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The institution
places primary responsibility for the content, quality, and
effectiveness of its curriculum with its Faculty.
_X_Compliance
___Partial Compliance ___Non-Compliance
Narrative
St. Petersburg
College is in compliance with this comprehensive standard because its
Faculty are responsible for the development and revision of all
curriculum through a college wide curriculum committee process that
results in approval of new courses and programs and revisions to courses
and programs.
The curriculum
process at St. Petersburg College
The curriculum
process embodies the sum total of all instructional programs and
offerings, credit and noncredit at the College. Curriculum is further
defined in terms of the specific courses and degree programs, a
consistent rubric for determining the type and amount of credit awarded
and the delivery mode of instruction. Those policies are articulated in
the Board of Trustees Rules, including the process for creation of new
courses and programs, modification of curriculum, determining the
appropriate Faculty workload and procedures for approving instruction by
alternate methods. The procedure for expanding the curriculum to add
new programs and courses or limiting the curriculum to eliminate
programs and courses is found in the Curriculum and Instruction (C&I)
Manual.
Faculty who
originate new program proposals follow a comprehensive process to ensure
appropriate library resources, technology, and Faculty are budgeted and
facility space is allocated.
1.Needs assessment
2.Program development
3.Provost review
4.Curriculum & Instruction Committee
review
5.President’s Cabinet review and Board
of Trustees approval
Needs
assessment. The College goes
through a rigorous process to determine the need for a particular
program:
Process for Consideration of Additional Academic
Programs
A.
Needs Assessment
·
Outline or
describe the need
·
Student interest
(survey), Employer interest (survey or other)
·
Job Projections
(local; statewide) Positions available for graduates, salary
·
Current and
projected labor market analysis (number of current and needed
professionals in field)
B.
Program Description
·
How does this
fit into SPC’s mission
·
Why is this
program distinctive
·
Quality measures
that will be used to assess success of program
·
Identify
tentative program goals/outcomes
·
Proposed
curriculum
C.
Cost of Program
·
Faculty
·
Equipment
·
Facilities/
Online possibilities
·
Other Expenses
D.
Proposed Campus Location
E.
Projected Enrollment
·
1st year-
headcount (unduplicated); FTE Subsequent Years
F.
Other private/public institutions offering program: Local;
statewide
G.
Differentiation between currently offered programs and SPC’s
proposed program
H.
Potential Partners (UPC proposals)
I.
Narrative Rationale (SPC direct offering)
Program
development. As outlined in
the C&I Manual, curriculum proposals are created by individual Faculty
or collaborative Faculty groups and reviewed by other Faculty through
the Curriculum and Instruction Committee. New degree program proposals
are developed by individual Faculty or collaborative Faculty groups by
first researching educational needs through business and industry
advisory committees and economic councils, reviewing accreditation
requirements and existing state curriculum frameworks, and benchmarking
similar programs at other institutions.
Ensuring relevance of new courses and
programs. New courses and
programs are justified by Advisory Committees and/or discipline
committees as enhancing the quality and effectiveness of a program of
study through the addition of relevancy, rigor, connectivity, or
increasing skills, understanding of concepts, and practical
application. New required courses must fall within the program length
requirements set by the state of Florida. A.S. programs use curriculum
frameworks approved by the Florida Department of Education as a basis
for course and program design, although programs also must address
discipline-specific accreditation requirements.
Program Director/Upper-Division Dean
review. The proposal
originator’s Program Director or upper-division Dean reviews the
proposal and makes sure it is written in the correct format. The
proposal then is transmitted to each site for review by the
appropriate program director/upper-division Dean and the Provost, Campus
Executive Officer or Senior Vice President of Baccalaureate Programs and
University Partnerships and to the Curriculum Services Coordinator
Proposals are reviewed by Program Directors, Deans and Provosts as part
of the approval process; however, the Faculty bear sole responsibility
for content and for methods of instruction.
Curriculum & Instruction Committee
Review. The Curriculum and
Instruction Committee (C & I Committee) is composed of representatives
from the various disciplines and sites. The committee receives
recommendations from the various academic areas regarding proposed
curriculum changes. The C & I committee considers curriculum proposals
for new courses, course changes, course deletions, new programs, program
changes, program deletions, and graduation or general education
requirement modifications.
Relevance of curriculum to institution’s
mission and program offerings.
The C&I committee reviews the compatibility of the curriculum with the
educational objectives of the College and makes recommendations on the
various proposals.
President’s Cabinet review and Board of
Trustees approval. The
President’s Cabinet provides a broad-based, senior-level review of all
proposals for Board of Trustees approval. The Board of Trustees
approves all curriculum changes.
Faculty
responsibilities for implementing the curriculum
Each course offered
in the College has an official Course Outline, approved by the
Curriculum and Instruction Committee, and maintained by the Vice
President of Educational and Student Services. These outlines contain
the course description, major learning outcomes, course objectives, and
criteria for evaluation, as well as number of credits awarded and
contact hours. At a minimum, Faculty must include what is in the course
outline in their course and must measure it, but they are free to add
additional materials if they wish. At the first class meeting, Faculty
are required to present vital information to each class in written form,
including course objectives. The college provides an electronic
syllabus template that provides a standardized location for the course
objectives from the course outlines, as well as any added by the
instructor.
Quality and
effectiveness of curriculum
All courses are
reviewed for possible revision and improvement on a three-year
schedule. Discipline committees consisting of Faculty members consider
course-specific student outcomes, Student Survey of Instruction (SSI)
survey comments, and Faculty experience in the classroom and expertise
in the field to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum, including
level of students’ skills and students’ ability to apply the concepts
covered in a course. The process of course development and systematic
review is documented in the Curriculum and Instruction Manual
and deliberations on curriculum proposals are captured in minutes
from the Curriculum and Instruction Committee meetings.
Faculty regularly
evaluate both curriculum and the instructional process for all degree
programs. A.S. and A.A.S. programs are evaluated through an
end-of-program assessment process, A.A. programs through general
education outcomes assessments, B.S. and B.A.S. programs through
capstone courses or projects, and all programs go through a program
review process. These processes are detailed in procedures described in
Outcomes Assessment Manual, the Program Review Manual,
and the General Education Outcomes Assessment Manual. The
standards for review and design of these assessment activities are
Faculty developed and controlled, although administrative assistance is
provided. Samples of these various assessments are attached for
Nursing, Graphic Design, English (Writing), Speech, and Mathematics.
All outcomes assessment reports can be viewed in the outcomes assessment
database where these data are entered. Changes to curriculum and
pedagogy are made by the Faculty based on outcomes assessment data. For
example, in the action plan for the most recent Speech outcomes
assessment Speech Faculty have developed workshops to train Faculty from
other disciplines in incorporating best practices from the Speech
discipline, including using a common rubric from the outcomes
assessment. As another example, in the Dental Hygiene program results
from the National Dental Hygiene Board Examination prompted the
exploration of new teaching strategies in one course to emphasize the
foundation of anatomy and physiology.
Program Reviews.
The Board of Trustees Rule 6Hx23-3.04 states that the College will
periodically conduct a comprehensive program review of all A.S. degrees
and Certificate programs. During the Program Review process, programs
are assessed for their continued alignment with the College’s mission
and their viability. The program review process at St. Petersburg
College is a collaborative effort to continuously measure and improve
the quality of educational services provided to the community. The
procedures described below go far beyond the “periodic review of
existing programs” required by the State Board of Community Colleges.
Each program review
report first summarizes existing quantitative data available in the
following key measures of enrollment, graduation, and employment:
-
Florida Occupational Employment Estimates
-
Pinellas County Occupational Employment Estimates
Next, focus group research is employed to explore industry
needs, job features, major core competencies in the field, and program
curriculum with detailed questions relating to:
·
Job Titles & Openings
·
Skills Needed for
Employment
·
New Trends in the Field
·
Educational Opportunities
A thematic analysis of the focus group interaction is
presented in each program review report along with a summary of
findings, so that program directors may develop an action plan to
address the findings. Final steps in the program review process require
the Program Director to incorporate these findings into an action plan,
and for Educational and Student Services to evaluate the need for
follow-up including subsequent reviews. If the recommendation from a
Program Review is deletion of a program, programs are deleted over a
five-year timeframe in order to give students an opportunity to finish
the program.
In the end, this review
process not only continuously measures and improves the quality of
existing educational services provided to the community, but also
anticipate the future educational needs of the community.
Student feedback is
obtained through a Student Survey of Instruction (SSI) which is
administered in each class in Fall and Spring sessions, at a minimum,
and in all sessions for Distance Learning classes. Feedback is provided
to both the faculty member and the program director, and is used for
evaluation and individual professional development plans of Faculty.
For more information, see 3.7.2 and 3.7.3.
Additional measures of effectiveness
include monitoring transfer rates and success, placement rates, national
and state licensure exam pass rates, alumni surveys, and employer
surveys. SPC’s AA degree transfer with GPA’s greater than 2.5 is nearly
identical to the statewide performance (74.2%) and the College is
meeting its target of 70%. The mean GPA for the SPC transfer students
remained essentially the same (2.92 versus 2.91) and is essentially
identical to the current statewide mean GPA (2.92). The placement rate
of SPC students completing A.S. degrees or Post Secondary Certificates
was 85.1%. National and state licensure examination pass rates are
high, ranging from 80% in Veterinary Technology to 100% in Corrections,
Law Enforcement, Medical Laboratory Technician, and Respiratory Care.
The alumni survey gathered information on the program satisfaction of
graduates with their studies in preparing them for their chosen career;
the majority (937 or 64.1%) indicated that their studies prepared them
for work/school after SPC. Additionally, 87.3% (1,276) stated that they
would recommend SPC to others. Employers indicated very high levels of
satisfaction with SPC graduates’ technical and performance skills. All
10 skills received a mean score of 6 or higher on a 7-point scale.
Ninety-three percent (93.6%) of the employers would hire another SPC
graduate.
These data and
general education outcomes are reviewed by the Educational Oversight
Committee, which consists of a cross-campus, cross-discipline selection
of Faculty, Program Directors, and Deans. The Committee uses the
institutional data to ensure the curriculum is relevant to the
institution’s mission and program offerings. The Committee uses the
General Education outcomes data to review the Collegewide A.A. program
for appropriate rigor and connectivity between courses, and develops
actions that are incorporated into the curriculum review and strategic
planning processes. A.S., A.A.S., B.S., and B.A.S. assessments are
program-specific and individual action plans for each program that
address the currency, relevancy, rigor, and connectivity are developed
at the time of assessment and incorporated into the curriculum review
and strategic planning processes at that time.
Developmental course review and
assessment process. In order
to strengthen continuity between the developmental and the general
education programs, developmental courses are managed by the same
program directors and reviewed by the same faculty as college-level
courses using the same process as college-level courses. For
assessments, the State of Florida requires that students who are
required to take one or more developmental courses based on a college
placement exam must pass a state-developed Florida College Basic Skills
Exit Test at the end of each developmental sequence of courses prior to
progressing to college-level courses. There is no state-set cut score
for passing the exit exams. Cut scores can vary by schools and at SPC
are set by the Program Directors for mathematics and communications.
Since the initiation of the exit test in the fall session of 1999-2000,
the program directors from the mathematics and communications department
gradually have raised the cut scores to pass the exit exam in the
Reading, Writing, and Mathematics areas from 60 percent to 70 percent
over a five-year timeframe to ensure students are better-prepared for
college-level work. In the most recent analysis of exit exams, the
total pass rate (1st time and retake) for writing was 93 percent,
reading was 95 percent, and math was 75 percent. In the State
Accountability Measures, SPC exceeds the state average for reading and
writing and falls slightly below the state average for math for the
percentage of students who passed the highest level college preparatory
course for each area within two years meeting the standards for
admission into college level courses. Upon analyzing the results of the
exit exams and the State Accountability Measures, the Title III grant
office at SPC is sponsoring a Collegewide redevelopment effort for
developmental math courses and expects to pilot the revised courses in
xx.
Distance
learning review and assessment processes.
Distance learning courses delivered through the Internet, "blended"
courses which include multiple delivery and media, and telecourses go
through a Flexible Access and Delivery Process to make sure that they
match the same high standards as other courses offered at St. Petersburg
College, meet the guidelines of accrediting agencies, meet the
appropriate needs of students, and build on the unique strength and
talents of instructors. This review process does not replace the normal
Curriculum and Instruction Committee process, which focuses on content,
but rather complements it by focusing on the alternate delivery
mechanisms.
In addition to
participating in General Education and program-specific assessments,
distance learning courses also go through a cyclical online course
review in which Faculty work with an Instructional Technologist to
incorporate best practices. The Faculty-instructional technologist team
looks at course design, technology, assessment, learner support, and
course content. ECampus administration reviews the success and
retention rates for the distance course as compared to overall college
success for the course and Student Survey of Instruction results as
compared to the overall College course evaluation.
The success rate (students
achieving a grade of C or higher) in Spring 2005 was 71.9% for the
lecture mode of instruction and 64.9% for the online mode. Withdrawal
rates for that same time period were 14.2 for lecture and 18.9 for
online courses. The mean for the Student Survey of Instruction for the
same time period was 6.17 on a 7 point scale, which is comparable to the
Collegewide mean of 6.4.
References
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