Assessment Results - NRRE Majors - 2018

In the spring of 2018, the Faculty of the Natural Resources and Rangeland Ecology (NRRE) major met to formulate a plan to assess the program. This document is a report of our findings.

Methods:

As a result of our curriculum mapping exercise, we decided to assess learning outcome #3 Effective Written and Oral Communication Skills in WILD 420 Range and Wildlife Policy and Planning, and learning outcome #4, Problem Solving, in NRSM 353, Grazing Ecology and Management in Spring Semester 2018. Since Dr. Sowell is the instructor of NRSM 353, Dr. Bret Olson and Dr. Clayton Marlow evaluated the students in this course. We randomly selected 9 NRRE student presentations/oral reports from WILD 420 to evaluate, and 9 papers to evaluate. Individual students were assigned scores by two evaluators. The assessment criteria forms for Written and Oral Communication Skills, with scores of 1-5, are attached (Appendixes A&B). Any average score from both evaluators that was below a 3 was considered to be below expectations, and any average score of 3 or above was considered to meet minimum standards. For NRSM 353, we selected all NRRE student exams. The assessment criteria forms from FIU for subject content knowledge and critical thinking were modified using a scale from 1-5 (Appendix C). Any average score from both evaluators that was below a 3 was considered to be below expectations.

Results:

Oral Communication:

The results of our assessment are listed in Table One. One hundred percent of the students in WILD 420 were above our minimum expectations (80% of students 3/5 or higher) for oral communication skills.

We identified some positive results related to our student’s skills:

1. Student appearance was professional.
2. Students were well prepared in advance.
3. Students were clear and precise in their delivery.

We also identified some common mistakes related to their oral communication skills:

1. Students often did not justify their position.
2. Students did not address the questions directly and fell back on a previously stated position.

We identified some possible solutions:

1. Instructors should provide more opportunities for oral presentations in their courses. Oral presentations are used in NRSM 353 and NRSM 455.
2. We do not provide training where students practice giving oral presentations, are critiqued, then get to present again to learn from their mistakes.

Written Communication:

The results of our assessment are listed in Table One. Eighty nine percent of the students in WILD 420 passed our expectations for written communication skills. We expected that 80% of our students would meet our standards, so we surpassed these expectations.

We identified some positive results related to our student’s skills:

1. Most papers were well organized and followed instructions.

We identified some common mistakes related to their written communication skills:

1. Students did not provide the biological principles that were needed to understand the issue.
2. Students who answered opposition questions were evasive and referred to unrelated points.
3. The students need to improve their understanding of scientific format of papers, especially the literature cited section.

We identified some possible solutions:

1. Instructors should give students further instruction and example papers.

Problem Solving Skills:

The results of our assessment are listed in Table Two. Eighty one percent of our students passed the minimum requirements which met our goal of 80%. The instructor for the class estimated 60% of the students met our expectations for problem solving.

We identified some positive results related to our student’s skills:

1. Students could identify most of the important information needed to solve the problem.

We identified some common mistakes related to our student’s skills:

1. Some students did not address the question or focus on specific question.
2. Many students did not identify the problem.
3. Many students did not incorporate/integrate relevant information, provided by instructor or material from this course or related courses.
4. Many students did not understand the need to know the ecological potential for a given site.

We also identified some possible solutions:

1. Many students take NRSM 353 Grazing Ecology and Management spring semester of their junior year, most likely with very little previous problem-solving experience in our curricula or other course work, so the low scores are not unexpected.
2. Many students take this course con-current with or a year before NRSM 351 Wildland Biomes. Thus, it’s difficult to understand or apply a grazing system to a particular biome if they do not have the background on biomes. We recommend students take NRSM 351 junior year, and NRSM 353 (Grazing Ecology and Management) senior year. Maybe we should change the course number of Grazing Ecology and Management from NRSM 353 to NRSM 4XX so students would expect to take it senior year.
3. We need to stress, especially in upper division courses, that they are not “stand-alone”. They are part of a curriculum package. Students should be expected to draw on information from other classes.

Table 1. Department of Animal & Range Sciences Assessment of Natural Resource and Rangeland Ecology -
Spring 2018

Any average score below a 3 is not a passing score

Learning Outcome: Oral Communication

Any average score below a 3 is not a passing score.

Learning Outcome: Written Communication

89% of papers met minimum standards (pass)

11% of papers did not meet minimum standards (fail)

Table 2. Department of Animal & Range Sciences Assessment of Natural Resource and Rangeland Ecology -
Spring 2018

Learning Outcome: Problem Solving

81% of papers met minimum standards (pass)

19% of papers did not meet minimum standards (fail)