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Results of AFT 1493 Faculty Survey on SLOs

Below are all of the responses to the following AFT 1493 survey question (11/15/06-11/26/06):

Please describe your experience and your current opinion regarding the implementation of student learning outcomes (SLOs) in your department and in your college. Based on your experience, do you view SLOs as a positive or negative contribution to our educational goals and curriculum?

	SLOs are positive. Anything that encourages us to think about course content and student learning is positive. These are really the same as the old Learning Objective fad, with a slight change in language so there's nothing really novel...just encouraging folks to think about student learning. And, think about what is important content and what students need to know. Note, SLOs don't standardize a course anymore than having an official course outline. I disagree w/ the editorial that this is standardizing instruction. Don't you have measurable objectives in your courses? I assure you Mr. Manley did: presented the important concepts and facts of Social Science--and had a way of measuring whether you learned them.
	Another example of following the latest fad at an enormous cost of time and energy. Could be helpful to some but simply a rewording of learning objectives for most of us. I'm not opposed to developing SLOs but I find the attention given to that to be ludicrous.
	I think SLO's are a lot of work but a great process. All the start up stuff with those endless exercises about discerning the difference between a goal, an outcome, etc. seemed pointless, but once our department started working together on changing the outlines, that got interesting, and I think some of the most important work we've done in years.
	I am in support of developing any assessment that will aid students in their education. However, I am concerned about our guidance for developing such assessment. We seem to have started defining SLO and strayed to other business. In the meantime, anything learned is left to whatever was written and to memory.
	In my experience, the implementation of assessing SLOs has made the writing of Program Review a thoughful activity. It has enabled me to make some improvements to the program that will lead to more student success.
	SLOs just formalize and restate what has gone on in and out of the classroom all along. Aside from the minimal effort of writing them up, there is not much burden. Assessing SLOs does require more effort (probably too much initially, then less as we learn what assessment methods work well), but I think that it will be worthwhile.
	I think that my colleagues who are working hard to get us all to define SLOs are doing a fine job. (In other words, I do not "blame" them for forcing us to do this, and I think they're doing a fine job of making the process as painless as possible.) However, while some worthwhile ideas can come out of this whole process, I do not think that the "worthwhile ideas" justify the inordinate resources being put towards this endeavor.
	I think SLOs are a first step towards a standardized exit exam and I am against them and against standardizing assessments. I feel that for a large portion of the CC population, CC is their last chance to learn critical thinking and that standardized assessments will destroy that option. We are being forced to provide SLOs with any new courses or course modifications; the CORs are not accepted without the SLOs. Administrators keep asking if I have any proof that students are achieving the course objects, and I have always said, Yes, they are called grades; I'm sure you have heard of them. This is just more ridiculous extra work AND an attempt to take control over our classrooms. I feel that a unified effort on the part of unions and academic senates is the best way to make sure that this doesn't get any worse.
	I regard SLOs as useless. The courses I teach have course descriptions, regularly updated. Those describe what the students should cover in the classes. Beyond that I have my own training and experience to guide me as to standards of difficulty in what I ask and standards of grading in my assessment of student work. I have no idea why more than that would be needed.
	SLOs are a negative contribution to educational goals and curriculum.
	SLO's help instructors understand the desired outcomes for a class. I like the idea, but I do not see the need to get so caught up on language, coordination (at the college level), and committees.
	I would consider SLOs a positive contribution to our educational goals and curriculum because they reflect a standarization of teaching outcomes. However, I also think individual professors should have the freedom to teach in their unique ways.
	It has been a very positive experience in that it has opened up many, many conversations about what our students are or are not learning, and what they should or should not be learning. It has also engaged us in important conversations about the forms that evidence of that learning might take. We are even involved in conversations with our transfer institutions that would not have taken place without this initiative. Ultimately, I feel it will help students take greater responsibilty for really learning, not just passing a clss with the minimum effort required to do so.
The process of creating SLOs has allowed my department to have some important discussions about our common goals; these discussions are essential to our teaching and so the process of creating SLOs is a good thing. At the same time, we aren't articulating any new goals--nothing that wasn't already in the course outlines, however differently it may have been worded. At this point in the process, I also don't see how SLOs are likely to improve our teaching--that will depend on how we react if we are not meeting them. And given that we have great difficulty now in enforcing even the most modest of goals (teachers who do not show up to classes or teach anything close to the required curriculum are still here), I'm not confident that SLOs will help. Still, the discussion we are having is positive.
I think that the collaboration with colleagues and transparency to students is positive. Continuously refining the education experience is what teaching is all about! The only problem is that with all the other responsibilities, it is difficult to put the necessary quality time in to do a good job of it.
Overall it's a good idea, but it takes a lot of time away from the ordinary teaching duties of the classroom. I might advocate having a few people in each department who really want to work on it to get some release time to work on SLO's.
I like the SLO process, as it helps keep me stay focused on the mathods with which to achieve them. Coming from a secondary school teaching background where learning outcomes and content standards are driving the educational process, I dislike the process in that it stifles the creatiivity of teaching. I don't believe in the 'factory' approach to education, particularly at the college level, but I do see the merits and benefits for students whose learning style is geared toward this method of teaching and learning.
I have worked on developing SLO's for some of my classes and departmental SLO's for the program. It has positive contributions to our educational goals. It is easier for me to assess whether or not I am achieving my goals, and which areas need improvement.
I do not have a positive view of SLOs. I have listened to the presentations and explanations from very competent committee members and am not at all convinced of the need for SLOs. It's taking a phenomenal amount of coordinating and faculty time to essentially arrive at where we were with learner objectives etc. I am very conscientious about my syllabus and curriculm and do not feel this contributes to this process. I am also concerned that the national shift to rely on SLOs as an evaluative tool will be tied to federally mandated assessments (like SAT 9 and No Child Left Behind)and therefore funding of college institutions. The Bush administration has a Think Tank working on this right now and recently gave an update on their work/recommendations. Their intial "findings" are to require more "accountability of the community colleges" which of course will be tied to funding and further government influence in curriculum content. Thanks for asking--this is potentially a very serious issue.
Although the assessment cycle takes time, it has resulted, so far, in more dialogue about curriculum within the department. When our first assessment is complete next semester, we will hopefully be able to determine some strengths and some areas of improvement within our courses department wide regarding student learning. Because our courses are sequential, determining areas that need improvement and addressing them will benefit our students. If the outcomes are definied by the discipline faculty and if the assessment of those outcomes is done correctly, SLOs are a positive contribution to our educational goals and curriculum.
I am a senior faculty member. I have not found SLOs helpful in my courses. They seem to me to be an attempt to fulfill a bureaucratic imperative toward measurement more than a method for the improvement of teaching and learning.
On the whole I believe that it has been a positive experience. I appreciate that we have been able to do it in stages. It is a lot of work.
I see them as a positive contribution. They assist instructors to clarify where the student will be after completing each course. They assist the student in understanding what to expect from the class. They assist the department to determine what learnings will be accomplished for those majoring in the discipline. All instructors in the program work more closely together.
another layer of responsibility to add to the workload--does it justify administration's existence? Does it accomplish anything else?? Good questions.
I really dont care either way.
Our department has been developing the SLOs and have implemented an assessment of one SLO this semester. It has been good to meet as a department and discuss what we want the students to learn. I think it is valuable for those who work on creating SLOs. It gets us to think about our disciplines. However, I think that how they are to be implemented will not do as much for those who did not work on or write them. It is also a time consuming project on the one hand; on the other hand once the basic structure is created for one class it can be an almost a cut and paste job to complete the rest. Thus it has the scent of more busy work. I do think it is very valuable to explicitly ask ourselves what are students learning. But as the system is implemented I see that it could be a tool used by administration to sanction programs and departments. There are however means to meet the requirement(since it is now a part of WASC accreditation) that provides data, but does not simply provide quantifiable, and thus easy to manipulate, outcomes. e.g. portfolios of student work. In sum I think SLOs are a positive opportunity to learn about how we teach and what students learn. The structure and implementation of SLOs does pose significant concerns however.
Overall, I see it as a positive contribution, but perhaps for a different reason than most. As a former K-12 educator, and a vocational educator, this is nothing new to me. I have been writing student performance objectives, as well as assessment tools, since my first teacher preparation class in the 1960s. And another interesting note..... until AB1725, the vocational credential required vocational educators to take a series of post graduate courses in teacher preaparation and specifically in writing student learning objectives. Now that that is no longer a requirement, the results are predictibly of a lower standard. What this really point out to me is a pretty universal problem in post secondary education: we are hiring subject matter experts and assuming they have teaching ability because of their subject matter expertise, and too often that is not the case. Teaching is a profession, not a delivery system, and it should be a skill we require before hiring any new instructors.
Working on SLOs within our department is contributing to more faculty sharing of teaching approaches and to deeper thinking about what we are trying to accomplish in our courses. Implementing and evaluating SLOs has so far proven intractable!
As a part-time faculty member, I have not been involved in the process of implementing SLOs and do not have an opinion. I am sure, however, that such implementation will impact my teaching methods. The implementation of SLOs is generally positive but if used as a method to determine if instructors and meeting a particular standard of instruction they can potentially be used in a negative way.
I believe that SLO's are necessary because I think we need more consistency in teaching and grading. However, AFT needs to think about what the process really means: if we implement these SLO's and discover that we have several senior adjuncts who have been teaching the same way since the 1950's who do not go along with the SLO's because they weren't part of the drafing of them, AFT still requires that we give those faculty priority class assignment. Full-time faculty may be headed in one direction and may wish that adjunct move in that same direction with us, but if they don't, there's nothing we can do about it. Therefore, programs that need improvement will not improve if they cannot control who they give assignments to, and they cannot control that because it is written into our AFT contract. Secondly, the SLO process is really just a glorified program review: the only measure of how well we create them is how well we think we create them. There's no entity in charge of really examining departments to be sure that they're following the SLO's that they've written. Even if it looks like we are making radical changes on paper, who's there to see if those changes are actually being carried out in practice?
SLO's are very, very negative, and I have had a awful experience with them. I consider them trendy, rigid, non-enforceable and a form of control by administration. Curriculum has been terrible for it.
waste of time. If grades measure what the did when we went to school ( and i assume they do or we should stop doing them) and if outlines correctly inform students and transfering institutions what we teach then what's the point. Lots of effort, not much value. Moreover, as this climbs out of the classroom it gets even fuzzier. For example, institutional goals can be a way for the adminstration or a small group of faculty to write in innappropriate goals or the inclusion of "pet" ideas of the day.
I see them as a different flavor of course objectives. They do not have to be difficult to write, if the course objectives are already in place. One aspect that is NOT serving students well is that the focus is on distilling a course down to a few SLOs and only evaluating success (of a course, dept, and division) on the basis of students meeting those few SLOs. If course objectives are not thoughtfully constructed, then the push for SLOs is stimulating their review.
I'm well aware of the SLOAC project, being on the task force to create the project. While in principle the idea of SLO's is great, in practice it seems a lot of time and effort will be needed to impliment the process. Like most assessment procedures, this one seems very much attached to "political" agendas rather than academic goals. The spector of "accountability" seems too self evident. However, if properly applied, the process could prove very beneficial to all.
1. Our department has begun to impletent "Department SLO's" across our major core currricula. 2. It would be premature to comment on the effectiveness of the SLO assessment process and benifits.
SLO's are a valuable tool to measure what we want to students to learn and know as a result of taking and completing a course. Additionally, SLO's provide a means to make adjustments when student learning is in crisis.
I am neutral. I think it is helpful to have discussions about SLO's. I just don't know if the discussions would really change how we actually do our work. It seems like it is taking a lot of time, but the long term benefits for our department and the students are not clear.
I feel that the implementation of SLO's is a great step towards assuring that students are learning what we would like them to learn in any given class. It helps us to align our major assignments with Student Learning Outcomes in order to assess the value of said assignments. Of course, I may be slightly biased since I'm on the SLOAC Committee!
They don't seem to mean much so far, and I doubt that they will turn out to be more than busywork.
They are a waste of time......:)
I believe SLO's are a complete waste of time, and they will be just a bunch of pretty buzzwords to make someone feel good. I view them as completely negative regarding educational goals, curriculum, and the impact on students.
They are essentially the same as the objectives. I think we can live with one or the other.
Briefly, I think they are very good. I have developed detailed SLOs for all of my classes, and even for every lesson. THey are a great tool for the students to focus their studies, and for me to keep my exams and other assessments focuserd on the essentials. The main disadvantage is that the whole SLOAC cycle seems to put too much emphasis on learning in the classroom on the shoulders of the instructor. This is college, and our students are adults. We can't be expected to assess every SLO all the time, and to force every student to study and do their homework (which is often not graded, due to lack of instructor time) -- but they are still expected to do it, and to come PREPARED to class. It's impossible to have to assess all preparation and performance all the time. Huge amounts of material would go uncovered. So a balance between the positive utility of SLOs and the practicality of thorough evaluation and student performance needs to have a clear division and definition of the instructor's direct responsibilities (or extent thereof). That's my 2 cents. =)
They don't seem to have any real application to the goals and curriculum. They are a state mandate that even the state doesn't seem to understand. The argument that we need to monitor ourselves or have the state do it through testing as they do in K12 suggests that this is an administrative initiative to stave off state regulation. Now, everyone is scrambling to put SLOs in place just like everyone scrambled in the past to put "objectives" and "goals" in place. To me, it's all rather silly because all the talk really has no effect on teaching or learning. We still have excellent instructors or crappy instructors, and students excel or suffer regardless of the SLOs. What would be nice would be to honestly evaluate and fire crappy teachers, really hold people to high professional standards. That would be a fine SLO.
I agree very much with Ernie Rodgriguez's views on SLOs, as expressed in the recent Advocate. It seems like a lot of redundant, ultimately useless busy-work for faculty. And, the whole project seems to reflect a rather narrow and somewhat disturbing conception of the meaning and purpose of education. Quantifying, labeling and categorizing the various skills ("outcomes") students possess upon completion of a course sounds rather corporate-inflected...
Perhaps it was because there was no choice involved--SLOs were a done deal--write them and stop complaining. Perhaps it was because there was never any statistical data offered to convince this skeptical and complaining instructor that merely by rewriting learning objectives and calling them SLOs that our educational goals would be more aggressively met, that we would instruct differently, that our students would more readily learn. Perhaps it was because SLOs seemed to be necessary for accreditation, even though there had been no mention of them earlier, at least to my knowledge. Perhaps it was because of an argument made during my first exposure to SLOs that some English or math instructors did not teach the same information as did their colleagues in the same courses. I ask you, what is the purpose of dean/peer/student evaluations if, in fact, such behavior is unacceptable. The whole process seems to me an exercise in pretending that different words will make a difference. The difference comes with more money for schools K-14--not more words and ultimately more work. Thank you, Ernie and AFT for asking.
I have attended all the seminars/training sessions related to SLOs. Since this is something we have to do as a department and as a college as well, I view it as being positive.
I have been working on our campus steering committee and also within my department on course student learning outcomes and the assessment cycle as well. Since our department is under program review, we are rather under a mandate to get this stuff done, and we are all feeling overworked and stressed out as we attempt to handle the SLOAC aspect of the course outlines as well as other aspects of program review, not to mention the campus accreditation, tenure review, etc. However, especially at the course level, we have had very productive discussions about the sequence of courses offered in our department, some of the best we've ever had. We are hopeful that one of the outcomes will be greater consistency at each level in the course sequence, compared to the present situation in which a particular course taught by different instructors becomes a hugely different experience for students--in spite of faculty reviews of textbook orders and course syllabi each semester in addition to the normal peer and adjunct review process. So, working on the SLOAC has been beneficial in many ways, but there's not enough time in the day to do a good job on that activity and still tend to the needs of my students and other responsibilities. I have taken to skipping a meeting sometimes and occasionally using a personal day to stay at home in order to keep up with the work. And I'm still behind many a deadline.
Just one more trendy new set of jargon.
I am happy to have discussed the SLOs with my colleagues last year. Since then however, not much has been said about them. I know what my SLOs are and I use them in my classroom. I am involved with other school organizations that are concerned with them so, I learn from each of them.
There is a great push underway at our college and in our department to design SLO for every course and to design ways of MEASURING these SLOs. The effort has, generally, been collegial. SLOs may even help us better serve the studnets. Personally, I am very skeptical. The amount of time and energy that has gone into this process has already been too much. Pressures are mounting. I do not look forward to the day when our deprtment formally adopts the SLOs on which we've already been working for a year.
At first, honestly, I thought they were an odious edict from administration, but now that I have begun to work at drafting and implementing them, I see that the conversations our department has had around them have been some of the most useful and pedagogically fruitful ones I have had about what we as instructors expect from our students. I welcome them and am grateful for how helpful they have been in helping me to shape my ideas on assessment and expectations in student learning.
The program is a noble idea. I think we need standard learning assessments. However, SLOs are not yet implemented in Biology for two basic reasons: 1. We need to agree on what vocabulary to use in our questions, so all professors can use those terms during lectures. Otherwise the test questions can confuse the students. Our department is currently working on obtaining a consensus from the faculty. This is taking some time to do. 2. The college/departments need to pay for this program, not ask for more volunteer time from overburdoned faculty! Adjunct faculty never had any prep time to grade essay questions prior to the SLO program - let alone prepare exams to include the SLO questions and then write up and submit results to the department - and they do not have paid prep time now. The current office hours barely cover time for seeing students and do not cover prep. These SLOs just add on to duties adjuncts cannot do, and necessitate taking time explaining another policy to many transient faculty who may not understand it well enough to implement it correctly, nor have the time to volunteer to do it anyway.
Although I initially resisted, I think SLOs actually been a great experience, prompting meaningful dialogue with members of our department. We have such a hard time making sure that faculty who cannot come to department meetings teach to the course outline. So I think anything that prompts faculty in a department to discuss standards and curriculum is a good idea.
No matter what our opinion of SLOs WASC has dictated them, and as far as I know, no one has figured out a way to avoid dancing to their tune.
I believe there are both positive and negative contributions to the use of SLO's in our teaching. I do not feel that SLOs are totally awful (unnecessary) or totally great (essential). Positives: - Increased discussion of teaching techniques and philosophy between faculty - Increased discussion of faculty expectations of student performance - Increased openness and transparency in educational process Negatives: - The drafting and implementation of SLOs and their assessment plans are long, time-consuming processes. Faculty are already totally maxed out with regular teaching preparation and committee work. Therefore, if SLO implementation is to be required, then faculty should be compensated by extra pay or release time from teaching duties.
The SLO process in the Math Department, CSM, has not reached the point where it has produced a lot of data for us to look at. However, it will reach that point, and I think the data will be useful in telling us what students are (and aren't learning). This will, I hope, generate discussion on curriculum and pedagogy, If this happens it will be very useful
Although SLO's have been one more thing I have to do in a week (semester, whatever), and it's been a long process to hammer them out for courses (we haven't touched our program yet), and although assessing them will only add more work, SLOs have been helpful to our department in that creating them makes us look at our courses and curriculum carefully, a process that is always beneficial. It's important to remember that SLOs are something we don't have a choice about. The accreditation boards are requiring them (right?). I appreciate what CSM's steering committee has done with SLOs by making them something we control, we create, we assess. This is crucial. I do not want to go the way of standardized tests. Frankly, I don't know why the union is concerned, why it's come up, and why this poll is being done (not that it isn't important). Sandra Comerford has done an excellent job at helping us all get through this process in a meaningful way. I guess overall, they are positive.
Overall, I believe SLO's will have a positive contribution to our education goals and curriculum, allowing us to create more consistency among our courses and to better define what our goals our within departments, divisions, programs, the college, and the district. With that said, however, I DOUBT that SLO's will contribute any MAJOR changes to curriculum and educational goals overall. I am skeptical about how much ACTUAL change will take place with the institutionalization of SLO's and whether the SLO's will seriously impact and transform the way we currently teach and the way students learn. We already have course outlines, faculty review processes, program review, accreditation, and a host of other evaluation processes/methods in place to ensure that quality teaching and the evaluation of our courses and programs occur. These current processes need to be reviewed, revised, and put into place more stringently, rather than reinventing additional processes that add to our work load and ultimately affect the quality of our teaching and the time we have to do what we should be doing--teaching/working with the students. Good teaching is good teaching regardless of the addition of SLO's. SLO's will not force bad teachers to become good teachers, nor will SLO's necessarily change ineffective programs or institutions. Writing SLO's and the subsequent AC's (assessment cycles) duplicate what we already have in place. While it is important to review and update course outlines and evaluate faculty members and programs, we should not be creating more work for ourselves and taking ourselves away from our students in order to create additional processes, documents, assessment instruments, and data evaluation that may only serve to benefit bureaucrats who can use the information as a means to measure our productivity and, perhaps, link our funding to whatever data the results of the SLOAC may produce.
I have had only limited experience with SLO's but they seem to just create more work for faculty without any benefit that I can see.
I think SlOs help articulate common standards while allowing teachers the freedom to implement curriculua that they believe best serves their students. I also believe that by beginning with learning outcomes I can focus my lessons to better serve the needs of my students. They are completely positive for me.
I am not in favor of the SLOs. I believe they serve no purpose for those instructors who already do an effective job in the classroom. This type of paper shuffle continues to reduce the effective time we have for our classes. Along with all the other outside class work expected of us, this is another pointless project that takes away from what we do best and that is to teach our classes. For years we gave students a course syllabus and explain to them what is expected. How much more do we have to spell it out? Dump this idea and let us direct our energy else to those students who are here to learn.
SLOs seems to help clarify the goals/objectives of RDG and ENGL courses particularly as we do prog. review; however, it is difficult to say the disadvantage (additional committee work) will be worth the advantage. It does seem very "top down" directed. I do not have a simple yes or no answer for this.
I have had no experience with SLO's in my department. I do not know if they are positive or negative.
I think that overall they are a positive thing. They force faculty to really look at what they are teaching and what they expect students to come away with. I think most faculty do this intuitively, but not all instruction leads to learning. I'm glad that there is more clarity about how many SLOs we have to do each semester, since originally, we had to do so many. At least now they're more manageable.
I am unclear on the benefits of the SLO program. I believe that most faculty already have their own "systems" in place to assist them in identifying both individual and collective student problems. What I do know is that the SLO process, along with my co-chair reponsibility for accreditation, has had a major adverse impact on my time which affects teaching and learning in my classes. I have no reason (supporting evidence from other colleges) to believe that the SLO process will benefit faculty and/or students. I am surprised that the AFT has not already made an issue over the whole thing. Administrators are paid to do this stuff. Sandra Commerford and others are given release time. How many outside projects are the rest of the faculty expected to take on with no compensation or release time? In answer to your question, I can only see the implementation of SLOs as constituting a big negative to meeting educational goals and improving our curriculum. Thanks for taking the time to solicit faculty views.
can't tell yet. it has potential to be positive. We will see.
I see it as a positive contribution. Ever so often it is a good exercise to reflect on what we are doing in the classroom and correlate that with what students are getting out of what we are teaching them. Are students learning what we believe they should be according to what we deliver?
SLO's are just a new buzzword for an old concept. In the Foreign Languages, we've been using them for a long time. We simply call them "objectives", and objectives are always stated in terms of what the student will be able to do at the end of a course. SLO's are no different.
Personally from my point of view I do not see the positive that everyone is all hyped about. Your article in the advocate hit the spot. Not only does this restrict our classroom creativity but the extra time involved takes me away from prep time and grading time. One additional thought, by making statements in our SLO's that our students will learn XYZ in our class opens us up to a law suite if the student fails. After all, teachers can only do so much to teach the material. The student must also step up to the plate and do their part too. I will sign this as: Love to Create New Learning Media but lately with SLO work I have not had time.
they are positive in the repect of fine-tuning curriculum and intent of the class, but I worry about the potential of getting locked into a standardization regime. I'm ambivalent.
positive but faculty is overloaded. The number of full time falculty is declining yet workload is growing. We need to think about the consequences of not have enough core people to run and improve programs. Part-timers do not do the vested interest in the programs as full timers do. WE HAVE BURN OUT this will result in early retirement just moving on and other loss of core faculty. We can't continue to replace full-timers with part-timers and maintain excellence and move into the future It looks good on paper but in reality it is a recipe for disaster.
Overall the experience with SLOs has been good. I feel supported by the college, they have provided lots of information and further training opportunities, as well as opportunities to get feedback from other faculty. Additionally I value the exercise of looking at the specifics of what we want the student to take away from our services/curriculum rather than focusing on acheivement of departmental goals.
One more ridiculous educational hoop to jump through! Each year, something else is in vogue; this year it's SLO's. It is a foolish waste of time and effort.
I see this as a negative. Its just like coming up with yearly goals for the budget that you know you can reach. We are spending a lot of our time in justifying our courses and making them fit into somebody's idea of what they should be. I want to spend my time keeping up with the latest changes and advancements rather than this. As a part time instructor Im not even compensated for the time I already give to the courses I teach let alone this program's impact on my time.
SLOs are like a bad religion that is out of control. Someone needs to step in and evoke the law of parsimony or we will all suffer even more in the future.
negative. SLO's sound like a good idea, but it does not seem to work. The only way to get meaningful data is to standardize testing. That inevidably leads to teaching to the test, training rather than educating.
I think that they are a great asset to the students providing them with tangible outcomes of the learning process. There is nothing new about these other than we are formaizing the process and getting the faculty to structure the course study plan. I think it makes CSM a better institution and makes the faculty responsive to student expectations. Most all institutions require this and so our students should become familiar with SLOs at the earliest point in their education career.
Drafting SLOS should be no problem. I expect the SLO process to be positive; but let me pose this question: If the SLOAC process does NOT actually lead to improved student learning, is the institution prepared to scrap the SLOAC process? I'll put another concern in the form of a question: has anyone estimated how many hours per semester of faculty time it will take to implement the SLOAC process? I'm assuming that each course will have several SLOS, and that each SLO will have to be assessed with two or more assessment instruments.
Personally, the work that I did during and subsequent to my participation in slo workshops over the past 4 years has helped me to make great improvements to the way that I design courses, teach classes, and assess learning. My department has not worked on slos at all. The institutional level slos seem to be slow going and not really related to course or program level work. Slo's are here to stay, at least for the near term. I believe that we should continue to pay for slo coordination at each campus and provide training and continued support to faculty who are working toward implimentation.
Defintely, a positive contribution. Helped to define what course needs to include, how to deliver, how to access and bottom line to align students with industry expectations.
Administrative Level pressure to have departmental and program SLO's is conterproductive...when it is not done in a manner that takes time and thoughtful review by all staff and faculty...these sorts of tasks that come from outside our district tend to be pushed quickly upon us, rather than taking time to review, learn and reflect. On the other hand, the faculty led SLO's for curriculumn have been thoughtful, slow and allowed faculty flexibility in learning to adapt and understand the purpose of SLO's. I am grateful for our facutly leadership.
I feel that SLOs will have a positive impact at the course, program and institutional level. Once the plan is fully integrated, the results should be beneficial.
SLOs are really not that difficult. I think all the hoopla and workshops have made SLOs seem a lot more difficult that they really need to be. If the departmental faculty share the same vision for their program, if they work well together, and if they have been sensitive to what their students need to succeed, the SLOs are a very easy to write. I think the departments that are having difficulties with SLOs are showing the dysfunction of their department. Sorry, my brutal answer.
It's negative. It's a waste of our time. And it's one of those K-12 interventions that has seeped into higher education that --allows administrators to further clamped down on academic classroom autonomy --create a lot of busy work --create "so-called" objective structures for grading and assessment so our institutions can micro-manage the curriculum I also question any type of movement that the admin doesn't put a significant amount of funding behind for all faculty. At this point, we all have to voluntarily learn how to do SLO's and redo our outlines. Plus, will this movement help our students. Are we changing our curriculum? Are we changing the way we do things? No. We are not even changing our class content. We are just adding learning psychology terms to our current outlines. And if you have already read the SLO instruction manual, you will see that the use and selection of those terms are not based on objective choices or instruction. They are instead listed so that you can selcet them without rhyme or reason but rather with what sounds good making sure not to use the same term twice in the same set of SLOs. Hopefully, the Union can stop this. But until then, I will mix and match SLO terms with my existing outlines.
I think they have the potential to be a positive contribution to our educational goals and curriculum, but I worry that they will ultimately be little more than burdensome and ineffective. I am opposed to the entire notion of being mandated to put SLO's into place (I realize that we can refuse to do them, but the price for that refusal is simply too high). Much of what the English dept. at CSM is doing to implement SLO's seems reasonable to me, but I feel that we are spending a lot of time duplicating what we already do and I am doubtful that the results of our efforts will do much to improve the teaching of our weaker teachers (which is really our greatest problem). On the other hand, I do believe in the scholarship of teaching of learning, which requires us to carefully analyze the work we do and its effectiveness. I guess I want the scholarship to driven from within our departments and divisions rather than from outside forces. I also recognize the potential for abuses (SLO's being used to evaluate individual faculty). I can only say that I don't worry about than in my particular department.
I incorporated SLOs into the intro of my class but had to revise to put in the Department version. I thought mine were better. I generally support objectives that are subject specific and address skills demonstrated. I do not support "ability to" since it implies a speculation. I also don't support a time spent apporach such as "concept" in two lectures for 1.5 hours. That controls content as if 1.5 is perfectly adequate and does not allow more creative approaches. I believe face-to-face education is at risk because lectures are often inferior to online interactive learning for straight information retention. We need to set objectives that emphasize team and collaborative learning as well as hands on simulations. I also support testing out of classes if you already know the material. It will not pay to irritate the students with boredom.
I think they are a waste of time. We are using them to satisfy an administrative requirement. I question whether anyone's teaching will actually change as a result of them.
I have worked with several faculty to develop several SLOs for several courses. Some of them have been posted on our website. Sometimes SLOs are more general and sometimes they are more specific to allow flexibility in instruction yet teach tangible skills. Although this is practical, it also gives SLOs an unclear definition. I don't see the effects of the SLOs on our curriculum yet. I definitely do not want the SLOs to be turned into standard exit exams for this college or any other college.
Using SLOs to inform annual planning has been helpful. We have used SLOs and the assessment data we have collected to make meaningful improvements to our program.
Could be positive but I think that they are making SLOs more complicated than they really need to be! In other words, much ado about close to nothing.
I run a group of 15 and do not see any effect on classroom instruction by the implementation of SLO's. I think SLOs could influene a program or instructor that may be totally out of touch and perspective to think about what they are trying to accomplish. Although I doubt that any instructor or program of quality is presently unaware of thier objectives or responsibilities.
I view them as positive because I tell students UPFRONT in my syllabus what I expect of each. Straightforward. Simple to understand. Easy to reference. Stephen Brown
I have watched the development of SLO's from their inclusion in the first draft revision of WASC standards through their implementation here, including the Institutional SLO's. Their only real use I can see is in promoting collegial discussion in the department and isolating a couple of additional skills we want our students to have. However, the time spent on them has been disproportionate to their value. Also, it's just the latest incarnation of TQM and other business models trying to hold colleges "accountable" for life skills that will, in the most important cases, if measurable, if at all, many years after a student leaves the classroom. The minute papers and such can only capture tiny bits of a large picture within a discipline. This can be valuable for professional, math, sciences, and nursing at a community college, but not really for the humanities and social sciences. This is yet another large chunk of time taken away from the scholarship NECESSARY to keep our classroom teaching fresh. We need the time and freedom to keep up in our disciplines and not just live off whatever we learned in grad school x decades ago. Finally, there is an elephant in the room nobody wants to acknowledge publicly: the increasing lack of preparedness of college students (not just in our district or in community colleges) to do what used to be considered college-level work. To some extent, this can be measured in placement testing in math and English, but it is less easily measured in other areas. But the phenomenon is real. The SLO movement is based on the assumption that the professor is responsible for the success of the students. If we only spend more time on pedagogy and use the latest technology, all will be solved. Wrong! Many students come to us without the basic tools and skills to succeed in the "soft" disciplines. General knowledge about how the world works, how governments work, how artists work within and beyond genres, etc. has declined dramatically over the years. Students need to prepare themselves better, or be better prepared by the K-12 systems, and be willing to work hard. After all, it's the students who must do the learning. SLO's should really be seen as a measure of how well students have worked and learned as well as whatever tapdance the professors do to help them.
Excellent workshops, a faculty "champion" in Karen Wong, regular practice & feedback from Dean & Dept chair as they are created, and an impetus to align my daily class/practices with clear student learning. now, in my field, SLOs are being articulated across colleges to help articulate coursework among community colleges and press for better gateway to 4-year programs. A positive contribution, definitely.
Like most reforms, SLO's are good in principle but only as good as the amassed effort dedicated to them. I think the interpretation that this is the same old thing in new packaging is unfortunate - it says, in essence, that this is a lot of effort to reinvent a wheel we already have and therefore is a waste of time. My impresssion of SLOs is that this is WASC's solution to the question, what do the most effective teachers do and how do we standardize this model? While most of us would agree that providing students with a clear and thorough picture of the course and how they will be assessed in it on the first day is a good idea, few actually follow this model. For the most part we teach the course and figure out the specific details of what and how we'll assess it as we go. This is neither effective teaching nor a fair method of assessment for students. I don't assume that just by writing SLOs or their assessments we'll become better teachers but the process of challenging ourselves to produce a coherent, big picture of a course pays dividends commmensurate with our investment. Moreover, the conversation it produces among willing colleagues is a more fulfilling alernative to the ubiquitous debates over more easily resolved minutae.
I find it difficult to see the difference between Course Objectives, which is already a part of the required Course Outline, and SLO. If the latter is intended to scrutinize the ways we measure and gauge our students' performance, then I definitely think it violates the faculty rights in making our professional judgement. My understanding of the SLO is that it expects some kind of standardization of examinations of our disciplines, I have PROBLEM with this. A group of us are planning to take a strong stand on this and will protest this process with a position paper soon. Union should explore the possible hidden agenda behind this requirement. Thanks
After a laborious experience finalizing the SLO's I have found, thus far, that it has not clarified anything in my teaching---I have been "doing" the SLO's all along--the exercise in phrasing and doing a written configuation I found to add stress and an additional burden to my already impacted schedule. They have been added to my written syllabai so that my students can use them as guidelines, but when I recently "polled" my classes they seemed unaware of the written "guidelines" in their syllabai even though we had gone over them at the beginning of the semester---so I ask myself, if the students aren't utilizing the SLO's to monitor their progress what purpose do they serve in a practical sense ????Another over-arching concern that I have is that I am being pidgeon-holed into complying with a stated objective that may need to remain more flexible---
I believe the process of conversation and discovery is very positive in my dept. We need a method of determining just what is the desired outcome of any class, program or institutional objective. The SLOC process provides this. The dept. faculty who find this a burden usually do not understnad the purpose or the methods.
Generally speaking, I think that SLOs can be a helpful way to measure our success by helping improve student learning and teacher effectiveness. However, I am not convinced that SLOs, specifically, are the answer to achieving these outcomes. SLOs appear to be somewhat redundant as we already have several practices currently in place at CSM to measure our goals/objectives. Whether SLOs are more of less beneficial than the processes already in place remains to be seen.
I have been an educator for over twenty years and have seen many reform movements come and go. It is difficult for me to gauge the "success" of any of these movements, most of which involve considerable time and energy commitments on the part of already over-worked, under-supported faculty, particularly in Language Arts divisions. As an adjunct instructor, I have not personally been involved in SLO trainings/workshops but have read about them in voluminous email correspondence. I respect the passionate commitment to enhancing student learning demonstrated by SLO advocates, but I feel skeptical about long-range, positive effects of this movement, and I wonder also about the impact on the vital but not easily quantifiable human connection between student and teacher, mind to mind and heart to heart. As a teacher and a learner, I resist boxes. As a teacher and a learner, I embrace opportunities for liberation.
Beware of new (or recycled) educational theories bearing acronyms (especially when the acronym sounds like “slow”). It seems that EdDs, administrators, and government officials need to justify their salaries by periodically thinking up ridiculous requirements to foist on K-12 public schools, and when they don’t work there, to try them out under a different guise on community colleges (which, unfortunately, are lumped in with K-12 public schools). The philosophy behind this latest nonsense is that educational problems can be solved by spending lots of money on technological innovations and building projects (and very little on teachers’ salaries), while placing the blame for failure of students to learn on teachers rather than on students’ poor study habits, unwillingness to master the skills of reading, writing, and thinking, and inability to concentrate because of TV, video games, the Internet, iPods, cell phones, and the myriad other distractions of this neo-barbaric age of radical capitalism, in which the goal is to train students to become good workers and rampant consumers rather than to teach them to become fully realized human beings. SLOs trumpet that there will be great improvement in learning if instructors will only spell out the expected results of each course in more concrete terms. Hence the mandatory use of so-called “active” verbs like “discuss,” “analyze,” “compare and contrast,” and “describe.” Such supposedly useless “passive” verbs as “understand,” “appreciate,” “perceive,” and “evaluate” are strictly verboten. How about “comprehend”? Nope, too “passive.” What about “grasp”? That would probably be allowed, but only if it can be done with the hand! Not only does this show a lamentable lack of knowledge of the grammar of “active” and “passive” verbs, but it also demonstrates a narrow-minded attempt to straightjacket all learning in all subjects into the same mold of practical rather than intellectual accomplishments. What is needed is a return to traditional methods of learning, with the emphasis on hard work and academic achievement. What is not needed, and what we should not have to put up with, is a totally inane, unnecessary, and burdensome bureaucratic means of measuring the results of that learning. For we already have the tried-and-true measurement of “student learning outcomes” called grades, which are universally understood (sorry about the “weak” and actually passive verb!). In brief, a pox upon SLOs and their ilk!
To state learning outcomes in behavioral (i.e., "active") terms may be appropriate for technical training and math and English skills learning, particularly at lower levels (K-12). At the community college level (which includes a transfer function to the UC system and state universities), however, particularly in such areas as literature, history, and other humanities and social science courses, it can only result in the trivialization and mechanization of learning. The Enlightenment goal of the autonomous individual (essential also for democracy), able to make a free choice based on his education and experience, is thus being replaced by that of an engineered result, according to a pre-determined objective. This may be the most desirable way to train an army or members of a corporate work force, but is it a valid approach for educating individuals to be citizens and responsible human beings? The active, behavioral result, in any case, will make it possible to "measure" outcomes by (essentially crude) quantitative standards and will make it easier to justify contracting out educational tasks to for-profit corporations, including those who offer online instruction. The SLO criterion is just the latest product of misguided meddling by school administrators, who justify their existence and bloated salaries by adopting the same standards and managerial fads as for-profit corporations, even those they may be incompatible with the valid goals of education.

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last updated: 11-30-06 by Eric Brenner