MAC Meeting Minutes May 2004
Missouri Assessment Consortium
Meeting notes - November 10, 2004
The meeting was held at in conjunction with the MidAIR meeting in Overland Park, KS. Pat Gillman hosted. Dave Oehler served as historian. Attendees/participants: Mike Grelle, Delores Honey, Mike Easter, Sue Pieper, Pat Gillman, Joe Lange, Dave Oehler, John Clayton, Mardy Eimers, Katricia Pierson, Lisa Edburg, John Scheulen, John Meyer, Steve LaNasa, Julie Albee, Charles Van Middlesworth, Sandy Crews.
3:00 Welcome, agenda preview
3:16 Value added (CLA) Project (SC, RS)
A proposal is being sent to the Kauffman Foundation and others to raise funding for the CLA project.
Recruiting students: Soliciting volunteers wasn't a very successful strategy. Linking through courses was a more (but not hugely) successful strategy. Another somewhat successful strategy was offering the exam to count as one of a group of required activities for a course. In most cases, it may be easier to administer this to upperclassmen in the spring than it was to test freshmen in the fall.
Technical issues: Can email address be an optional field? There's a problem in navigation to get back in if students get logged out. The system needs to be more forgiving and to allow students to "go back." For this to be effective for distance learning, it needs to be accessible from independent locations. Generally, technical support was good, but some of the early sessions had trouble contacting technical support. Do testing window have to be specifically scheduled, or can there just be a series of open times?
One concern and possible impediment to buy-in is the idea of using different cohorts for doing pre-post analysis.
The ARC is developing a comparable set of instruments.
The MDHE is not intending to advocate releasing scores for individual institutions. Rather, data should be used for institutional improvement efforts. The question was raised as to how MAC can be proactive in reporting data.
Sandy will compile all of the input and comments regarding the fall CLA testing of entering students and send it to institutional representatives. She will also be scheduling conference calls in December for anyone who would like to participate and share additional information about the fall 2004 experience.
4:35 DHE website (DH)
It would be nice to have downloadable pdf files, such as statistical data.
The location of the MAC materials in the new DHE website is:
http://www.dhe.mo.gov/macintro.shtml.
4:42 Evaluation of Assessment Instruments (MG)
Mike passed around a statement from CMSU's website on the MAC project for evaluating general education assessment instruments. Mike proposed that for the CLA we focus on the Higher Order Thinking section. After discussion we concluded that we should give special emphasis to the Higher Order Thinking section, but that all general education goals areas would be examined. We will try to coordinate this review with the CLA sessions for faculty where the rubric and scoring will be discussed.
4:50 COMPASS-Community College Project (ME, JL)
Paula Glover is anticipating a grant and hopes to bring together representatives from 2-year institutions to study what is being done in developmental education.
4:55 Data sharing project (RP)
Charles spoke in Ron's absence and encouraged institutions to utilize this data. Those who are using the data are working on coordinating what they are doing and what they are finding. There was a request for the issues and analysis to be shared with the full group. One of the biggest benefits of this (over the Clearinghouse) is that some performance data are available on transfer students.
5:10 Announcements
Mike invited everyone to participate in Central's spring assessment sharing conference.
Next meeting date: February, date and location TBA.
Next meeting host: Charles Van Middlesworth will host the meeting. Dave Oehler will serve as historian.
Agenda for next meeting:
- Value added (CLA) Project & MAC involvement (RS)
- DHE website (DH)
- Evaluation of Assessment Instruments (MG)
- Joint meeting with CAOs (MG, DO, CVM)
- Data sharing project (RP)
- Announcements
