General Studies Writing

In addition to GSW’s ongoing assessment projects, in 2009‐2010, the program was
involved in the following:

• One major assessment‐related project involved sponsoring Dr. Kathleen Blake Yancey—nationally known for her work with print and electronic writing portfolios— to conduct a workshop with GSW’s teaching staff. Since Dr. Yancey was slated to be on campus as the featured presenter at BGSU’s Teaching and Learning Fair in February 2010, General Studies Writing took the opportunity to invite her to meet with GSW’s teaching staff the day before the Fair for the purpose of providing input regarding GSW’s portfolio assessment model. Specifically, we wanted Dr. Yancey to review our model and provide advice about whether the program should attempt to move from a print‐based assessment model to an electronic model. Dr. Yancey reviewed our materials and made a presentation in which she addressed the benefits and disadvantages of online portfolio assessment, as well as the differences between evaluating print‐based materials and online materials. After examining our materials and our model, Dr. Yancey strongly recommended that we continue to use the print-based model. General Studies Writing considers Dr. Yancey’s visit to be extremely significant, since the majority of our program’s assessment measures
  and tools are related directly to the large‐scale portfolio assessment we conduct at the end of each term.
• In the spring of 2010 the GSW director was approached by two staff members from Jerome Library who wanted to collaborate on an assessment project to measure the effects our recent collaborative efforts to help students locate and document library sources. Although the library staff members did not receive HSRB approval in time to execute this project in the spring, the plan is to return to the assessment project in the coming year.
• The learning outcome which General Studies Writing stressed and assessed most heavily during 2009‐2010 was Rhetorical Knowledge, in particular students’ ability to understand the importance of “audience” in their writing.