"What is possible? What is desirable?"

CSU History Conference
Standards and Assessment in the Disciplines

Retrospective Comments on the Conference

Sharon Sievers, Project Coordinator

Last spring was perhaps not the best time to bring History faculty in the CSU together to discuss these issues; many participants were not at all sure we should be holding such a meeting in the face of contract problems with the CSU and the atmosphere of distrust generated in large measure by press reports of the Chancellor’s negative comments about faculty in the system. Beyond that, the issue of outcomes and assessment is one many faculty approach with a good deal of skepticism; even the terminology is, for many History faculty, suspect.

In spite of that, the day we spent discussing these issues was, most agreed, helpful to all of us. The willingness of participants to engage in a wide-ranging dialogue about assessment seems to have been a product of the conviction that IF approaches to standards and assessment are faculty-controlled, discipline-driven, sufficiently funded, and carefully planned and implemented, our majors will benefit. It is very clear that the major motivation for CSU faculty to confront issues of "outcomes" and "assessment" in the discipline is the encouraging prospect of producing History majors who might be better prepared, not only for teaching, but for any of the myriad occupations our students choose, including graduate school.

Challenges/Problems

There was general agreement that the discipline of History presents a number of seemingly intractable problems posed to faculty who hope to devise appropriate outcomes for CSU graduates earning a B.A. in History; these difficulties underscore the absolute necessity of developing standards/assessments locally, from the ground up, rather than imposing a top-down model that might be arbitrarily imposed on History departments in the CSU.

We agreed that the discipline of History represents an enormous, often amorphous store of "knowledge" about which there is little agreement. To put it another way, History as a discipline is less about "facts" than it is about argument and process; this alone makes any effort to develop meaningful "content standards" a very different operation than it might be for other disciplines, particularly for the sciences. For many, if not most historians, "common content standard" is an oxymoron in a discipline like History, which is primarily about making a case for/against, arguing, and debating the relative merits of various historical views of what person, what period, what geographic area, or which interpretation (to name only a few possibilities) should be the "standard" in a particular context. We might agree that students coming out of lower division survey courses should be able to demonstrate a mastery of certain kinds of historical content on which to build an appreciation of History as a process, but it is very unlikely that historians will be able to agree on what individual students with a B.A. in History should know about the "content" of History to meet a "standard" above and beyond assessments of content made in single courses, or the fields of concentration the student has chosen. It is the view of many faculty members that, in this sense, "assessment" is carried on every day in the CSU’s History departments by faculty who "measure" individual student mastery of a particular course or field through exams, papers, discussions, exercises, and oral presentations.

On the other hand, faculty discussion during the course of the conference reinforced the notion that History departments have relatively little difficulty reaching agreement on a common set of standards that describe the skills and competencies we should expect of our majors. There may be many different ways of teaching these skills and competencies, but generally, historians seem to feel comfortable with the creation of more or less "common" inventories of expected student skills/competencies because they speak so directly to the processes of the discipline. Historians tend to agree, for example, that History majors must know the difference between a primary and secondary source, and must understand why the difference is important; that they must be able to recognize bias in historical argument; be able to frame an historically significant question, and to present solid evidence supporting arguments they want to make. We also agree that History majors must be able to write effectively, possess computer literacy in the field, and master the mechanics of proper citation and bibliography.

The question is, how, if at all, does this common approach to competencies relate to content? One of the most interesting debates during the conference focused on this issue. A number of participants pointed out that skills/ competencies can never be (and shouldn’t be) divorced from content. This view emphasizes that "content" is the point of the training (skills) we try to give our students. History majors learn to recognize bias by reading it in historical sources (content); they learn to frame significant historical questions by reading and analyzing a number of different views (of particular kinds of content) in which they are interested; ultimately (we assume) they are motivated to write quality papers by their interest in "content."

There was no satisfactory resolution of this issue at the conference, but the discussions were thought-provoking and interesting to all of us who have begun a dialogue about the possibility and/or desirability of developing standards and assessments in the discipline of History in our own departments.

Resource Issues

There are a number of resource issues most faculty at the conference agreed were crucial to the success of any serious effort to apply standards/assessment in History. We assume that this is true of other disciplines as well.

The implication that most of the strategies suggested by historians have already proved very expensive is clear. Whether the issue is the time (in addition to regular teaching/service/research requirements) faculty spend evaluating seminar papers to develop a base on which to compare their students’ efforts with those of students at other institutions, or the enormous commitment of time required to carefully evaluate portfolios and provide feedback to students, faculty in the system are quite right to expect that the addition of standards/assessment duties would add significantly to their workloads. Given the fact that faculty in the CSU already carry one of the heaviest workloads in the nation, measured against similar colleges and universities, no one should be surprised to learn that History faculty in general are reluctant to embrace these standards/assessment issues. So far, faculty have not been provided with any expectation that the system is interested in adjusting faculty workloads to meet the increased demands of standards/assessment work; there has been no offer of released time for faculty directly engaged in this project the CSU considers so important, nor even the suggestion that faculty who participate in the development and application of standards and assessments will be rewarded for that work in the RTP process. It seems to us that unless these kinds of workload issues are addressed by the CSU, there will be little faculty enthusiasm for anything but the most cynical effort to develop standards and assessments, e.g., creating superficial documents designed to make it look as if standards/assessment programs were underway.

Our limited recent experience also tells us that, in other ways, serious efforts to use standards/assessment strategies to improve the performance of History majors will require a substantial commitment of CSU resources. By definition, efforts to concentrate on and improve student performance now underway in some departments in the CSU require substantially smaller classes, at least in the introduction to the major and the capstone course. In departments with large numbers of majors, that also means many sections of smaller classes. (Incidentally, faculty teaching these smaller classes, and/or relying on portfolio assessment, do not find that smaller numbers of students decrease their overall workload. The intensive learning environment of these classes, the demand for individual attention, and the very heavy commitment to review and evaluate student work every other day make these sections disproportionately demanding and time-consuming for faculty who teach them.)

It is also true that, if, for example, we want to require every new major to take a skills/competencies course during their first semester, campuses must have the computer resources to track transfer students and majors as they move through the system. Some campuses may have that capability now, but many do not. Strangely enough, it seems that many campus information resource systems have not been interested in tracking the academic progress of majors, even though sequencing is obviously important to the system; given the mobility of most of our students, and the fact that many of them do not take advantage of advisement until very late in the major, our ability to track students by major can be critical to our ability to sequence skills/competencies courses to upper division courses, to the capstone.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We had little time to discuss follow-up, or plans to share emerging information on these subjects as individual departments develop strategies, or try out ideas they have already developed; everyone agreed that simply getting together for a general discussion was extremely helpful.

It might be a good idea for CSU History departments to meet again next spring; it is unlikely that people in Northern California will want to come to Los Angeles again, but if that were the case, Long Beach (or some other campus in the area) might be willing to host such a get-together. The advantage of such a meeting is that it would allow us to look with more specificity and in greater detail at ongoing efforts in individual departments, and allow us to see more examples of what is or is not working. Since several departments by that time will have begun the evaluation of their students through portfolios or other means, we would have the advantage of looking at different kinds of data as well.

In the meantime, CSU Long Beach could, with the approval of the CSU, act as a clearinghouse through which materials/examples collected by other History departments in the system could be disseminated. Some of this could be done with funds appropriated but not fully expended by the conference.

 

 

Summary of Breakout Group Discussions

 

Session #1 Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment in Skills

1. Assessment involves interpreting data with the goal of improvement.

2. Definitions of assessment are complicated by the multiple audiences it engages: Chancellor, students, parents, faculty.

3. Assessment should focus on programmatic development to assist departments evaluate and improve.

4. Steps recommended:

1. Decide which courses in the program best fit assessment.
2. Get input from faculty relative to current practices.
3. Figure out what resources you need, and ask for them.
4. Communicate the language and goals of assessment to students.

5. Other departments currently:

1. Require senior thesis.
2. Portfolio and student-written assessment for which students earn 2 units.

Session #2 Content

1. Are content standards necessary, and can faculty agree?

• Yes, though not at highly specific levels.
• Standardized tests are "useless" in part because of the tendency to assess content long after students have completed courses with relevant content.
• Serious lack of content knowledge of incoming students; are state frameworks realistic?

2. What are appropriate tools to assess content?

• Spread of grades from wide range of rigorous required courses in the major.
• Student portfolios that include research papers.
• When assessing whether a student has achieved sophisticated historical understanding and critical thinking, skills and content need to be considered in tandem.
• Students do not need to become wellsprings of historical knowledge so much as they need to develop skills to analyze content.

3. Can we be sure the results of assessment will be used in ways that will enhance, not denigrate professors and departments?

 

Session #3 Assessment in terms of the History B.A.

1. How do we determine what students awarded the degree have learned?

Assessment of individual students? Program?

2. Assessment in the capstone course: more than a single faculty member should read papers; blind readings of student papers by faculty groups desirable to get an overall sense of how students are doing.

3. Departments could sponsor forums where senior project students present their work for faculty and students.

4. Portfolios need to be tied to degree requirements and to the capstone course.

5. Conduct surveys of graduating seniors? Of alums through newsletters?

6. What impact will the process have on RPT? What is the incentive for faculty to take on additional responsibilities? Released time?

7. Need to track students as they move through the major in order to assure sequencing is working.

 

 

Summary of Final General Discussion Session

1. The development of standards and assessments, and decisions related to outcomes, must come from the bottom up; if faculty in the system are not actively engaged in the process, it will not work.

2. Standards and assessment must be discipline-based.

3. Faculty must be persuaded that their work on standards, assessments, and outcomes holds the promise of improved student performance.

4. Based on the experience of those departments most heavily engaged in outcomes work, the process of developing standards, and finding effective ways to assess skills and content takes a great deal of time and energy. Faculty teaching courses designed to implement these changes report without exception that teaching these courses is significantly more labor-intensive than other typical teaching assignments.

5. Most historians teaching in the CSU have found their workloads significantly increased in the last decade; consequently, they are not eager to take on additional assignments without some promise of support for developing, preparing, and the initial teaching of courses specifically designed to meet the goals of a rigorous and creative standards and assessments agenda.

6. The kinds of support needed to get larger numbers of faculty engaged in the process focus primarily on decreasing teaching loads, either in terms of WTU, or FTES. This is particularly important for faculty who take the lead in developing and implementing discipline-specific strategies.

7. Standards/assessment/outcomes issues in History must connect writing and content, even though the discipline places a heavier emphasis on writing than most.

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Summary of Reports from History Departments in the CSU Currently Developing Standards/Assessment Strategies

As an introduction to discussion, a number of department representatives reported their own experience with preliminary efforts to develop workable assessment plans.

CSU Los Angeles has targeted the program (curriculum, recruitment, program goals) for assessment, and conducted a one-time assessment of senior student research papers based on an assessment program underway at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Faculty at CSULA remain skeptical that content standards in History can be agreed upon and measured, but do feel that skills and competencies assessment is possible.

San Francisco State began its preliminary assessment efforts in 1998 and developed a plan to "assess the ability of its academic program to provide undergraduate History majors with appropriate knowledge and skills. The goals of this assessment were three:

1. To discover if SFSU’s History majors in fact possessed the knowledge and skills that the faculty expected of them at the time they received the baccalaureate degree.

2. To discover if SFSU’s History majors’ knowledge and skills were enhanced between the conclusion of their junior seminar and that of their senior seminar.

3. To begin to compare the performance of SFSU’s History majors with that of their peers at other colleges and universities." (San Francisco State University Preliminary Outcomes Assessment Report for the Department of History, 1998)

SFSU’s History Department then embarked on a very labor-intensive process in which faculty teams read a total of 189 seminar papers, among which 25 seminar papers from the University of Colorado, Boulder were mixed. Preliminary analysis of the data seemed to indicate that 1) SFSU’s senior seminar papers showed improvement over work in the junior seminar, and 2) SFSU’s senior seminar students compared relatively well with Boulder’s seminar students. SFSU’s History department will continue to refine this database, but does not plan to replicate such a project in the near future, given the enormous expenditure of time and energy required by the first effort.

CSULB’s department efforts began with a 1997 connection to a national project (QUE/Quality in Undergraduate Education) organized at Education Trust meetings in Washington, D.C. The Long Beach department’s interest in that project stemmed primarily from QUE’s emphasis on discipline-driven standards/ assessment projects, and its inclusion of community colleges. Until very recently, the progress of the national project has been hindered by a lack of adequate funding to provide, at a minimum, travel funds for national meetings; however, QUE is moving forward, and Long Beach is one of several national "teams" made up of community college and university History faculty actively participating. One of the obvious lessons in the QUE experience since 1997 has been the comparison between the relative ease with which scientists are able to decide upon and evaluate standards for their disciplines, and the incredible difficulty historians (representing the humanities in this project) have had achieving any sort of agreement on "standards" for the discipline.

The Long Beach faculty discussion of standards/assessment remains ongoing, but the outlines of an approach have emerged over the past year.

1. The methodology course has been completely redesigned to emphasize skills and competencies and is now a first semester requirement for all new majors; this has already verified something we already knew -- that transfer students from California’s community colleges arrive with very few skills and competencies with which to undertake a major in History. Nor do they have a good command of lower division content in basic history courses. Since we estimate that more than 60% of our majors are community college transfers, the methodology course has necessarily combined critical remediation efforts with our original goals.

History 301 (Methodology) now includes an inventory of skills and competencies students must satisfactorily master in order to pass the course. Those skills are linked to content through the paper that all students must write, as well as through various exercises developed by individual faculty. All faculty teaching the course must teach the inventory, but develop their own exercises and approaches to it; the department maintains files of these exercises, and 301 faculty meet on a regular basis to discuss student progress, as well as the success/failure of individual faculty efforts to develop ways and means of teaching the inventory.

History 301 is expensive; by design it has the department’s lowest SFR, providing incoming students with a great deal of individual attention and the opportunity for significant levels of peer input as they begin their work in the major.

2. The decision to use student portfolios in History 301 as the primary basis for grading is intended to carry over through upper division courses and into the capstone course. Whether portfolios will be evaluated by faculty assigned to assess and comment on them, or the portfolio is combined with a student (seminar) capstone paper to determine the course grade has not been decided. However, many faculty members agree that a student portfolio for History majors can be extremely valuable, that it provides a sense of continuity through the major that is currently absent, and requires that students reflect seriously on the quality of their own work in determining which materials to include. Student portfolios can also provide for both students and faculty a body of work that represents progress through the major and a better sense of what our majors have or have not accomplished than any measure currently in place.

3. The proposed end point of the student’s progress through the major, the capstone course, will not only emphasize historical content and continued demonstration of skills, but, more importantly, the extent to which history majors at the end of their tenure with us understand the processes that make up the discipline of history and can demonstrate that understanding in the papers they produce and the presentations they make.

Cal Poly Pomona is beginning the application of what seemed to be one of the most complete standards/assessment plans in the CSU to date. The department’s assessment mechanisms are presented as part of the mission statement and objectives, including an inventory of skills and abilities. The plan emphasizes close advisement of new and continuing students, extensive use of student portfolios, student self-assessment essays, and capstone courses to assess student progress; it also sets up a faculty "portfolio committee" assigned the task of evaluating student portfolios, making written comments, and returning them to students.

Cal Poly's history majors must submit portfolios to that committee on two occasions: at the conclusion of the third quarter of their junior year, and during the final quarter of their senior year. Students are provided a checklist of items that must be included in the portfolio; they include: 1) two term papers, 2) two essays, and 3) two exams from at least two different upper-division courses; in addition, they must include writing assignments from methodology and historiography courses, and in the last quarter a senior thesis. Finally, students must include a written self-assessment on the two occasions they turn in portfolios to the committee; the self-assessment must identify strengths and weaknesses and indicate plans to overcome weaknesses or deficiencies. Portfolios of students in the History/Social Science subject matter credential program are assessed by a faculty member in that program who provides comments and recommendations to the committee. Portfolios are returned to students, but a copy of faculty assessment summaries is retained in student files.

Other CSU assessment efforts also rely on portfolio evaluation, but some departments, like Cal State LA, have moved in the direction of program, rather than individual student assessment. A number of departments have completed the development of content standards for individual courses, and some have taken this approach as they participate in GE reform on their respective campuses. Since many departments already have in place both methodology and historiography (sometimes combined) courses, as well as capstone offerings, they are considering a number of different ways these courses might be used in an assessment strategy. Faculty in some departments who are just beginning to discuss these issues recommend beginning with a review of their own curriculum to make certain that: 1) sufficiently rigorous coverage of content in each particular course is provided, and 2) students are presented with a clear picture of what they will be expected to be able to do to successfully complete the course.

 

Standards and Assessment in History:

What is Possible? What is Desirable?

California State University Long Beach
April 23, 1999

 

Agenda

8:30 - 9:00	Coffee and Distribution of Materials
9:00 - 9:45	Welcome from Robert Maxon, President, CSULB Greetings, Introductions, and Expectations Sharon Sievers, CSULB
9:45 - 10:15	"Standards-Based Instruction at CSULB: The Case of History 301" Tim Keirn, CSULB
10:15 - 10:30	Break
10:30 - 11:30	Presentations from other CSU Campuses Relating to Standards-Based Instruction Stan Burstein CSULA Jerald Combs San Francisco State Lawrence Bryant CSU Chico
11:30 - 12:15	Brief "Round Robin" of the Status of Standards and Assessment in History at other CSU Campuses
12:15 - 1:15	Lunch
1:15 - 3:00	Three Break-Out Discussion Groups: Student Learning Outcomes and Assessment in Skills and Content Courses, and the BA Degree Can standards and assessment instruments be created that accurately measure "what a student knows" and "what they can do" in each of these areas? Can this be achieved across the CSU or on an individual campus basis? What are the logistical and resource issues involved?
3:00 - 3:15	Break
3:15 - 4:00	Reports of Individual Groups to the Whole
4:00 - 5:00	Building Consensus: Prioritizing "What is Desirable," "What is Realistic," and "What is Needed" in a Report to the Chancellor