How ePortfolio Transformed our Students, Faculty and Program

Brooklyn College SEEK Program’s “Benchmarks for Success”

Martha J. BellTracy DaravirasLongfeng GaoRobert J. KellySharona A. Levy

SEEK DepartmentBrooklyn College / CUNY

http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/departments/seek/

Why are you here?????

What attracted you to this workshop?

What do you want to transform in your program/classroom/college?

What’s missing? Lacking? Frustrating?

What do you wish you were doing/doing more of/stopped doing?

What do you wish you knew?

BC SEEK Department, Benchmarks for Success – Freshman Benchmarks brochure, 2009

What are the BC SEEK Benchmarks for Success?

All SEEK students must submit a portfolio assessing their growth in academic, college and personal development at particular points in their college career.

These Benchmarks detail the behaviors and skills deemed necessary by the SEEK Department for student success at Brooklyn College.

Each individual benchmark requires a “Writing Response” and “Supporting Evidence” of completion.

Why Benchmarks?

• Makes goals of program transparent• Encourages students to evaluate their own

learning• Provides guidelines for student success• Puts responsibility in the hands of the learner• Establishes forum for systematic, on-going

program assessment and evaluation• Builds consensus on what is important to

program and its constituents

Brooklyn College, The City University of New York

Brooklyn College• 17,094 undergrads• 4-star ranking for academics in

2000 Fiske Guide to Colleges • "America's Best Colleges

2001" by U.S. News & World Report

• 2007 edition of America's Best Value Colleges

• 2009 Princeton Review’s Best 368 Colleges

• 3rd most diverse student pop, Princeton Review

SEEK Program• = Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge• NYS legislatively-mandated higher education opportunity

program at CUNY’s senior colleges for educationally and economically disadvantaged students

• Est. 1966• Provides special academic, financial and counseling

assistance to entering, 1st-time students who graduate from NYS public schools who are ineligible through regular admissions criteria

• Comparable programs at public and private colleges (EOP & HEOP) in NY, CA, NJ & PA

SEEK at Brooklyn College• Comprehensive services from admission to graduation:

– Admissions– Pre- and Post-freshman summer program– First-Year learning communities– Counseling and CUNY CAPs– Financial aid– Tutoring/Supplemental Instruction– Benchmarks for Success e-Portfolios– Honors and scholars programs– Community service– Leadership training– SEEK Student Organization

• Department status• 3 FIPSE grants

SEEK Benchmarks for Success

SEEK at Brooklyn College (2009)

• 854 students• 65.7% Female 34.3% Male• Ethnicity

– White – 17.2%– Black – 25.2% – Hispanic – 24.8%– Asian – 32.8%

• 221 Freshmen

DEP FIPSE II: Making the Core a Reality for Disadvantaged Students (1998-2000)

9 Transportable Elements1. Critical Inquiry2. Multicultural perspective3. Core materials4. Block programs, learning communities5. Collaborative learning6. Theme-centered instruction7. Tutoring/supplemental instruction8. Outcomes/Benchmarks for Success9. Summer bridge program

Other Benchmarks: Transfer and Probation

Conceptual Framework for BC SEEK’s Benchmarks for Success

Type of Benchmar

k

Guiding Question

Purpose Transition

Freshman Where am I?Extended Orientatio

n High School ⇨ College

Sophomore What am I doing? Mid-point

General Education

⇨ Major

Upperclassman Where am I going? Summative College

⇨ Beyond

Goals of Benchmarks

• Provides forum for feedback• Encourages student responsibility• Integrates and synthesizes best practices• Allows for flexible, collaborative and

comprehensive response to internal and external pressures annually

Pre-FreshmanSummer Program

IntroduceBenchmarks

FallSemester

Freshman Benchmarks

IntersessionDepartment

RetreatPedagogy & IT Discussion

Sophomore BenchmarksSpring

Semester

Examine, Discuss, Revise Benchmarks

May Department Retreat

SEEK Annual Benchmark Cycle

Evaluation Procedure

CUNY CAPs meet with Department Chair • Pre-submission

– Develop rubrics for evaluation– Norming– Identify specific benchmarks relevant for current

academic year• Post-submission

– Discuss problems and issues– Identify “best” benchmarks– Evaluate and improve process

Benchmarks for Success ePortfolio on Blackboard 8.0’s Expo LX

Your response to the Freshman Benchmarks

• What questions would you ask?• Which benchmarks do you like?• Which benchmarks seem pointless?• What kinds of proof would you provide for

each benchmark?

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College8th CUNY IT Conference, Dec. 4, 2009

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College8th CUNY IT Conference, Dec. 4, 2009

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College

SEEK Department, Brooklyn College

Personal Benchmark C - Writing Response

Personal Benchmark C - Supporting Evidence

Difference ePortfolio Makes

• Ease of use• Ease of access

– Storage & retrieval• Ease of editing and

changing• Comfort level• Assessment• Showcasing• More collaborative• Highly structured

• Format problems– Proofs– Platform

• Permissions• Technology difficulties• Cheating easier, but

easier to detect

Powerful Tool

• Interactive and flexible• Learning process as dynamic not static• Conversation among all stakeholders• Metacognitive• Holistic• Authentic• Model for job/grad school portfolios

Pedagogical Tool

• Shows learning not just done in class and not just tied to grade

• Reflects on total college experience• Connects disparate learning and experience –

integrative • Defines what it means to be educated and

responsible community member• Makes explicit contract between student and

program

Greatest Impact (1)

• Academic– Monitoring Critical Inquiry

• Concrete changes in curriculum and program• Students see connections to other classes• Emphasis on its importance• Generated reflections on own analysis of CI and

how and why they were using it• Results: doing better in core, electives and CPE

Greatest Impact (2)

• Advisement and College Life– “High-impact practices”

involvement in college and more timely satisfying of requirements fewer students on probation and more

students graduating before financial aid runs out

Outcomes (from Middle States)

Effective assessment must be:UsefulCost-effectiveReasonably accurate and truthfulCarefully plannedOrganized, systematized, and sustained

“Assessment processes help to ensure the following:

• Institutional program-level goals are clear to the public, students, faculty, and staff;

• Institutional programs and resources are organized and coordinated to achieve institutional and program-level goals;

• The institution is providing academic opportunities of quality;

• The institution is indeed achieving its mission and goals; and

• Assessment results help the institution to improve student learning and otherwise advance the institution.”

Benchmarks as assessment

Flexible Assessment– Individual Student– Cohort– Program

Student assessment

• Individual growth and feedback– At a particular point– Longitudinally– Student sees value-added benefits of college

education

Cohort Assessment

• Yearly ranking by CAPs– 3-5 strongest portfolios / average / weakest

• Compare – Among cohort– Over time– To other cohorts

• Identify problems

Program Assessment

• Focuses on particular program areas• Emphasis and questions change as different

needs and issues arise• Add or drop goal as needed to see if it is being

achieved or promoted• Goals become explicit to all• Models “ideal” student, education, citizen, etc.

Benchmarks as AssessmentTool for• students to understand and evaluate their own learning• individual counselors and instructors who work with students to

guide growth• examining the development of a given cohort of students• examining growth of an individual skill or dimension• monitoring student behavior when a change is being implemented• monitoring program and classroom strategies, pedagogy, and

faculty development• creating students’ brag sheet or resume for grad school or

employment• longitudinal measurement of student growth and development

BC SEEK Outcomes• GPA Data

– Students on probation (GPA < 2.0) went from 25% of SEEK students to < 4% (less than regular admits)

– 288 Students with GPA > 3.0 (excluding freshmen) = 37.4%– 106 students on 2009 Dean’s List (GPA ≥ 3.5) = 13.7%

• Graduation Rate: Class of 2003– 6-year graduation rate = 47.8% + 4% still enrolled

(Brooklyn College 6-yr graduation rate for 2002 Cohort = 43.7%)National rate for similar students ~11%CUNY SEEK 6-yr graduation rate for 2003 cohort = 32.9%

• Pass rates for remedials by end of AY 2006-07– Math (COMPASS) – 98.9%– Reading (COMPASS) – 99% – Writing (CUNY/ACT) – 96%

• Pass rates for CUNY Proficiency Examination (rising junior)– 100% by end of academic year (best in CUNY)

Middle States on Brooklyn College

Under: Significant accomplishments, significant progress, or exemplary/innovative practices include:

“The SEEK Program e-portfolio [Benchmarks for Success] is a very effective tool for engaging new students in age-appropriate self reflection on their progress through the first year of college.”

Student Reflections

• Finally one of my stressing nightmares is over!• No more! No more! Benchmarks!• “Omg, finally I’m done with my Benchmarks”

yay!• Snipping away precious time• Thank You God It’s Over … No! I forgot it will be

back• I Kissed Benchmarks Good-bye! Peace.• A Struggle…a Nightmare…a Relief!!!

• “We had five months to collect all proofs, attend events, write and do all the other things that were required. Even with all the time I had, I left most of the things for the last minute. I now know that must manage time more wisely and also take advantage of it.” –A. R.

• “To be honest, doing the benchmarks electronically was better than actually writing on paper. This saves time, ink, and paper.”-J.B.

• “After finishing my Benchmarks I was fluent with the Brooklyn College campus.” –A. M.

• “The process of working on the Freshman Benchmarks was very time consuming. I honestly believed that there was no point in working on them, just because at the time I thought it would not be beneficial to me. After all everything had to do with my own development as a student in this first semester of college so why would someone want to read about that?. Now I understand that in a way this was like a mirror to me, I was able to look at myself and the long way I have come since graduating High School.” -B.M.

Freshman Reflections on Benchmarks

Sophomore Reflections• I have looked through my Freshman Benchmarks and got very emotional. I have

grown so much since then. I was only getting to know my way around the college then and now I know every little corner here. . . . Everything I learned there I still use now. I use my critical inquiry techniques now on a different level. I learned how to create a resume in last years benchmarks and now it is very useful to me. When I was doing them last year I thought that they were useless and stupid. Now I see how much I learned from them and how helpful that information is to my success at Brooklyn College.

• After reviewing my Freshman benchmarks I realized that last year I did a lot of things because I had the benchmarks but now I am doing them not as a requirement but because I choose to. I also realized how I began to incorporate things into my life style as oppose to just doing it because I was told to; things such as annotating, reading books, going to different clubs, and so on. Those things were requirements to me until now.

Benchmarks – Keys to Success• Whole department involved and invested• CUNY CAPs took ownership• Various benchmarks due at different times• Annual revisiting and revising• Benchmarks arise out of program’s needs• Integral part of program from 1st day• Real consequences and commitments• Faculty buy-in critical• Allow for student reflection