Mary Petersen
IIRC Project Final Report Spring 2005

Research Question

From this classroom project, I wanted to discover if posting Student Learning Objectives would assist students in achieving both daily learning objectives and the overarching goals of the course.

Summary or research project

The objective of this project was to facilitate student achievement of the course goals and objectives.
This project was implemented in two sections of English 91, approximately 45 students, during the spring semester, 2005. It began at week six of the semester and continued for the remaining twelve weeks. At week six, I began posting 1-2 learning objectives for each class session on the front white board. I used the course goals and objectives indicated on the current course outline as the basis for each posted learning objective. I reviewed these aloud with the class each day, and they remained posted for the entire class session. I referred back to the SLO’s when appropriate during class.
In evaluating the results of the project, 3 criteria were used: an online student survey, the  English 91 final portfolio, and the final exam. The following are the results of each assessment.

Survey

At the end of the semester, a total of 34 students completed the survey. Each student was given 15 points extra credit to complete the online survey which was posted on the class Blackboard site. I stressed that sincere, honest answers would provide the most accurate data for the study and that extra credit would not be dependent upon providing an answer that students thought I wanted to hear.

The survey questions and results for combined class responses rounded to one decimal point are as follows:
1.    Posting the student learning objectives each class session helped me to understand each daily learning objective.
2.    Posting the student learning objectives each class session helped me to accomplish each daily learning objective.
3.    Posting each daily objective helped me to make connections to previous daily learning objectives.
4.    Posting the daily student learning objectives helped me to achieve the long-term goals of the class.
5.    I referred to these posted objectives each class session generally how many times.
6.    I would like the instructors in all my classes to post daily student learning objectives.

Question	Strongly Agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
1	44.1%	55.9%
2	38.5%	55.9%	5.5%
3	18%	64.9%	17.5%
4	23.3%	68%	8.7%
5	(3X) 14.2%	(2X) 50.4%	(1X) 29.6%	(zero) 6%
6	44.1%	53.2%	2.8%

 

Final Portfolio
The final portfolio assessed student performance on two Student Learning Objectives. 47 students submitted final portfolios.

SLO #1 Students will be able to compose thoughtful, well-organized short essays, using outside sources to develop a unified thesis.
SLO #2 Students will be able to edit writing to make it coherent, grammatically correct, and properly cited (using MLA style).

The results of the final portfolio For English 91are as follows:

	High Pass	Pass	Low pass	No Credit
SLO #1	6	23	8	5
SLO #2	5	36	6	0

Final Exam
Literary analysis of The Tortilla Curtain
A total of 43 students took the final exam. The results are as follows:

Final Exam Scores	A	B	C	D
# of each score	18	13	8	4

Modifications
Due to attrition, the final number of students changed from 60 to about 45. One change I made to the online survey was to modify the survey questions to appear as statements rather than questions as suggested by Daylene Meuschke.  I also added the two student performance measures of student learning as suggested by the committee.

As I interpret these results, posting the student learning objectives is an effective strategy for increasing student learning and facilitating students to achieve the daily objectives and overarching goals of the class. Students overwhelmingly responded that posting student learning objectives is a valuable learning tool that they would like their teachers to use. The Final Portfolio and Final Exam results suggest that posting SLO’s leads to successful completion of course objectives. A modification I might make in future lesson plans is to connect more clearly each daily student SLO to previous ones, as the responses for that question suggestion that 18% of students didn’t see a clear connection. Future students will benefit from this teaching strategy since the research suggests that it will facilitate their learning.