Gen Ed Assessment Plan (2024)

Enhanced Gen Ed Assessment Plan

Background and Rationale

In 2018, a team of four attended theAAC&U Institute on General Education and Assessment (IGEA) with the goal of creatingan assessment plan for the Enhanced General Education program.Based on the IGEA, it wasdecided that the assessment plan should be holistic, developmental, transparent, efficient, and useful. Theresult was a draft of a five-year assessment plan, with the goal of having the capacity to draw meaningful conclusions about how well the Enhanced General Educationcurriculum is promoting the goals for student learning on the outcomes defined as critical forsuccess after undergraduate studies. Once meaningful conclusions have been identified, the USFGeneral EducationCouncil is committed to refining the enhanced curriculum to support student growth ascritical and creative problem solvers with a commitment to social and civic responsibility, locallyand globally.

Shortly after the IGEA, Governor Rick Scott signed the Florida Excellence in Higher Education Act of 2018,which required the USF System—composed of the University of South Florida Tampa, USF St. Petersburg, and USF Sarasota-Manatee—to consolidate under oneaccreditation onJuly 1, 2020. Part of this consolidation will be to offer on general education curriculum. Because all three campuses have agreed to adopt the Enhanced General Education, it was decided that faculty from across the campuses should be involved in creating the assessment plan. To that end, a cross-institutional assessment subcommittee was formedto further revise the assessment plan and offer input, guidance, concerns, and criticalconsiderations regarding the implementation of the Enhanced General Education program and its assessment.

The assessment plan was first implemented at USF Tampa in Fall 2019. During that semester the General Education Council received feedback from faculty on the feasibility and user experience of the assessment plan. Discussions began about ways to make the assessment process more efficient for faculty. In Spring 2020 assessment continued, but the General Education Council began working on an assessment plan refresh to address faculty concerns and obtain student feedback. Assessment will pause for Summer 2020 while the new plan is implemented, and in Fall 2020 all three campuses will begin using the new assessment plan.

This plan has been developed with an eye on best practices from other professionals, otherinstitutions, and the AAC&U. The plan has also been developed with input from the USFSACSCOC liaison to ensure we are meeting accreditation requirements. This assessment processhas been faculty-owned and driven to ensure that faculty are not only providing assessment databut are also using the results to improve their own courses and programs. This plan also comeswith promised resources from Undergraduate Studies to support faculty and the GeneralEducation Council in implementing the assessment plan.

Student Learning Outcomes

The Enhanced General Education curriculum seeks to enhance skills most applicable in the 21st century global community. Its design directly supports the University of South Florida's commitment to deliver a competitive undergraduate program that generates knowledge, fosters intellectual development, and ensures students' success in a global environment. There are eight student learning outcomes (SLOs) that are assessed at the institutional level.

1. Communication:Students will produce well-organized, well-developedcommunications that reflect appropriate use of language to achieve a specific purpose andaddress specific audiences.
2. Critical and Analytical Thinking:Students will comprehensively exploreissues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating any opinions orconclusions.
3. Problem Solving:Students will design, evaluate, and implement a strategy toanswer open-ended questions or achieve desired goals.
4. Creative Thinking:Students will combine or synthesize existing ideas, images,or expertise in original ways.
5. Information and Data Literacy:Students will identify, locate, evaluate, andeffectively and responsibly use and share information for the problems at hand.
6. Human and Cultural Diversity:Students will demonstrate an understanding ofthe diversity of human experiences.
7. Ethical Reasoning and Civic Engagement:Students will participate inactivities of personal and public concern while recognizing ethical issues and assessingtheir own ethical values.
8. High Impact Practice:Students will synthesize connections among experiencesoutside of the formal classroom.

Standardized Rubrics

Faculty teaching an Enhanced General Education course are asked to identify two General Education Assignments (GEAs) which should target the general education SLOs. The faculty member must assess one of those GEAs (the most comprehensive) using the standardized Canvas Outcomes appropriate for their course. The Canvas outcomes are simplified versions of the original standardized rubrics. The outcomes are found below along with the original rubrics for those interested in the details behind the simplified outcomes:

• Communication
• Problem Solving
• Creative Thinking
• High Impact Practice

**NOTE: Courses in the Knowledge Tier will not be required to use the Outcomes at this point in time.

Basic Assessment Process

Faculty assessment in Enhanced General Education courses will happen every semester. Each faculty member will have students submit a General Education Assignment (GEA) to Canvas. The faculty will then score the GEA for a random 10% of their students using theCanvas Outcomes appropriatefor his/her course. At the end of the semester, the GEAs andCanvas Outcomes will be automatically pulled from Canvas and stored (de-identified) in a general education database. As a means of conducting interrater reliability, a random 10% sample from across the university will be collected and sent to departmental faculty groups for rescoring.All of the assessment data will be presented in the general education data dashboard and accessible year round. However, the General Education Council will only review the data collectively on a yearly basis and make curricular tweaks as they see fit to make sure students are achieving desired learning outcomes.