Scholarship, Assessment, and Accountability in Community Colleges

College of Education Higher Education PhD EDHE 5313 Comprehensive Community College Homework order : 1 page discussion paper you don’t need put reference write please full page own your word please PhD level write. (Scholarship, Assessment, Accountability Community College) Discussion class assignment online class, Class reading material is attached pdf, Module 9 Discussion Board Please post module 9 discussion in this forum. • Scholarship, Assessment, Accountability Topic : Scholarship, Assessment, Accountability Please try to be brief and to the point 1 page. Module 9 Discussion Board Please post module 9 discussion in this forum. • Scholarship, Assessment, Accountability The weekly Module and Chapter Discussion Boards are intended to provide discussion and perspective to the weekly readings. Students and the instructor will post comments each week that relate to the assigned topics for that week. I would encourage everyone to spend some dedicated time each week to review the content modules, book chapters, and posts from your peers. As you are doing this, be thinking about things you would like to explore further with your classmates and instructor. Posts can be offered in many ways. Please try to be brief and to the point. Limit posts to 150 words or less. Some examples include: • Raising a question • Making an observation • Sharing a “ I learned something” moment • Providing related personal and professional experiences • Providing an argument pro or con • Offer related research and data • A combination of two or more of the above • Many other possibilities – you have a lot of flexibility but stay focused on the professional discussion and community colleges. This assignment is intended to engage the class as a whole in a discussion, sharing perspectives, and increasing our knowledge of community colleges within the weekly topics. Module 9 Discussion Board Please post module 9 discussion in this forum. • Scholarship, Assessment, Accountability Community College – Scholarship, Assessment, & Accountability 1 S. J. Jones – 2017© Getting Started with Scholarship, Assessment, & Accountability As we have learned, community colleges focus on teaching – not research. Oftentimes, we use the words “scholarship” and “research” interchangeably in higher education. In the context of our studies this week – we are not using the term “scholarship” in the context that most college students are familiar with. It would be unusual to find large Institutional Research offices and funds dedicated specifically to research in most community colleges. We will get a basic understanding of how community colleges participate in research activities and specifically the issues with accountability and assessment that most colleges face in our studies this week. There are several sources of research that most practitioners in community colleges rely on to stay on top of the field. These sources of research data are the National Center for Postsecondary Education (NCES) and the American Association of Community Colleges (http://www.aacc.nche.edu). NCES sponsors the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Every college (not just community colleges) are required to submit reports that provide such information as how many students are enrolled, broken down by gender and ethnicity, graduation rates, drop rates, exam pass rates (think state nursing exams), and even information on the makeup of the faculty and administrators (gender, race, degree, etc.). All higher education administrators should be familiar with IPEDS and should understand how to use this resource to get specific data as needed. IPEDS is a rich data source but does have some drawbacks for its use in specific research as it reports information in categories. It is very difficult to break it down to identify specific variables that can be evaluated for their effect on outcomes such as graduation, dropout, etc. Another funded program, through the U.S. Department of Education, that provides community colleges with up-to-date research is the ERIC Clearinghouse. Per the ERIC web site: ERIC - the Education Resources Information Center - is an online digital library of education research and information. ERIC is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC provides ready access to education literature to support the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making, and research. (http://www.eric.ed.gov) Without these supported research centers, many community colleges simply would have no research analyses or avenues to evaluate best practices. Assessment In some states, community colleges are assessed based on performance accountability. Performance accountability measures include how many students persist, graduate, drop out, attain certificates and degrees, and pass state licensure exams. This data is gathered through the IPEDS reporting process. All of this information is funneled into the state system, which interfaces with the NCES and Department of Education. This is how much of the data and statistics we see in the aggregate on higher education is collected and disseminated. The problem with assessment is that more often than not, it does not occur. We will find in our tenure in education that though we are very familiar with how to conduct assessment, we simply do not do it or we do not document that we do it. A prime example of this that some of us are familiar with is when TTU was put on probation by the South Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) for not documenting evidence of assessment of programs. You can bet that every college – two-year or four-year – learned a lesson from what happened at TTU. If you were to contact community colleges today and ask them what is a major initiative occurring at their college, they would say assessment. The only reason, though (my humble opinion), is that SACSCOC is enforcing it, which leads to compliance. If you would like to explore assessment in community colleges further, please check out the whitepaper on “An Assessment Framework for the Community College” at https://www.league.org/sites/default/files/An%20Assessment%20Framework%20for%20the%20Community%20College_Occasional%20Paper.pdf Accountability A big buzzword in higher education is “accountability.” As long as higher education continues to seek more funding from the state, raise tuition and taxes (community colleges), the public and states are going to demand accountability. A simple definition for this is that institutions are accountable to be good stewards of their monies and they must produce a quality product (knowledge). This issue is never going to go away and how accountability is evaluated will continue to be debated. An issue with accountability in community colleges is that the goal of every student that attends is not the same. A student could simply attend to enhance a job skill. Not everyone desires a degree or certificate (called completers). If colleges are being assessed on how many students they graduate, then the community college will fall short as this is not the goal of all who enter its doors. All higher education institutions will be held accountable for: o What they are doing o How they are doing it o Whom they are doing it with o Who they are doing it to Where they are doing it Assessment problems will lead to accountability problems for community colleges. They are not known for focusing on assessing what they are doing – they are more focused on serving students. As the public, state, and accrediting agencies mandate measurable outcomes in the form of accountability, community colleges will be forced to accommodate. It would be in their best interest to not see this move as one of compliance but one of improvement. Having ways to assess what one is doing is the only way to improve. It is hard to determine if something is broken if we have no data to evaluate it. As we complete our studies this week, some points to consider are: 1. How would community colleges benefit from participating in research/scholarship? 2. Would including a scholarship purpose in the roles of community colleges detract from their core mission of serving students? 3. Why is assessment important for community colleges? 4. How will accountability mandates impact community colleges?