State of Assessment Plan

The Department of Geology began considering a more formalized plan of assessment in the spring of 2006. By Fall 2006 we have defined our curricular goals for learning by our students and have mapped these goals against our curriculum. We then focused our effort on designing assessment tools for our Communication Goals which are now completed. We have made some progress in our other goal areas and continue with active discussions to produce more definitive assessment tools and rubrics. (added 9/26/06)

During the Fall semester we administered our Speaking Rubric to our senior I.S. students during their departmental I.S. Presentations. We will continue this in the Spring and will tabulate and discuss results at our late Spring meeting about assessment. (Added 1/15/07)

Spring 2007 Assessment Meeting Notes & Summary (Added 8/15/07)

Action Plan

We plan to meet during the Fall and early Spring semesters to construct assessment tools and rubrics in the goal area of Creativity & Initiative and in Critical Thinking Skills. We await the recommendations of several groups currently working in these two difficult areas of assessment. We plan to administer our two communication rubrics to assess Sr. I.S. departmental presentations and written I.S. Theses this coming Spring. We also plan to begin discussions and work on an exit questionnaire for our graduating seniors and possibly a questionnaire for our alumni to get feedback about how they perceive their experience relative to our overarching learning goals. (Added 9/26/06)

We currently have a Beta version of a Senior Geology Major/Minor exit survey, liberally borrowed from Bowdoin College's geology department version. We will administer this to our students this fall and will discuss tabulated results at out meeting. (Added 1/15/07)

Spring 2007 Assessment Meeting Notes & Summary (Added 8/15/07)

Assessment Feedback

Although we will be meeting semi-regularly and communicating informally about our assessment during the next 9 months, we plan a formal assessment meeting to analyze and discuss the first results from implementation of our communication rubrics during the Spring to our senior I.S. Students (Added 9/26/06)

Spring 2007 Assessment Meeting Notes & Summary (Added 8/15/07)