General Education Assessment Overview
- Instructors look at the Gen Ed assessment timeline to see if their course's designation is scheduled for data collection this year. Data collection for assessment is part of a 3-year cycle of collection, reflection, and improvement.
Cultural Inquiry and Global Learning
Initial planning: 2020-21
Data collection: 2021-22
Analysis/report: 2022-23
Action planning: 2023-24
Implementation: 2024-25
Basic Composition, Intermediate Composition, and Oral Communication
Pause (cycle change): 2020-21
Implementation: 2021-22
Data Collection: 2022-23
Analysis/Reporting: 2023-24
Action Planning: 2024-25
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Quantitative Experience; and Social Inquiry
Analysis/Reporting: 2020-21
Action Planning 2021-22
Implementation: 2022-23
Data Collection: 2023-24
Analysis/Reporting: 2024-25
Civic Literacy, Natural Scientific Inquiry, and Wayne Experience
Data Collection: 2020-21
Analysis/Reporting: 2021-22
Action Planning: 2022-23
Implementation: 2023-24
Data Collection: 2024-25
- Instructors identify one or more assignments in their Gen Ed courses that align with the Gen Ed designation's learning outcomes and rubric.
- For help with assignment/Gen Ed outcome alignment, you can review an online presentation, attend an Office for Teaching and Learning (OTL) workshop, or request a consultation from OTL or GEOC's assessment designee for help in identifying or developing aligned assignments.
- Students complete the assignment as part of their normal coursework.
- Instructors grade the assignment using their normal scoring criteria as part of students' class grades. View sample assignments for all of the gen ed designations on our Submitting Student Scores page.
- Instructors score the assignment in Canvas using the appropriate Gen Ed rubric. For your convenience, a Canvas assignment with the appropriate Gen Ed rubric attached will be automatically set up in your course.
- For help using the Canvas assignment, watch a video tutorial or attend a workshop.
- If you require an alternative to submitting scores in Canvas, please send your request to GEOC.
- GEOC's Assessment Subcommittee extracts the scores from Canvas at the end of each semester, de-identifies and aggregates them, and reports the aggregated results to GEOC. The Assessment Subcommittee also works with the Office of Institutional Research to generate and distribute confidential assessment reports to all instructors. These reports are for instructor use only and cannot be used for the purposes of evaluation in any form.
- Instructors, departments, colleges, and GEOC engage in action planning and implement their plans to improve student learning in the Gen Ed program. Attend one of our workshops or contact the Gen Ed Assessment Subcommittee for individual or group consultations.
Please note that data collection years should not require any additional work for faculty beyond data submission in Canvas as long as you've already completed steps 2 and 3 for your course once before. Those same assignments will continue to be relevant for the purposes of assessment. We request that department chairs and program directors make sure that their GTAs and part-time instructors know whether their courses fulfill a Gen Ed requirement and whether they will be responsible for data collection in a given year. New GTAs will receive basic training on Gen Ed assessment in GTA Orientation, and all instructors are welcome and encouraged to attend Gen Ed assessment workshops held through the OTL. We are also happy to organize workshops for your department, for groups of instructors teaching different sections of the same course, for labs, or for GTAs. We are also happy to set up individual consultations with instructors. If you find yourself spending a lot of time completing assessment or feeling anxious about the process, please reach out to us at gened@wayne.edu. We know that this is unfamiliar territory for many people, but we have tips and tricks to make it all much easier and more helpful for you!