Enhancing Student Learning through e-

Portfolios

Dr. Dara Wexler, Director, Education Solutions, Taskstream

Dr. Tara Hornor, Associate Provost for Planning, Assessment, and Evaluation & Dean of Enrollment Management

Our product suite can support you no matter where you are on your outcomes assessment journey…

AMS

Assessment Planning & Documentation

LAT

ePortfolio-Based Assessment

Aqua

Streamlined Direct Assessment

OverviewThe Citadel is a four-year master’s comprehensive co-educational military college established in 1842 with a rich tradition of producing leaders who serve in all sectors: military, private enterprise and public service.

It is one of six senior military colleges in the country and one of the primary commissioning sources for the U.S. military.

Graduate College• The Citadel Graduate College offers

29 graduate degree programs, five evening undergraduate degree programs and 11 graduate certificate programs.

• Enrollment: 1060

• Programs include business, education, engineering, intelligence and security studies, leadership, international politics, psychology, and project management.

The Corps• Enrollment: 2,291

• Men: 2,120 Women: 171

• In-state students: 1,268

• Out-of-state students: 1,023

• States represented: 47

• Majors: 20

The Citadel Experience: Four Pillars

Academics Military Physical Ethical

STUDENT LEARNING ASSESSMENT CONTEXT

• Centralized general education approach and decentralized program assessment approach – expectation that the faculty, program coordinators and deans are responsible for the curriculum and student learning assessment

• Accountability to many external audiences (state, federal, regional and specialized accreditation, VSA, donors, stakeholders)

OUR PATH TO A REQUIRED PORTFOLIO • The Citadel established four new general education

student learning outcomes:o Written Communication

o Critical Thinking

o Ethical Reasoning

o Quantitative Reasoning

• Institutional need to design/align new assessment direct measures

• Faculty Assessment and Analysis Team AAC&U Professional Development

• Desire to evaluate student learning across the general education program, assess growth over time, and meet our accountability and reporting requirements

THE CITADEL’S E-LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO INITIATIVE

Four Key Components:

• E-Leadership Portfolio and Artifacts

• VALUE rubrics

• Faculty Evaluator Teams

• Taskstream and VALUE Rubrics Training

e-Leadership Portfolio

E-LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO AND ARTIFACTSThe Citadel’s E-Leadership Portfolio has required artifacts for

each student year: • Freshmen- artifacts embedded in Freshmen Experience

course, Ethics course, and Health courses.

• Sophomores- artifacts embedded in required LDRS 201 leadership course, LDRS 211 service learning course, and all 200 level English and Science courses

• Juniors- artifacts embedded in required LDRS 311 ethics course and upper division major course

• Seniors- artifacts embedded in required LDRS 411 leadership course and upper division major course

• Career services requirements for each year

e-Leadership Portfolio Workspaces

AAC&U VALUE RUBRICS

• Written Communication

• Critical Thinking

• Ethical Reasoning

• Quantitative Reasoning

• Civic Engagement

Taskstream Rubric Repository

Automating Scoring Processes

FACULTY EVALUATION TEAMS

• Selected the “value-added” approach. Collected artifacts from all years, but concentrated on freshmen and junior/senior scores to assess growth over time.

• 141 cross-disciplinary faculty evaluators o Course-based teamso Outcome-based teams

• 21,938 artifacts evaluated in the E-Leadership Portfolio to date

UTILIZATION OF E-LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO DATA • State Accountability Report

• Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) College Portrait

• SACSCOC Accreditation

• General Education Assessment • Ethical Reasoning • Written Communication• Quantitative Reasoning• Critical Thinking

• Quality Enhancement Plan on Ethical Reasoning

• Selected Academic Degree Program Assessment

• Co-curricular Program Assessment (Career Services, Leadership Programming, Service Learning, Honor Court , etc.)

E-LEADERSHIP PORTFOLIO AND VALUE RUBRICS TRAINING• E-Portfolio training sessions for freshmen (30

sessions)

• Course-based portfolio training and calibration sessions for faculty

• Outcome-based team training and calibration sessions for faculty

• Sessions for academic units on the rubrics and data utilization

FACULTY ENGAGEMENT• Non-course based portfolio items used three scorers per

rubric on 4 point scale with “4” representing competency expected for seniors and “1” representing competency expected for first-year students.

• Faculty discussions were rich and centered around the challenge of reaching a consensus of mastery in a cross-discipline context.

• General Education Committee and departmental meetings carefully examined data findings and deliberated on the selection of continuous improvements

• Most units wanted to draw upon portfolio results in their program-level assessments.

Accountability Management System

COMMUNICATION

• Annual Campus Assessment Gathering shares assessment results and continuous improvements departments have implemented.

• Campus assessment awards recognized faculty effort (majority of awards to faculty utilizing VALUE rubrics in E-Leadership Portfolio for general education and program assessment)

• 2014 CHEA Award for Outstanding Institutional Practice in Student Learning Outcomes

WHAT DID WE LEARN? • Institutional-level rubric process necessitates significant

planning time and coordination; implementation of an accountability management system/e-portfolio platform was helpful for us.

• Significant faculty engagement and investment in the process- rich discussions around student learning and curriculum enhancements.

• Most units wanted to draw upon VALUE rubric results in their program-level assessments or to implement the VALUE rubrics to assess the major. Significant communication efforts are key in capitalizing on this excitement and engagement around assessment. Utilization of Taskstream LAT and AMS tools to build the linkages.