Experience in Mapping Grinnell's Experience to CS 2013

Some goals for using CS 2013

• Reinforce areas of strength
• Identify areas of solid coverage
• Uncover possible areas of light coverage
• Consider how elements of Grinnell's curriculum relate to emerging areas within the field

Some observations/experiences

• CS 2013 presents two types of descriptions

  • Hours of Knowledge Units
    • Consistent with CC 2001 and with descriptions of CS 2013 exemplars
    • About 171 cells per course
  • Learning Outcomes
    • Consistent with current discussions regarding assessment
    • About 1052 cells per course
  • Wording, terminology, emphases different in two descriptions
  • Mapping of 2013 exemplars (with hours) not straightforward to outcomes
  • Using outcomes rather than hours expands spreadsheet by a factor of more than 6

• Some outcome statements open to interpretation

  • Some statements same in multiple places — is something different meant?
  • Some statements difficult to understand or unclear to determine level of depth
  • Some statements seem peculiar — particularly in context of liberal arts

• Scope of handling outcomes intimidating

  • Grinnell's 18 mapped courses required review of 18,936 cells
  • Questions arise regarding how many Tier 1 and how many Tier 2 outcomes handled somewhere — this required adding formulae to another 1185 cells

• Mechanics sometimes awkward

  • Outcomes identify levels of learning: Familiarity, Usage, Assessment
    • When any entry inserted for outcome, color changes indicating outcome met
    • Hard to track progression of learning: Familiarity in this course, Usage in next course, etc.

  • Hard to track curricular themes outside of courses

    • In areas of Social Issues and Professional Practice, topics may be mentioned in many course, but not focused on one course
    • Topics covered in non-CS courses hard to track

created 31 July 2013 last revised 1 August 2013

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