Pedagogy 8 (3): 2008

Using Assessment to Introduce Incremental Change, Lynne Rhodes, USCA

For over a decade now, our department has made changes in our composition program based on our assessment findings. In particular, our assessments have forced us to pay more attention to source-based writing, and we have consistently made small, but significant changes to our freshman composition program, as well as informing major programs across campus, since our use of assessment rubrics and procedures has become a model for other major programs seeking advice and structures for their own assessments. Our rubrics have been modified for programs such as foreign language and communications. Our methods for collecting data have influenced our fledgling First Year Program. Our use of benchmarks and standards and our systematic approaches to data collection, analysis, and sharing of results have created our assessment feedback loop. Our annual retreat discussions have inspired other departments to meet collectively at yearly intervals to share assessment findings and make curricular changes.

As we have moved incrementally forward with writing assessment, we have also been able to petition effectively for additional support of our program. When phasing out developmental writing courses, we also argued that we would need to expand our student writing center by hiring a full time director and increasing tutor training and actual space. We were thus able to use the legislative state mandates in the late 1990’s to shift our writing center out of a small classroom into a spacious writing center complete with computer terminals and consulting areas. The connections that were made between the composition program, the writing center, and the Junior Writing Portfolio assessment were significant. The consultants became the front line of contact with the student body about the portfolio, as the receivers of the portfolios three times a year. Originally, we had designated mid-semester as the “due date” for portfolio submissions, but with student input, we determined that early semester was a better time for receiving the portfolios, which jumpstarted our writing center’s involvement through early semester workshops and consultations, well ahead of the crush of student requests that tended to accompany the mid-semester assignment crunch.

I do not feel that I am unique in this regard as many conversations and subject threads on the WPA list demonstrate similar programmatic changes. For instance, a series of voices in a recent thread (dated 8/17/07) report “joint research” and “people who are instrumental in campus curriculum committees” such as general education and various on and off campus networks. Not surprisingly, many WPAs report having a good relationship with campus constituents such as athletic directors, institutional research directors, department chairs, provosts, service learning, first year programs, and learning communities directors and coordinators. In many respects, our work as writing program administrators gives us multiple opportunities to interact with faculty, staff, and administrators, and each interaction promises to become a site for proactive connections which in turn can lead to personal or programmatic development.

Parallel work across campus on student retention and First Year experiences have been the most fruitful collaborations occasioned by our writing assessment program. Because of our reputation for proactive data collection, we have become the “go to” department for expertise in general education and First Year assessment. I was asked to contribute to an ad hoc committee on First Year concerns, along with my knowledge of first year composition, which allowed me to develop mutual goals with our institutional Advisement Office and our newly developed First Year Success program, such as instituting a First Year Common Reading requirement.