Geological Sciences

Our main tool for assessment of oral discourse is a seminar associated with our every other year field trip over winter break. This seminar is required for all juniors and seniors majors and each student gives two professional style talks to the department. This year was an off year, so the only class that required an oral presentation was GSCI 341 (Structural Geology). This is a required class for all majors in which all students give two professional style talks.

What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?

Most students meet or exceed expectations for oral discourse in our discipline. Those students in the "approaching" category need another opportunity to develop these skills.

In light of your results, are there any actions that your department might take or should contemplate taking?

We need to bring the three students who "approach expectations" up to the level of "meeting expectations." The evaluation each students level of competence is based on an average of their scores for each talk given in GSCI 341. Overall scores improved between the first and second talks, moving students up from "does not meet" and "approaches" into the next higher category. We feel that multiple opportunities to give talks, receive feedback, and try again are critical to improving student's oral discourse skills. All three students in the "approaching" category are registered for the Fall 2008 departmental seminar, so we will have a chance to improve and reevaluate these student's oral discourse skills prior to graduation.

Did you learn anything from this assessment that might benefit other general education areas?

No.

Chemistry

Our main tool for assessment of oral discourse is Chemistry Senior Seminar (CHEM 352). The course is designed to give students advanced scientific writing experience, formally presenting a scientific paper and demonstrating chemical knowledge. The course culminates in an oral presentation of a scientific paper of the student's choosing where the Chemistry faculty uses the college wide oral discourse rubric in order to assess each student. Each faculty member's assigned numeric score (1 to 4 according to the rubric) is averaged for the student presentation. An average score of less than 2 is assigned as does not meet, a score of 2 to 2.9 is assigned as approaches a score of 3.0 to 3.6 is assigned as meeting and a score of 3.7 to 4.0 is assigned as exceeding.

What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?

Most students meet or exceed expectations for oral discourse in our discipline. The four students in the approaching category had scores between 2.7 and 2.9 so they were very close to meeting expectations.

In light of your results, are there any actions that your department might take or should contemplate taking?

At this point no concrete decisions have been made. Currently, the department has been considering alterations to the laboratory curriculum and possible improvements that can be made in oral and written skills in that part of the curriculum.

Did you learn anything from this assessment that might benefit other general education areas?

No.

Art History, Music, and Theater
1) What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?
Within the music, art history and theater classes, students who followed the guidelines in preparing for a presentation had a much more sophisticated and thoughtful final product. The difficulty with overall was in impressing upon each student that the presentation is more that a regurgitation of accumulated information. Those who exceeded our expectations were students who delved deeper into the implications of what they discovered and were able to communicate concisely these insights with more substantive material and clarity.

2)In light of your results, are there any actions that your department might take or should contemplate taking?
Perhaps. Next year, coordinators of each area will be discussing the standardization of classroom procedures for all areas so that we reflect on how we might improve on student success.

3) Did you learn anything from this assessment that might benefit other general education areas?
Yes. We discovered that many students do not yet know the difference between simply reporting facts and drawing implications from the gathered information. Alarmingly, one student did, in fact, comment that the expectations of the oral presentation in a piano pedagogy class were "much harder because it's not like a history class where you can just report it." This remark also reflects the misconception of historical studies, which needs to be addressed in any class that delves into historical knowledge.

Studio Art
1) What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?

The results combine the 18 students from the sophomore review and 18 graduating students. The senior results indicate 17 of 18 students met or exceeded outcome expectations. Student's techniques, craftsmanship and verbal skills all improve and sometimes quite dramatically when students move from mundane foundation level class projects (Sophomore Review work) to more personalized and self-initiated projects (Senior Exhibition).

Foreign Languages & Literatures

The Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures assesses student mastery of  Oral Discourse in a representative number of Spanish and French courses at the 300 level.  This year five (5) courses, representing 27% of the total number of students taking 300-level courses, were assessed. In these courses students prepared and delivered an oral presentation in the target language and were evaluated with Geneseo's Oral Discourse Rubric.

What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?

Most students meet or exceed expectations for oral discourse in our discipline. The two students (0.02% of the total number of students assessed) in the approaching category scored at the higher end of said category and were very close to meeting expectations.

Overall the majority of our students performed well in this assessment. However, it was noted that in the expression category twelve students scored a two (from a scale of one to four), and in the presentation category one student scored a one and sixteen students scored a two.  These figures demonstrate that there is a need to provide additional means by which these students can improve their ability to effectively communicate in the target language.

In light of your results, are there any actions that your department might take or should contemplate taking?

The department will discuss at the first departmental meeting of the Fall 2008 semester what can be done to address the findings of this assessment.

Did you learn anything from this assessment that might benefit other general education areas?

No.

ANTHROPOLOGY

The Department of Anthropology assessed Oral Competency in three courses during the 2007-2008 academic year.  The courses were ANTH 110, ANTH 229, and ANTH 204.  Assessment of oral competency was based on individual and group presentations, all of which used PowerPoint for visual display.   Our assessment numbers include faculty and student evaluation of the oral presentations.  

WHAT WERE THE MAJOR FINDINGS.

Faculty Evaluation.
Students exceed the standards in oral competency with respect to organization, expression and presentation. A small number of students perform at the lower levels with very few students not able to meet the standards. Students are doing group presentations and each member of the group is required to speak in the oral presentation. It is possible that the student interaction raises the bar for performance for all group members. One difficulty noted in the oral presentations is that students need to practice timing their presentations to fit within the time constraints. More work needs to to done to evaluate the PowerPoint presentations with respect to providing references for data presented and the visuals. In most cases, students are using excellent source matrials, including scholarly materials on the web, academic clips from youtube and, in some cases, excellent figures and tables to enhance their presentations. All groups included sound bites to enhance their presentations.

Student Evaluations.
Students' evaluation of other student presentations exceed the standards in oral competency with respect to organization, expression and presentation (see attached Table). A small number of students perform at the lower levels. Students include evaluation of not only the individual students but also their presentation in relationship to the group. Some students noted that the presentation members repeated the same information as other group members. Some students have noted that individuals do not dress appropriately for the formal presentation and perhaps faculty could make a suggestion that would professionalize the dress code. Some students noted that students wore hats and that seemed to them unprofessional. Perhaps faculty can mention this as well. Other student comments focused on losing the speaker behind the podium (the speaker is too soft spoken, is too short or is lost behind the computer screen, fiddles with hair, twists rings and displays other distracting behavior). Perhaps these behaviors or body postures might be mentioned by the instructor. The use of "um" or mispronouncing of foreign words, mumbling and other speak quirks were mentioned by the student evaluators. Faculty could alert students to these problems. Reading notes was noted by many students as a problem in the presentation, as a flaw that was indicative of a lack of preparation. The student observations were interesting in that they varied considerably for each speaker. Perhaps the rubric is not as refined as it might be and needs to be reconsidered. The most valuable part of the oral competency form was the comments section which contained information from student peers that would improve each speaker's presentation. The raw number scores topped out at the high end for both faculty and students. Unless the speaker was a disaster, and even if the speaker was weak or unskilled, students and faculty gave the individuals high scores.

IN LIGHT OF THESE FINDINGS, WHAT ACTIONS MIGHT BE TAKEN TO IMPROVE TEACHING AND STUDENT LEARNING?

(1) Raise the bar for performance. Rethink the oral competency rubric and how both faculty and students evaluate the presenters.
(2) Encourage students to work in groups. Make sure each group member is responsible for a section of the presentation.
(3) Train students to be more sensitive to the timing of their total presentation, which includes set up time and the length of each individual student presentation.
(4) Use the class presentations as a spring board for student's to present at SUNY Geneseo Great Day and at local, regional and national conferences.
(5) Refine teaching on how to cite materials in the PowerPoint or on a handout.
(6) Encourage students to work with the instructor and reference librarians to seek the most academic, current and significant research on the topic. Encourage students to search for the experts in the field on their targeted research project early in the semester by conducting in class exercises focused on student research.
(7) Work with students on the PowerPoint format to enhance the inclusion of visuals that are dramatic, explicate their findings and engage the audience.
(8) Encourage students to work with the PowerPoint expert, Steve Dresbach, Milne Library, to enhance their presentations. Use video clips in the presentation and sound bites where appropriate.
In summary, faculty should encourage students to present their research outside the class at Great Day or other conferences. If the students are producing stellar PowerPoint presentations, encouarge them to work with Steve Dresbach to submit their work to the Milne Library PowerPoint competition. (We did submit a variety of PPT to him and one of the ANTH 229 student groups won the campus wide competition!)

DO YOU THINK THAT OTHER AREAS MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING VALUABLE FROM YOUR ASSESSMENT?

Perhaps - in areas where PowerPoint is being used for student research or students are working on research projects in groups. It might be of interest for other colleagues and students to read the student comments on the presentations of their peers.

PHYSICS

These assessments are based on performance in PHYS 341 (seminar in Physics), in which Physics seniors are required to give three oral presentations. This course is a program requirement. The audience typically includes one faculty member and 9 or 10 students. At least one presentation per student is video recorded and analyzed together by the student and faculty member.

What did this assessment show you about the oral discourse skills of the students in the assessed courses?

93 percent of our seniors are meeting or exceeding our expectations for oral discourse.

In light of your results, are there any actions that your department might take or should contemplate taking?

No. 

Did you learn anything from this assessment that might benefit other general education areas?

No.

Data for oral discourse skills were collected spring semester 2007.  Students enrolled in Comn 102, Comn 348, and Comn 366 were assessed on organization, expression, presentation, and reasoning.  A large percentage (83%) of students assessed met or exceeded expectations of competent oral discourse skills across all four categories.  Three areas where students, whether in introductory or advanced level courses, exhibited strength were statement of clear thesis, development of ideas, and appropriate use of grammar and language.  Skills in need of improvement across introductory and advanced courses were appropriate use of audio-visual aids and appropriate use of citations.  Thirty-five percent of students assessed in introductory and advanced courses either did not meet or only approached minimum competence in proper use of citations when giving presentations.  Less significant, but still of concern, nineteen percent of students did not meet or only approached minimum competence in the use of audio-visual aids.  Discussion of results took place in fall 2008. Faculty agreed that proper citation of sources and appropriate selection and use of audio-visual aids are to be specifically addressed in classes, and instructors were encouraged to remind students how to apply these skills.  A suggestion was made to give more evaluative weighting to these skills in scheduled class assignments.  There also was discussion of further refinement of the assessment process the next time oral discourse competency is assessed.