TSJC Program Assessment Plans

Program Plan Review Status

A course within a program has goals outlined in the course syllabus. Similarly, a program has overarching goals that incorporate multiple course-level goals, but extend beyond those goals.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Program goals tend to be more holistic and system-wide, while course-level goals tend to be more specific. They also tend toward the "lower" cognitive domains of knowledge, comprehension, and application, while program-level goals tend toward the "higher" cognitive domains of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This makes designing program-level assessments somewhat more difficult.

A program assessment specifies exactly how we will objectively measure the extent to which a program has succeeded in its program goals.

While program-level and course-level assessments are distinct, they overlap. They can and should overlap in implementation also. So, build good assessment instruments and then use them for as much as possible. Use course-level data in program-level reports. Use college-wide assessments such as the VE-135 for your program goals. Be creative with existing assessments.

The conclusion of this is that faculty

1. decide what course- and program-level goals are most important
2. formulate methods to measure the extent to which these goals have been reached
3. write about them in an effort to learn from them
4. publish our writing to share our results with the college community
5. use what we have learned to improve the educational process

VE-135 Follow-up report