Institutional Learning Goals, Outcomes, and Evidence

What are institutional goals and outcomes?

Institutional learning goals describe the knowledge and skills we expect our students to learn and improve upon in their educational programs at IVCC. Institutional learning outcomes are the methods that we use to measure the students progress on and toward the goals.

Why assess Institutional Learning Goals and Outcomes (ILOs)?

ILO assessment measures if students earning credentials from IVCC (degrees, certificates) have the knowledge, skills, and abilities described by our ILOs.  This process demonstrates accountability to ourselves, our students, our community, our accreditors, and other stakeholders.

When are we assessing?

Faculty should assess their courses after mid-term each semester.

Assessment of Student Learning

  1. IVCC has 4 Institutional Learning Goals: Communication, Inquiry, Social Consciousness, Responsibility, and 10 Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) listed below. 
  2. By assessing the ILOs, we determine if students are proficient or not yet proficient in our institutional learning goals and outcomes. 
  3. IVCC's master course outlines, which you can get from the dean or director of any academic division or from the Assessment Committee co-chairs or Brightspace repository, indicate which of the 4 ILOs are assessed in a course.  
  4. The Assessment Plan for a course indicates which course outcomes and competencies are aligned to which ILOs in course. The IVCC faculty assess those ILOs using assignments, discussions, or other evaluations (like tests or quizzes).
  5. When assessing, faculty should look for assessment evidence to determine if a student is proficient or not yet proficient in an outcome and report their data in their course's Brightspace class. (This can happen while the faculty is also evaluating the assignment against its requirements and their expectations.) FAQ: What do I do with assessment if a student did not complete the assignment? A: Skip the student; do not report assessment data for a student who did not complete the course assignment you are assessing.
  6. Cocurricular Assessment occurs when a faculty, staff, or community member hosts an event where students may be present and increase their learning on our ILOs where the activity is not associated with a class, like a field trip, theatrical performance, a student group activity, or an engagement with IVCC staff in some other context. Those event designers should use a Cocurricular Assessment Plan form and work with an Assessment Committee member to collect and report their data. 
  7. ILO assessment evidence provides examples of knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors demonstrated by students who are proficient in an ILO. To see or review Assessment Results, please contact the Assessment Committee co-chairs (see below) with a data request.
  8. After assessing in Brightspace, faculty periodically review, analyze, and contextualize of assessment data through our Assessment Reports. The Assessment Committee will provide faculty with the data for their reports and the deadline by which to file them. IVCC uses assessment results for measuring student learning and for continuous improvement. 
  9. IVCC faculty can learn about, implement, and report on assessment using Brightspace. To participate in a fully online, self-paced training course, contact CETLA for further instructions. To learn on your own, instructional and explanatory materials can be found in Brightspace's Assessment Committee Repository. To access that, faculty can visit Brightspace and self-enroll by selecting the Discover feature and then clicking on Assessment Committee. To receive information, training, and support from an Assessment Committee member, please contact the co-chairs, kimberly_radekhall@ivcc.edu or david_garrison@ivcc.edu, or visit the committee web page for a list of members.

IVCC Institutional Learning Goals and Outcomes

Goal 1. Communication: To communicate effectively

Is the student proficient in…
  • communicating to or with a specific audience? (Outcome 1.1)
  • demonstrating purpose and organization? (Outcome 1.2)
  • synthesizing and supporting ideas? (Outcome 1.3)

Goal 2. Inquiry: To apply critical, logical, creative, aesthetic, or quantitative analytical reasoning to formulate a judgment or conclusion

Is the student proficient in…
  • gathering and selecting information? (Outcome 2.1)
  • analyzing or investigating data? (Outcome 2.2)
  • articulating reasons for decisions or solutions? (Outcome 2.3)

Goal 3. Social Consciousness: To articulate what it means to be a socially conscious person, locally and globally

Is the student proficient in…
  • describing a social system, theoretical framework, culture, or lifestyle? (Outcome 3.1)
  • appreciating diverse perspectives or differences within social, theoretical, or cultural systems? (Outcome 3.2)

Goal 4. Responsibility: To recognize how personal choices affect self and society

Is the student proficient in…
  • articulating an assessment of self in relation to others? (Outcome 4.1)
  • demonstrating awareness of personal responsibility and positioning within a larger context, culture, community, or system of thought? (Outcome 4.2)