Program Name: Architecture. PLO Assessment Procedure:

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1 Program Name: Architecture PLO Assessment Procedure: The Architecture PLO assessment has involved a number of critical components, including a review of all of the spring semester course SLO results that were recorded in TracDat. These results have been discussed during our department meetings and has generated discussions amongst our teaching staff. Overall a higher than at least 70% pass rate with a "C" or higher grade has been reported and was discussed. Three exceptions, Arc 110, 170 and 272 were slightly below 70% due to the drop-exclusion deadlines not being adhered to on time. This will be improved next fall semester. The Architecture Student Survey that was implemented in the fall 2013 provided another valuable insights of our students needs and makeup that in some aspects confirmed our previous conclusions but also provided some statistical data that has shaped our present and future course scheduling and development. One example is that that 87% of our students intend to transfer to a university architecture degree program. One critical element to asses the success of our PLO is the annual tracking of how many students successfully transfer to universities each year. We have been keeping track of this number for the past 18 years and we are during the years that we've been keeping track very pleased to report that this year we've had the highest number, 34,. The success of our transfer numbers, in our analysis, confirms the quality and development of our courses in that it clearly indicates how well they align with the university course requirements. In conclusion, during the past few years the success of the program has been trending upward as noted by these relevant markers.

2 Benchmark per PLO: PLO 1 - Students who successfully complete these courses will be able to apply common architectural practice standards to their projects. PLO 2 - Each student in a course that requires a project that meets the course standards may be considered ready to continue and accomplish their particular goals in the field of architecture. These PLO's have eight methods of assessment and percentages of benchmarks that were met with grade C or better, percentages of benchmarks are shown in parenthesis. a- Exam/Quiz: ARC 110 (70%), 115(70%), 130(70%), 131(70%), 161 (70%), 162 (80%), 164 (70%), 165 (70%), 173 (70%), 210 (80 & 80%), 211 (70 & 70%), 261 (80%), 261 (80%), 262 (70%), 264 (70%), 271 (70%), 272 (70%). b- Portfolio Review: ARC 121(70%), 122 (80%), 161 (90%), 162 (70%), 164 (80%), 180 (90%), 182 (70%), 221 (70 & 70%), 261 (80%) c- Project: ARC 160 (95%), 162 (80%), 165 (70%), 170 (70 & 70%) 171 (70 & 70%), 172 (70 & 70%), 173 (80%), 180 (90%), 182 (90%), 201 (70 & 70%), 202 (80 & 80%), 223 (70 & 70%), 261 (80%), 262 (70%), 271 (70%), 272 (70%), 280 (90 & 90%), 282 (70 & 90%), 101 (74 & 74%), 102 (70 & 70%), ENV 101 (74%),102 (86%). d- Writing: ARC 115(70%), e- Practicum: ARC 122(70&80%), 164 (70%), 165 (70%), 264 (70%) f- Survey: ARC 161 (80%), g- Capstone: ARC 185 (90 & 90%), 285 (90 & 90%), 385 (90 & 90%) h- Performance & Presentation: 261 (80%), 262(70%), 264 (70%)

3 Analysis of Program PLOs 1. What did you learn from the assessment of your Program Learning Outcomes? In assessing the Architecture PLO's, we've come to the conclusion that they are relevant and pertinent to gauge the success of the architecture program. This understanding has been the result of a vigorous and lengthy discussion that has taken place amongst the department faculty most recently this past spring semester. The Architecture Student Survey provided valuable and relevant information to assess the PLO, regarding our student's needs that has shaped a number of the department decision making process. Some examples include providing more foundational preparatory courses to increase the eventual success of course completion and quality of the student work produced. (Question 2.13). Another example, includes increasing the one-on-one contact with each student, both in the classroom and in the area of academic-career counseling. The design curriculum requires an unusually large amount of one-on-one teaching interaction and the existing hours, number of sections and the high enrollment caps are causing high attrition and drop-out rates, especially in Env 101,102 and Arc 201, 202. The college counselors are not thoroughly familiar with the unique curricular requirements in the field of architecture or university architecture transfer standards. We ve had to ameliorate this lack of guidance by providing more personal counseling sessions for all students. 2. In what areas did students excel? Overall, students excelled in project and performance based classes for design and technology based courses and this was reflected on the list under Benchmark per PLO section of this chart. In courses where quiz & exam and project type assessment methods were used, students performed better on the project section of the course. This is not unique to architecture discipline where project based learning has centuries old tradition both in the academia and the profession. An example of this would be design, drafting and computer aided design sections of the curriculum where project based assessment took place i.e.: Arc "23 out of 23 students achieved a "C" grade or higher in this CLO. All students were able to develop and organize the building program requirements." Or Arc 173, Architectural Drawing where students were assessed with a-) the Exam & Quiz and b-) the Project delivery and they were differed by the benchmarks of 70% and 80% success rate respectively of grade C or better. The department strives to keep up with the rapid development of the relevant technologies, latest software and equipment such as 3-D printers, classroom projectors and digital screens to aid lecture and project based courses. The department is continuously searching and purchasing such technologies and equipment to assist the students to excel and stay relevant in order to advance in their studies, transfer goals and job opportunities within a very competitive arena.

4 3. What issues and needs were revealed? The design studios are the heart of architectural education. Our students spend an enormous amount of time working on their drawings and models. Because the majority of our students do not have a large area to work at home it hampers their overall output. The present lack of permanent workspace (studio environment) where students can be assigned to a desk during the semester for the project based classes is hindering the development of the architectural design projects the students are assigned. Currently department uses three rooms plus the shop to conduct 35 courses it offers, constantly forcing students to haul their process models, drawings and other work in progress to make room for next class. This is causing interruption in their performance and in some cases loss of concentration. As the work load and curriculum demands have increased in our courses to stay current with university standards, students have an increase demand for more space in the Design Model Shop. In addition there is an urgent need to provide advanced students with permanent work stations. As the student survey revealed, almost 88% (Question 2.11) of our students plan to transfer to a university architecture degree program and 42% of them expressed that having a permanent work station would help them to improve their success rate to meet their educational goal (Question 2.14).

5 4. Describe any additional assessment that is needed in order to more fully understand your students, their progress and outcomes. As the numbers of successful transfer students has dramatically increased during recent years, we're interested to better understand any pertinent and significant factors that brought about an extraordinarily large number of students transferring this past semester. The 34 transfer students this past spring semester were also accepted into multiple universities in California and out of state. We know that this number fluctuates every year. This recent cohort of transfer students was in part due to a larger than usual number of older students and having additional statistical data and information about our students will help us formulate better decisions in the future. 5. Describe any request for evaluation that you plan on making to OIEA to gain a better understanding of student success in your programs. We're interested in working with OIE to develop some type of analysis to better understand the critical factors that has resulted in such a high success university transfer ratio this past semester. One revealing set of data will be to understand better how much and what kind of preparation this student cohort had prior to entering college and also what their curricular mapping reveals in terms of pre-requisites and foundational courses completed. This data will be gathered to include both architecture and general education courses. The request for this data, and in addition to a new Architecture Student Survey, with additional questions than the previous one will be made to OIE in the fall 2015 semester. 6. Please describe how you will use the course assessment for course improvement. (Note: only describe course assessment results associated with the Program of Study.) The assessments have greatly activated a dynamic real time tracking of the courses department offers. It gives faculty to continually adjust and readjust the course content and delivery based on the assessment of the courses, development and adjustment of the rubrics based on dynamic results drawn from the assessments. The department s success of increased number of students to five year institutions can partly be credited to setting up PLO and CLO goals and plans, continuously adjusting and re-adjusting course structures to align with those where our students aim to transfer. For example; the assessment rubrics for ARC 202 have been developed to align certain content alignments first with the PLOs of ELAC Architecture Department and also with the content level of five year institutions ensuring our students have a successful transition to those programs which seems to be working well.

6 7. Please describe how you will use the program assessment results for program improvement. The Department of Architecture curriculum has an intrinsic vertical structure compatible with an increasing knowledge base and skill levels. The curriculum is also augmented with the general education requirements. The architecture curriculum begins with base level introductory courses and sequentially moves into the advance levels where the students are prepared for an extremely rigorous portion of education that mirrors both the content and quality of university requirements. There is a certain benchmark of expectations and qualifications established for advance level capstone courses via this vertical structure. All of the courses are coordinated and aligned to have this comprehensible educational continuity and enabling purpose whether it is for university transfer or for the competitive job market. The program assessment results provides critical and objective data to better understand not only the large view of the overall curricular success but also allow us to see were the weak links exists between the beginning and advance level courses. 8. What changes in instruction, support services, and technologies will contribute to improved student outcomes? Although the department has achieved a consistent and remarkable success in surpassing SLO baselines and have been continually increasing the university transfer numbers, the department has most recently reached our capacity and limit for growth to stay current with the industry and university quality standards due to the five following factors: (Detailed in #9 below) 1. Additional space. 2. High enrollment caps and limited number of sections. 3. Additional open class room hours. 4. Additional instructional assistants and student workers. 5. Additional equipment and portable drafting-design tables.

7 9. Referring to your SLO Four Colum Report located in TracDat, describe any actions that have been made as a result of your SLO assessments and what additional resources are needed in order to complete these action plan. In review of the SLO Four Column Report, the following actions have been noted and discussed in the department which have also been previously referred to in this report: A. Provide more guidance for career-academic and personal development counseling sessions for each student. A majority of students are not cognizant of the 3-4 years they will spend at ELAC to complete their coursework. They often over schedule their course load and employment hours and as a result perform lower than they could otherwise. B. Schedule more evening courses as the greater majority of students are employed at least 1-20 hrs per week in the morning and afternoon hours. As is common at ELAC, students are often overburdened with family financial responsibilities or don't have the financial parental support to attend college. Evening classes now include sections offered in the daytime to accommodate these students. C. Assure that pre-requisites and foundational courses are being completed prior to enrolling in advanced courses. First day assessment test are now being implemented in a number of courses to assure the eventual success for more students taking advanced classes. Resources that are needed: 1. Additional space: The uniqueness of the architecture design curriculum in conjunction with the necessary equipment, hands-on projects and student collaboration require a more than usual amount of square footage per student beyond the present allocation. More space is urgently needed for the design studios and the Design Model Shop. Our present space allocation is too restricting for the further development and improvement of the student outcome. In order to stay competitive with similar college programs for university transfer spots and keep growing, we desperately need more space. We are now at capacity and cannot further in ways that we must develop without having more space. 2. Additional class sections and lower enrollment caps are critically needed. As stated in section 1, The design curriculum requires an unusually large amount of oneon-one teaching interaction and the existing hours, number of sections and the high enrollment caps are causing high attrition and drop-out rates, especially in Env 101,102 and Arc 201, 202. Our program success has attracted an increasing amount of enrollment during the past 10 years as we ve become the top choice for studying architecture in a community college in Southern California. Our own success has now become a challenge as the present structure of limited sections, hours and high enrollment caps has become an enormous obstacle for the quality of work to remain high. The present enrollment caps of 30 for Env 101,102 and 20 for Arc 201, and 202 are pedagogically ineffective and not commensurate with university standards. University articulations are presently being renewed. Contact hours in these design courses are being scrutinized by university administrators and we need to have these courses lower the enrollments caps, increase the hours and open up more sections.

8 3. Additional open classroom hours: As our survey revealed the great majority of students do not have a place of their own at home to work on their projects and in addition students want to work on their projects here at the college in order to increase their collaborative opportunities. Architecture majors requires an inordinate amount of hours to complete their assignments and requires a lot of space and equipment to do so. Students need longer access to the classroom-studios on weekends and weekdays. 4. Additional instructional assistants and student workers: One on one teaching is the pedagogical model that is central to the instructional process for architecture majors. Instructional assistants greatly assist in this process by assisting instructors in this pedagogical model. Student workers are of great value as they provide additional assistance with routine tasks that otherwise will reduce the time each instructor can interact with each student. 5. Additional equipment and portable drafting-design tables: Every year, as student projects become more complex and sophisticated, additional equipment needs become apparent both in the Design Model Shop and in class-studio rooms. Digital means to develop projects has increased the need to continually upgrade or replace older and slower methodologies to create and build projects. Flexible and moveable equipment that easily adapts to a variety of seating arrangements is also vital to better interactive opportunities.