What is SLO Assessment?

At BCC, for each course and program, we conduct original research relating to student learning outcomes (SLOs) in order to gain insight into how effectively we are teaching and students are learning. We apply the results of that research in order to improve instruction and student services. The details of these research initiatives, findings, and related plans for improvement are stored in Curricunet (see the Curricunet link and instructions for accessing Curricunet, both to the left).

Each SLO assessment uses a specific tool to measure how well students are achieving SLO’s. This tool can be an essay, test, student performance, survey, or other indicator of student achievement. The faculty or other parties (in the case of student services, for example) choose the most appropriate tool and, if necessary (when the measure is an essay or student performance, for example), develop a rubric or other measurement instrument which can be consistently applied, as well as a system for applying the measure with a high level of accuracy; for example, if they use a rubric, multiple raters might score the different criteria, in which case these scores would be compared to ensure their reliability.

After the assessment is complete, those faculty and/or other parties most involved in the specific SLO’s analyze the results and determine how to use them to improve students’ success in achieving SLO’s. For example, they might decide to change or augment instruction in a particular way, change curriculum, or improve future SLO assessments in a specific way. This ends the first cycle of assessment and leads to revisiting the student learning outcomes and starting a new cycle.

Assessment Loop

Developing Student Learning Outcomes

Please express each student learning outcome as a phrase which begins with a verb and broadly expresses what students will be able to do when they complete the course (for example, “identify the central figures, movements, and events that have shaped the African American experience” or “use advanced techniques from a bitmap imaging program to generate digital images”). The SLO should be “measurable.”

SLO Form for Course Outlines

Sample SLOs

Assessment Methods

ILO assessment – Samples of work from this class will be included in the ILO assessment this semester.
Essay assessments – a rubric developed by the department will be applied to essays from this course. The categories in the rubric will be clearly tied to SLOs for the course.
Test questions – Student responses to collected test questions will be assessed in relation to course SLOs.
Surveys – Students will be surveyed in relation to their learning of the course SLOs. This assessment tool is appropriate for courses in which a direct assessment is not possible, for example, courses in which students are working on different skills or at different skill levels.
Other assessment methods, as appropriate to the course – Please be specific as to the tool and method of assessment.

Findings and Analysis

After assessing…

Action Plans

The following are not strong action plans:

The teachers will focus on the following areas…
The teachers will improve instruction in the following areas…

These are not clear, specific improvements that are likely to result in improved student learning.

The following are strong action plans:

The course outline will be changed in the following significant and specific ways:
Teachers of this course will participate in a focused inquiry group (FIG) or Action Plan Project for Learning Excellence (APPLE), as follows:
The following additional course materials will be developed (include attachments of the new course materials):
The course sequence will be changed as follows:
The SLOs will be changed as follows:
The assessment tool and/or assessment process will be changed in the following significant way(s):
The course textbook will be changed so that the new textbook meets the following criteria:
Course assignments will be changed in the following specific way(s):
Online materials will be developed for the course as follows:

Status Update: Closing the Loop

Assessment Process