Research Principles & Conclusions

This document articulates a set of principles and conclusions reached by the Outcomes and Assessment Committee as a result of its research. They should serve as a foundation for implementing the timeline adopted on December 2, 2005, as well as a reminder throughout the long implementation process of the values we hold as an institution and as educators.

Goals of the MCC Assessment Process

  • To ensure that our students graduate, transfer, or complete any program with not only knowledge but also abilities needed in their journeys beyond MCC, whether career, educational, or personal.
  • To create a coherent educational experience for every student who passes through a program at MCC.
  • To make the continuity of programs transparent for students.
  • To foster discourse and an enhanced sense of unity for faculty--a stronger sense of connectedness with members of their own discipline and across disciplines.
  • To consider the needs of and provide accountability to all of our stakeholders both internal and external.

Principles

  • The implementation process must be meaningful, manageable, and sustainable.
  • Incorporating outcomes and assessment is a large and complex process that will take years to complete.
  • The process must be continuously iterative.
  • To accommodate the iterative process, everything is in draft form for a long time.
  • The process must be faculty designed.
  • Maximum faculty and discipline autonomy must be maintained.
  • There needs to be room at the table for skeptics and renegades.
  • Faculty must be protected. Authentic course and discipline revision can occur only in an environment of trust. Faculty must know that they can identify and articulate needs in their instructional programs without fear of censure.
  • Outcomes and assessment discussions and decisions need to engage as many faculty as possible. The power of the process is in the discussion.
  • The classroom teacher must retain his or her right to determine how he or she delivers content.

Conclusions

  • To move the implementation of outcomes and assessment forward productively, to achieve the focused, coherent program(s) mentioned under “ Goals,” requires the first steps themselves be focused and coherent.
  • A meaningful process should garner the most “bang for the buck.” A successful process will identify and engage a significantly large, definable cohort of students and faculty. Doing so will make the effort meaningful and productive.
  • Changes must be grounded in sound curricular practices, from outcomes to instruction to assessment to improvement.
  • Faculty should retain the right to determine how course content is delivered.
  • Faculty should determine course-level assessment techniques.
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