice skills before formal assessment, scaffolding projects.

Biology

• Measure: Communicate effectively the results of scientific investigations
• Criteria: The student can present scientific literature to their peers
• Target: 70% can meet criteria; Result: 95% of students met criteria
• Improvement plan/idea for AY 2019-2020: To increase student exposure to scientific investigations and critical thinking.

ESL Program

• Outcome: Quality Instruction in a Caring Environment
• Measure: Target: 600. Outcome: 647
• Implement an ESL@NVC Orientation targeting advanced students to enhance pathways awareness

Chemistry /Pre-Nursing/Critical Thinking

• For Chem 1307: Students asked to write out a reaction for an oxidation reaction. We have reached and exceeded our goal of 50% of students achieving.
• Reasons for improvement: Collaborative assignments, formative assessments, strong recommendations for Supplemental instruction (tutoring).

Community Education

• Satisfaction Rate: Target 80%; Actual 91%
• Attributed to: program content; safe environment; friendly staff
• Improvement Plan 2019/20: Increase adult enrollment by 50% (from 53 to 80); and partner with SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives)

Criminal Justice

• CRIJ 1301 has five course learning outcomes
• We have a 20-question test. In 10 sections, students score an average of 63%

Dance

• In this assessment cycle, we continued measuring student learning in Communication using multiple instruments (exams, essays, projects) embedded throughout the curriculum for DANC 2303 Dance Appreciation and DANC 1305 World Dance.
• Outcome: Students will describe how the moving body communicates within the context of dance. Our target was 80%; Results were 86%.

Drama

• Students are required to attend live theatre performance and critique it according to a set of pre-established guidelines.
• Target: 70%; Results: 46%
• Improvement plan: Rewrite assignment instructions and guidelines; and mentor adjunct faculty

Dual Credit Student Orientation Online

• All new incoming Dual Credit students were enrolled in the Canvas online Dual Credit orientation course
• Target was 75% and we ended up with 78% of new students completing the orientation. Out of the 4,433 new students that applied, 3,457 completed the orientation.
• Out of the students who completed the orientation, 2,719 students registered for a course.
• For 2020, advising plans on including an advising model in our orientation course.

Economics

• Economics implemented in the fall of 2018 Knewton Alta – an adaptive learning technology, to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of students. With Knewton, faculty are better able to understand and measure student’s mastery of the course learning outcomes (CLO) with a variety of questions.
• Two out of eight CLO’s in Econ 1301 reached 90% mastery or better
• One of out of eight CLO’s in Econ 2301 reached 90% mastery or better
• Improvement Plan: Improve the lecture content by including real life policies to integrate the concepts with practical applications.

Education 1301 Introduction to the Teaching Profession

• Analyze the culture of schooling and classrooms from the prospective of language, gender, socioeconomic, ethnic, and disability-based academic diversity and equity.
• Measure:4% of students that received a 2 (Developing) or 3 (Proficient) did well in this outcome of culture of schooling, and classrooms.
• Improvement plan in 2020 is to allow students to research other educational philosophers, and evaluate how their philosophy mirrors with the other philosopher’s theory.

Engineering

• Last Year – Engineering assessed communication
• Target 2.5 out of 3; Actual 2.45 out of 3
• Improvement plan: Projects in every engineering course; academic support services as part of class for feedback.
• Innovation Grant – Improving NVC STEAM Makerspace (MLH-214)
• Pending transfer advising guides with St Mary’s University; pending modification of TATE to joint enrollment agreement with UTSA

English

• In the fall of 2018, the English department requested assignments from instructors who taught literature courses. As this was a pilot year four new literature rubric, only 20 papers were assessed.
• The target was to achieve an overall score of 2 or above for 75% of the papers assessed. The actual overall score of 80% exceeded the garget. This outcome was our highest of the component scores.

World Languages/Spanish

• SPAN 2311 Course Learning Outcome: Write descriptions and narratives at a low intermediate level using complex grammatical structures.
• Target: Score of 2 or better on a scale of 0-3 as defined by our new rubrics using guidelines established in the NCSSL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements and Proficiency Benchmarks for intermediate level communication.
• Results: Average target score was 2.67
• Improvement plan/idea for AY 2019-2020: To develop new rubrics for cultural competency based on guidelines defined by the ACTFL World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages

Geography and Environmental Sustainability

• Students published two, peer-reviewed articles in the Social Science Texts and Academic Research Journal:
  • “Measuring Water Quantity for Sustainable Use in a Remote Village in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains: Taghia-Ahansal River, Zawiya Ahansal, Morocco” by Farhana Khan and Marcella Palaferri
  • “Community College Student Climate Change Knowledge” by Allie Sanchez and Farhana Khan
  • Students presented above at 2018 Southwest Association of American Geographers (SWAAG) meeting in Baton Rouge, LA
  • Student (Allie Sanchez) conductedexploratory biogeography camera-trap research on campus

• Our Improvement Goal: Develop THECB Environmental Science Field of Study to offer student transfer opportunities in one of the fastest growing job sectors.

Geology

• Physical Geology (GEOL 1303): 28 students were sampled for communication (visual) using the following classroom learning outcome: Describe the theory of plate tectonics and its relationship to the formation and distribution of Earth’s crustal features.
• The responses exceeded expectations, with 72% correct as opposed to the 70% goal.
• Activity: Identify (on a diagram) and describe the internal structure and dynamics of the Earth.
• Improvement Plan: to conduct directed reading and class discussion, beginning the assignment with group interaction, and completing it as a homework exercise.

Government Discipline

• Information Literacy:  Ethical Use of Informationwith emphasis on proper citation and formatting
• Target:  Mean score of 2.75 with 65% of students scoring 3 or higher
• Result 2018-2019: Mean: 3.21 with 79% of students scoring 3 or higher
• Improvement plan: Instructors will be asked to go over the importance of proper citation techniques with their students.

History Department

• We assessed Course Learning Outcomes, in which is aligned with the THECB’s Critical Thinking objective
• 5 of our 7 courses reached 100% of their goal!
• We are revisiting our assessment schedule, meeting with full-time, adjunct, and dual credit adjunct instructors to formulate strategies to improve US History 1301 and 1302 results.

Humanities Discipline/A.A., A.S. & A.A.T.

• The ability of a student to develop a coherent thesis and maintain focus on this thesis or main idea is crucial for the critical thinking approaches employed in the Humanities.
• Students scored 2.29 on a 3-point scale in this area—falling in the middle range between “Developing” and “Proficient.”
• These scores were higher than what students scored for “Organization” (2.07) and “Rhetoric” (2.07) suggesting that Humanities courses may have improved student performance in the targeted areas above the baseline skills expected for incoming students who have completed their college-ready writing pre-requisites.
• The Humanities coordinator will put together written communication resource materials for all full and part-time humanities faculty including best practices and suggestions for approaches to writing assignments.

Kinesiology

• Student shows the ability to synthesize credible resources
• Target: 70% of students would achieve the outcome: Result: 72% achieved the target.
• Improvement Plan: Increase the sample size and make sure that all sections are properly implementing the assessment.

NVC Library 2018-2019

• Information Literacy Instruction: Students will be provided with regular, timely, and accurate information literacy instruction taught by librarians, which will give them a skill set useful for academic success, research, and lifelong learning.
• Number of Presentations:We saw an increase of requests for follow-up visits to the library to cover specific topics like fake news, citations, etc. We were able to attract new faculty members to bring their classes to the library. Target: 334. Actual Result: 97.31%
• One Improvement:We are looking at using new technology like Zoom to teach Information Literacy classes to distance learners. We have also created and launched the Library Orientation modules in Canvas.

Mass Communication

• COMM 1307 Course Learning Outcome: Demonstrate understanding of the fundamental types, purposes, and relevance of mass communication.
• Target Average Student Score 2.0 out of 3.0. Result: Average score 2.42 out of 3.0.
• Improvement Plan: Increasing experiential learning opportunities related to mass communication, such as field trips to media/news organizations.

 Music

• Student learning outcome: MUSI 1306 – Identify musical works and elements in a variety of styles.
• Target: 75%. Result: 60%
• A new rubric was developed and used for the first time. We found the rubric was not matched well to the assignment (concert report). Closing the gap: New assignments will be selected to assess this outcome.

Mathematics (Developmental Education and College Level)

• All Communication targets were met in MATH 1442/0142 Co-req. A total of 70% of students scored 3 out of 3 on the assessment in the fall of 2018 along with high success and retention rates
• Improvement for 2019-2020: An improved assessment instrument to measure communication skills has been developed for MATH 0320.

Philosophy

• Last year we piloted a newly designed assessment plan for PHIL 2306 which included a new personal responsibility assessment.
• Mastery of the item requires that an artifact, “Identifies and describes specific moral consequences of an act, decision, or perspective, and offers guidance on how a responsible agent ought to respond.”

• • • Target = 75% of students scoring “Developing” (2/3) or better (3/3)
    • Result = 91% of students “Developing” (2/3) or better (3/3)

• Improvement plan for 2019-2020: We are using what we learned last year to develop a new plan for PHIL 1301, including new rating instruments and guidance for instructors.

Physics/AS Program/PHYS 1302

• College Physics II – students exceeded expectations {50 % of all students will achieve a 4 or 5}
  • 57 % achieved a 4 or 5:  Apply understanding of Faraday’s Law of Induction.
• Improvement Plan for 2019 – 2020: Apply Kirchhoff’s Rules to Analyze Electric Circuit and implement group work utilizing new Modular Circuit Equipment.

Sociology

• We measured the following Course Learning Outcome in our Introductory Sociology classes: “Explain the complex links between individual experiences and broader institutional forces.” This CLO is mapped to the state core objective, communication (writing).
• Results: Average: 2.37 (on a scale of 0-3). Dual credit average: 2.83 (one a scale of 0-3)
  Improvement Plan: We’re creating a repository of assignments to use for assessment. The goal is for sociology faculty to have access to multiple ideas to improve our teaching.

Speech Communication

• Students took the same final assessment test at the end of each semester testing the learning objectives for the four courses. Targets were set at 70% for 2018-2019.
• All targets were met. However, for 2019-2020, we have increased the target to 75% for SPCH 1311.
• Improvement Plan: We are offering more course options to help increase enrollment (online, flex, evening, weekend).
• We are utilizing our annual Battle of the Speeches Scholarship competition (in the spring) to increase awareness and attention to our diverse and talented students.

Speech Lab

• Students will understand how to deliver their speech (outlines) in order to make the delivery more effective. Target = 70%
• Seven instructors provided an evaluation for a total of 51 students of the 400 that visited the Speech Lab. Of the 51 students sampled, instructors indicated that 51 out of the 51 or 100%showed improvement in speech delivery (Spring ‘19).
• Improvement Plan 2019-2020: Expand with Zoom hours to assist more students with outlines who are unable to come to campus.

Teaching with Technology (Distance Learning)

• Goal/Outcome: Students will demonstrate competency using the Learning Management System (Canvas) as required in their courses; and complete Orientation to Online Learning (OLRN) with a passing score of 80% or better.
• Target: 85% of those enrolled complete with an 80% or better. Result: 88.3% completion which shows continuous improvement from AY12 to present. The team streamlined and updated the OLRN course to make it sleeker, more engaging, and more current.
• Improvement plan for 2019-2020: Rather than measure success (quantitative), this outcome will focus on perception of how well OLRN prepares students for their online courses (qualitative) by aiming to increase the percentage of students who “Strongly Agree” or “Agree” that “Practicing the course activities in the orientation helped prepare me for my online course” from 80% to 85% by May 15, 2020.