AQIP NEWSLETTER TEAMWORK AT MCC
Issue #16
February 2008
Quote of the month:
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Action Project Update
What is the
Project?
The project is called "Assessment Across the Institution: How Good Are
We?"
This project is the development of an assessment plan for Morgan
Community College. The goal of the assessment project is to develop a
plan for assessment at all levels of the institution and to develop a
culture of continuous improvement at MCC.
What progress has been made so far?
The assessment team has established goals based on input from all
faculty and staff. The team is also developing a broad plan for
assessment at all levels of the institution- Institutional assessment;
Program or Department assessment and Course assessment. The established
goals are to create a culture of continuous improvement; design and
implement a process for disseminating data in a manner that is conducive
to improving institutional effectiveness, including processes for
closing the feedback loop to improve student learning and success; and
establish target goals for performance.
What’s the next step for the team?
The next step is
to develop an assessment webpage. This webpage will include information
such as performance data and demographics. We will also publish the
benchmarks set by the community college system and list data
demonstrating MCC performance levels.
What have we learned so far about ourselves as an institution with
regard to assessment?
We have
learned that we are in the infancy stage as far as assessment. We have
learned that we actually do a lot of assessment but it is not
synthesized into a format that is useful for enhancing student success.
We realize that we must establish some baseline data. We must continue
to develop our plan for assessment at all levels of the institution and
develop processes that close the feedback loop.
Has the
response from AQIP to our Systems Portfolio influenced the project? How?
AQIP’s response to our Systems Portfolio has influenced our project in that we recognize in more specific terms MCC’s many opportunities for improvement. Based on the response to our Portfolio, we know that we must continue to engage in professional development opportunities related to assessment and we must develop an effective plan that closes the feedback loop in order to impact student success. Three basic steps we hope to implement this year are:
• Determine how to best utilize the current data we have.
• Develop a system of the easiest and most usable forms to display data we have.
• Disseminate assessment data.
Check out AQIP’s own newsletter at
AQIP News to Use
Assessment Team Members
Assessment Project Team members. Back row L to R: Diana Morgan, Diana Pfeifer, Kathy Frisbie, Kim Ewertz; Front row: Janie Hubbell, Phyllis Gertge, Rachel Kellum. Not pictured: Don Estes, Evelyn Kral, Carol Leach, Luke Smith, Deb Wacker.
Strategy Forum Team Selected
On May 13-16 a team of six people from MCC will attend a Strategy Forum
in Chicago. This is our second Forum since joining AQIP – a real
milestone.
According to the AQIP website, “Returning institutions should expect to critically evaluate their quality infrastructure and identify ways to improve it as well as enhancing the institution’s understanding of and skills in process analysis and performance measures. The Forum focus will be:
how institutions process and learn from past Action Projects and from outside review (such as the Systems Appraisal)
how that learning guides the formation of strategies for future improvement and the design of new Action Projects;
and how the institution can strengthen its quality program so that future learning and progress become more systematic.
In other words, it’s just the ticket for us.
Numerous colleges will be participating. Forums are designed to hone participating colleges’ quality improvement strategies, maximize interaction among participating institutions, and renew attendees’ enthusiasm for the AQIP path to reaccreditation.
Our 2008 Strategy Forum team consists of acting CEO Susan Clough, AQIP Liaison Greg Thomas, Action Project Team Leaders Kent Bauer, Kathy Frisbie, and Betty McKie, and additional faculty member, Rachel Kellum.
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