These courses are remedial and their purpose (as I see it) is to prepare
students for the next course. I have been battling for years the mentality
that the primary concern should be to "get them through" the remedial
courses, that if we can improve success rates in these courses, everything
will be hunky-dory. I think you MUST consider success rates in the "next"
course. If you do it overall, rather than on an individual class by class
basis, you should correct for differences in teaching in the "next" course.
Lillie
At 03:56 PM 12/5/97 -0800, Mike Matteo wrote:
>Instructors on our campus have been asked by our administration and
>accreditation committee to develop quantifiable methods for assessing
>learner outcomes. One particular method which was proposed(by
>staff) has raised concerns among some folks including myself. I would
>like to get some feedback on what you think as well as what you are
>doing to assess learner outcomes.
>
>The proposal in question was to assess the degree of student learning in
>one class by the student success rate in a subsequent class. For
>example, the number of students who earned a C or better in Intro. to
>Alg.(Math 60) as a percentage of the students who had previously taken
>Prealgebra(Math 45) and moved on to Math 60 would be used as a
>means of gauging student learning success in Math 45. While I see this
>information as having some value, I am concerned that it does not
>accurately measure student learning in the original course, Math 45. The
>results are now dependent, to some extent, on the Math 60 instructor's
>ability to teach, and the student's ability to learn the new material
>encountered in Math 60 and do not necessarily reflect the student's
>learning success in the previous course, Math 45.
>
>Currently, I am using a pretest/post-test for assessment. Thanks in
>advance for your responses.
>
>Mike Matteo
>Umqua Community College
>Roseburg, OR
>matteom@umpqua.cc.or.us
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Lillie R.F. Crowley
Professor, Mathematics
138 Moloney Building
Lexington Community College
Cooper Drive
Lexington, KY 40506-0235
(606) 257-2797 Phone
(606) 257-4988 Fax
lillie@pop.uky.edu e-mail
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