Faculty Resources

Colorado Mountain College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) , which was reaffirmed in 2024 through a 10-year comprehensive evaluation.

Many of our programs, such as the nursing, vet tech, and EMT programs, have program-specific accreditation , shown on our public-facing webpage. These are managed by each program and reviewed by Academic Council, College Council, and other shared governance bodies of the college such as Faculty Senate and Curriculum Committee.

our Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO) who oversees our communication, requests, and accreditation policies and requirements with HLC is Karla Hardesty. For questions or comments about our upcoming Comprehensive Evaluation or anything related to accreditation, please contact:

Karla Hardesty, Dean of Academic Support and CMC ALO
Phone: 719-530-7908 / Email: kjhardesty@coloradomtn.edu

We must adhere to HLC's five criteria, shown below, to be accredited. The Comprehensive Evaluation for Reaffirmation of Accreditation by HLC determines if we are compliant with these criteria.

1. Mission
   • The institution's mission is clear and articulated publicly; it guides the institution's operations.
2. Integrity
   • The institution acts with integrity; its conduct is ethical and responsible.
3. Teaching and Learning: Quality, Resources, and Support
   • The institution provides high quality education, wherever and however its offerings are delivered.
4. Teaching and Learning: Evaluation and Improvement
   • The institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning environments and support services, and it evaluates their effectiveness for student learning through processes designed to promote continuous improvement.
5. Institutional Effectiveness, Resources, and Planning
   • The instituion's resources, structures, and processes are sufficient to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its educational offerings, and respond to future challenges and opportunities.

The Standard Pathway is a 10-year cycle.

• Years 1-3: Prepare Assurance Filing
  • Institution: May contribute documents to Evidence File and begin writing Assurance Argument for Year 4 comprehensive evaluation.
• Year 4: Comprehensive Evaluation
  • Institution: Submit comprehensive evaluation materials.
  • Peer Review: Conduct comprehensive evaluation (with visit).
  • HLC Decision Making: Take action on comprehensive evaluation.
• Years 5-9: Prepare Assurance Filing
  • Institution: May contribute documents to Evidence File and being writing Assurance Argument for Year 10 comprehensive evaluation.
• Year 10: Comprehensive Evaluation for Reaffirmation
  • Institution: Submit comprehensive evaluation materials.
  • Peer Review: Conduct comprehensive evaluation (with visit).
  • HLC Decision Making: Take action on comprehensive evaluation and Reaffirmation of Accreditation.

The comprehensive evaluation includes the following components:

• Assurance review
• Federal compliance review
• Student opinion survey
• On-site peer review visit
• Additional components if required (e.g., multi-campus, embedded change, etc.)

CMC Virtual Library collections include over 80 databases. The library's search engine, called EBSCO Discovery, allows users to search most of these collections at once, streamlining access and providing personal space for saving materials.

Use the Library Reading List external tool in Canvas to build easily accessible lists of library resources and satisfy copyright requirements. Alternatively, you can use the Permalink URL listed in EBSCO Discovery.

Library videos and books are frequently used to supplement course curricula. They are available to students for free and are easily accessible. If you are looking for a book or a video to add to your course, please don't hesitate to contact the CMC librarians at cmclibraries@coloradomtn.edu. We are always happy to look for it in our collections, explore purchasing options, and provide the best URL to share with your students.

• Streaming Videos
  CMC offers several large streaming video databases. Films on Demand, Kanopy, Docuseek2, Symptom Media, and Hoopla are some of our most popular video databases.
• eBooks and eAudiobooks
  The virtual library offers an extensive collection of academic and popular ebooks. When available, audiobooks could be recommended to students to support diverse learning styles.

Instructor Presence - Welcome to the Course!

Write a personal welcome letter to students to introduce yourself as the faculty for this course and set the tone. Include a little personal information, background, and previous experiences teaching this course to help . form a connection. Adding a picture or short video helps to put a face with the course prior to the start date, or if this is a hybrid/online course.

Consider how you will build that personal contact and communication with your students. The tone and examples you put into your course is how they will engage with the faculty and the rest of the class.

• Frequent and timely student-faculty contact is an important factor in student motivation and involvement.
• Instructors establish a welcoming, safe, and productive environment.
• Tone, expectations, and engagement frequency are set early in the course and replicated in several areas, such as the Welcome, syllabus, course outcomes, discussion board, email, and other areas.
• Clarify any technology requirements, or link to tutorials and other tech support.
• Evidence of faculty interest and concern helps students get through challenging situations, inspires them to persevere, enhances intellectual commitment, and prompts them to think about their own values, experiences, and future plans.
• Connecting with students leads to higher student satisfaction, motivation, and retention.
• Create an inclusive environment initially by asking for their preferred name and gender. Use diverse content, learning activities, assignments, discussions, and assessments for an inclusive learning experience.

A Sample Welcome

Dr. Louisa Hernandez - Education Adjunct Faculty

Office: 970-555-1234 email: lahernandez@coloradomtn.edu

I want to welcome you to this course and hope that you will gain knowledge in educational pedagogy, curriculum selection, and teaching practices that will make your lessons pop! We will be exploring and creating lessons that are appropriate for a variety of elementary grade levels to meet students' different learning abilities and assist in challenging them to reach set goals to stay on track, go beyond, or reach their personal best. Students are encouraged to bring their own unique perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the course.

In this course, students will also be exploring educational technologies and resources that are commonly used in the classroom and the region. Students will be expected to gain knowledge and skills in using these technologies according to the grade level and subjects being taught. This course will require a consistent and stable internet connection and it is recommended to have a computer or tablet for this class rather than a small mobile device or smartphone due to the activities that students will be participating in.

I personally have been teaching in the Education program for the last 3 years, working with future elementary teachers across the Roaring Fork Valley and beyond. I was an elementary teacher in Colorado for 12 years, teaching 3rd and 5th grades, and then was an assistant principal for five years before joining CMC. I currently work for the school district full-time and teach 2 courses for CMC each semester.

In my spare time, I enjoy biking, working in my garden, and rafting with my family and 2 dogs.

Faculty establishes culture through communication, feedback, and performance standards in their course. These guide students to ways to ask questions, communicate with each other, and gain feedback from the instructor. Providing 2-3 methods of communication that are consistently used throughout the semester is the best practice, no matter the modality or software used.

Examples:

• Inbox in Canvas
• Faculty Email
• Announcements
• Discussion Board
• Grading Comments & Feedback
• Office Hours via Webex or Zoom
• Google Chat
• WhatsApp

When engaging and interacting with students in the course, faculty don't need to respond immediately. Rather let students know up front what your plans are with scheduled times and dates for communication and feedback to help students establish a consistent interaction with you and each other.

Examples:

For Student: Twice a week post to the discussion board, Tuesdays and Thursdays, due at 5 pm mountain time (reoccurring deadlines and times for student interaction)

For Faculty: General response time to student questions is within 24 hrs during the school week, but weekends may be more flexible if stated to students in the syllabus or course information.

Grading: Grading with feedback is generally completed within 2-7 days of submission to the course via SpeedGrader in "Grades" or "Assignments". This may vary depending on the type of assessment that is offered but is a good practice for weekly assignments and participation.

First Week Checklist for Students

1. Access your Canvas course(s) on or before the start date.
2. Read the syllabus and course information.
3. Review the course layout and components you will be using.
4. Make sure your Canvas email is set to the one you will check regularly. Learn how to set a default email.
5. Communicate with your instructor and fellow students.
6. Complete all required assignments.
7. Ask questions on anything you are not comfortable with or don't understand.

Remote Real-Time Framework & Teaching Tools

Remote Real-Time allows students and faculty to be online live from anywhere. However, a significant challenge is attention. Studies indicate that many students struggle with paying attention to content for more than 10 minutes in an online forum, such as Zoom or WebEx. One key strategy is to involve the students throughout the live class sessions with experiential learning.

An experiential learning approach* to live class sessions engages students in active learning with key characteristics:

• Immersive experience with content
• Active involvement of students
• Inclusive of students' existing knowledge and/or experience
• Proactive in the use of practice/experimentation for skill building & problem solving
• Reflective time for metacognition to deepen learning & consider real-world application
• Practical tools and examples

The experiential learning approach includes structured content, active experimentation, reflection, and pragmatic application within the live class session.

Ideas for active learning:

This approach segments content and activities in such a way that students are learning and engaging throughout the session. For example, one class session agenda might look like this:

To plan your class session, use this Synchronous Class Session Planning Template.

*This experiential learning framework and template are based on adult learning theory resources

• Introduction to Kolb's Experiential Learning Model
• Using the Workshop Model for Student Engagement
• Higher Learning Commision webinar Facilitating Synchronous Sessions by Beth Cohen and Clea Mahoney

A team of instructional Designers has been created to provide educational support, enhancing andragogy in the classroom and delivering consistent course design across programs.

Team Members

• Amy Connerton
• Melissa Dowd
• Monia Haselhorst
• Karen Kaemmerling
• Katrina Marzetta
• Liz Qualman
• Tracy White
• Traci Wodlinger

What is a Blueprint Course?

A blueprint course is a special type of course in Canvas that serves as a template for other courses/sections. The content and settings in the blueprint course can then be pushed out to courses that are associated with the blueprint at any time to establish a level of consistency. Blueprint courses are commonly used for courses at CMC that have multiple sections each semester where outcomes and essential content should be consistent in every Canvas course.

• Blueprint courses have the ability to lock specific content to make sure it is included in all associated courses, but still, allow faculty to add additional or modify existing non-locked content to make the associated course/section their own.
• If updates are needed during the semester or prior to the start of a semester, they can be made in the Blueprint course and then pushed out to all associated courses as needed.
• Blueprint courses can assist new faculty by providing a "ready-to-go" course that only needs minor adjustments to be successful.

• Any existing course can be associated with a Blueprint course by a Canvas administrator.

  

How to Make a Blueprint Course

Any existing course can become a Blueprint course, but it must be enabled as a Blueprint by a Canvas administrator for the functionality to be available. This allows faculty the ability to work on the design prior to it becoming a Blueprint or after it has been enabled.

Blueprint Options:

• Add content and assessments that will be included in associated courses/sections.
• Set due dates, availability, and deadlines.
• Standardize course navigation.
• Standardize course tools, 3rd party resources, or vendor items (ex. eTextbooks, Canvas apps (LTI), non-CMC tools).
• Lock items within the course.
  • General Locked Objects: Applies the same locking settings to all tools in course.
  • Locked Objects by Type: Allows separate locking settings for assignments, discussions, pages, files, and quizzes.
  • Locked Individual Objects: Restrict any changes to individual items within a course.
• Associate blueprint with any course.

• Remove the blueprint association with any course.

  

Designing a Blueprint Course

Plan, Plan, Plan

Blueprint courses are well-named, because--like a house or anything designed with a blueprint--planning is critical, as is communication. Blueprint courses wield a bit of extra power in their ability to "push" content and information out to other associated courses/sections. To reduce issues with many courses proper planning or communication is essential with the development team, whether it be a faculty and their ADI/dean or a group of peers working together to develop a course for their program. Therefore, everyone involved in the process should be involved, give timely updates, consider what is essential for the course, consider the needs of future faculty, design for flexibility, and most of all the students.

This is a great addition to Canvas, as it ensures course, program and CMC outcomes get embedded in all associated courses so that the individual faculty do not have to worry about adding them in on their own. Future faculty have a well-designed course with all the key information already in place and students will have a cohesive and consistent environment to learn. With all this design work, the planning and organization of the course is perhaps the most important part of the Blueprint design process.

Items to Consider:

• Course navigation (less is more)
• Content organization (modules and consistent requirement/activities)
• Detailed descriptions and guidance for students/faculty
• Course outcomes
• Timeline & due dates
• Common content
• Common assessments
• Common resources
• Built-in interaction and engagement
• Consistent feedback and response time
• What is locked and what is flexible

Locking Content for Consistency

When the team has the course design and content completed the next step is to decide what is to be locked and what can be editable by other faculty when their course is associated with the Blueprint. Some objects, such as the syllabus, faculty information, and announcements should be unlocked to allow for personal or timely information to be added, while key content, outcomes, and common assessments may be locked, so the experience is the same for every student.

Locked Objects

Locking an object in a course enforces the attributes defined in Course Settings. Any change to an attribute retroactively applies to all locked objects in the associated course. If an attribute is enabled for locked objects in the blueprint course, any locked attributes in the associated course that vary from locked attributes in the blueprint course will trigger unsynced changes in the blueprint course and override the associated course objects.

Unlocked Objects

Objects that are unlocked can be managed by a course instructor like any other Canvas object. If the blueprint course is synced and the instructor has modified unlocked objects in the associated course, unlocked objects are not overwritten with the synced changes.

Unlocked blueprint objects can be locked at any time. If you lock an unpublished object, and that object was previously removed from an associated course, the object will be replaced in the associated course.

Synching Courses

One of the best things about Blueprint courses is common navigation, content, assessments, and settings can be pushed (copied) to any associated course any time by synching the Blueprint course. This is great for setting up courses quickly and correcting errors but should also be done sparingly and communicated to all faculty prior to the synch. Generally, courses will be synched at the beginning of the semester and then as needed throughout the semester if there are any major errors that would affect the function or quality of the course. Synching repeatedly could cause confusion and challenges with the flow of the course and awareness of adjustments by both faculty and students.

Administration of Blueprint Courses

At this time, the request for approval to develop a Blueprint course must be submitted to CMC and only then can change from a regular course to a Blueprint be performed by a CMC Canvas admin. This can not be done by faculty in Canvas, as this is an action that must be approved by the school and the program for any course to become a Blueprint.

All Blueprint courses will be associated with the appropriate courses and later synch by a Canvas administrator through approval by the CMC school or program representative.

Instructor Notes/Instructor Guide for MCB Courses

Can students who take separate sections of the same course expect similar experiences, including the amount of time and effort they are required to engage? To meet this goal, faculty at CMC can develop a course that can be a "blueprint" in Canvas for multiple faculty to teach. In this way, faculty have some common structure, materials, assignments, and/or assessments and reach the learning outcomes with some consistency.

• Course Instructor's Guide
  Faculty designing a "blueprint" course for multiple faculty, it is essential to include an Instructor's Guide that offers guidance for instructors. This guide can include a wide variety of information: reasons for instructional decisions, justifications for the resources used, guidance on grading, suggestions for instructor time management, etc. This guide is a starting point for developing the Instructor's Guide.

• What is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
• What are a public or private college/university's responsibilities to students with disabilities?

What does this mean for you as a faculty member at a public college?

Generally, it means that you must provide basic accessible access to all aspects of your course. You may wonder if you only have to provide accommodations if there is a student known to be disabled in your class, and the answer is that for some types of accommodations, yes that would be the case. However, to broadly address the issue of accessibility to content in such a way that avoids singling out students, institutions have adopted the requirements for access to online content that must be provided to all students as part of the basic course design and to meet ADA requirements.

Although following ADA requirements may seem like extra work, it is essential and is considered best practice for quality course design more generally. All students benefit from a principle known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Below are examples of effective ADA design benefits that positively affect other students.

• Students who are second language learners may also benefit from the available closed captions.
• Mild hearing loss is very common among the general population, meaning that students with any hearing loss may also benefit from the available closed captions.
• Students who would qualify for disability services may not have been formally identified.
• Students who have disabilities that affect their learning may not ask for the help they need and deserve.

Keep in mind that following ADA requirements is the law. There are potentially serious repercussions for both individual faculty members and institutions who do not make efforts to comply.

The seven (7) elements below must be met for any online content provided to students.

• Layout/Organization
• Headings
• Images
• Links/URLs
• Color
• Tables
• Video Captioning CC/Transcripts

ADA requirements also apply to in-person learning, but with additional requirements. Two examples of ways the seven online elements might be used in face-to-face learning are given below.

• If you are showing a movie in class, provide access to closed captioning.
• If you are using PowerPoint slides, you must test for color contrast and make sure alternative descriptions of images are available.

In addition, the physical space of in-person learning must be accommodating.

• Summary of ADA Requirements

Additional accommodations may also be provided for individual students depending on their specific needs.

• Auxiliary Aids and Services for Postsecondary Students with Disabilities

• Quality course design utilizes the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and commits to accessibility, ensuring all learners can access all course content and activities and all learners can easily navigate and interact with course components (Overview of QM Standard 8).
• The course should provide alternative means of access to course materials in formats that meet the needs of diverse learners.
• The course design and the multimedia should facilitate ease of use, maximizing usability (QM standards 8.3, 8.4, 8.5).
• The course design should facilitate readability. (QM standard 8.2) The course navigation should facilitate ease of use (QM standard 8.1).

Universal Design is a philosophy for developing systems that go beyond accessibility and accommodation to creatively design user experiences that work for all. In an educational setting, one resource, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), is a research-based framework for designing for all students.

Learner Engagement: Affective - The "why" of learning
Learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn.

Content Representation: Recognition - The "what" of learning.
Learners differ in the ways that they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them.

Action & Expression: Strategic - The "how" of learning
Learners differ in the ways that they can navigate a learning environment and express what they know.

The 5 Rs

by David Wiley

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."

by William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Review Project

This review provides a summary of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption.

OER Textbooks

• OpenStax
• Open Textbook Library
• B.C. Open Textbook Collection
• OER by subject

OER Starter Kit

Written by Abby Elkder

This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit , is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education.

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

HIPs Guide developed by Pikes Peak State College

High Impact Practices (HIPs) focus on equity of access and outcomes, especially for students historically underrepresented in college success measures. High Impact Practices (HIPs) include teaching approaches like Service Learning, Collaborative Projects, Undergraduate Research, Internships, Diversity Global Learning, among others. The essential premise is that the more a student is engaged in learning, the more they will persist and complete. George Kuh drew attention to High Impact Practices in his seminal research in 2008. Since then, institutions of higher learning have implemented HIPs and report higher student engagement, deeper student learning, and increased retention in college. A recent national study concludes that community-based projects have the most impact on students of color in the community college.

HIPs have eight components in common: challenging goals are achieved, time spent on task, substantive conversations with faculty and peers, experiences with diversity, regular and constructive feedback, opportunities for reflective and integrative thinking, real world applications of learning, and public demonstrations of competence. For example, through a Service Learning project students work harder than what they thought they were capable of and achieve something of significance outside the classroom; the students report developing closer relationships with peers and faculty and learning from diverse people and circumstances. To deepen learning, students engage in metacognitive reflection about themselves both as students and as citizens, as well as report out on such discoveries in applicable mediums (e.g., writing a feature article in the campus newspaper).

• HIPs Assignment Template
• HIPs Assignments
• Service-Learning Student Planning Sheet
• Service-Learning Assignment
• Service-Learning Flyer

Centering Racially Minoritized Student Voices in High-Impact Practices

• Transparent Instruction: What, Why, and How?

• TILTed Assignment for ePortfolio

• Article: Faculty attitudes and behaviors: The integration of career readiness into the curriculum. AAC&U
• Article: Students needing career advice turn to faculty. Inside Higher Ed

Assessment = Improving Student Learning

Are our students learning what we say they are learning? Through assessment, we know and our students know. Assessment as a practice allows us to continually improve and adapt assessment methods to be more inclusive and representative of student knowledge regardless of students' experiences, knowledge, or skills. Assessment allows us to celebrate our students as unique learners and share successes!

Throughout the cycle of assessment in our curricular and co-curricular spaces, student success should be at the center and surrounded by equity. Your CMC Academic Support Team is here to help you in this work.

Steps in the Cycle of Assessment

1. SLOs: Starting with well-developed, concise Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs), we can ensure we have measurable outcomes for learning (be it a course, a program, a co-curricular activity, etc.). Sharing SLOs up front with students helps them understand relevancy and expectations for their learning. CMC SLOs come from the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) Common Course Numbering System (CCNS) catalog. We also use Bloom's Taxonomy to develop SLOs.
2. Instruction: Implementing instruction guided by the outcomes alongside students with formative assessments can help us pivot our teaching if needed to ensure students are developing learning mastery.
3. Assessment method: Providing a variety of assessment methods and assessment options to students for an outcome embeds equity and inclusivity in the course. Formative and summative direct assessments as well as indirect assessments measure our learning outcomes.
4. Analysis: We can know, with evidence, if our students are learning what we expect them to learn by analyzing results of learning mastery, such as rubric scores of assessment artifacts.
5. Reflection and reporting: Colorado Mountain College's assessment reporting process includes reflection of the above-described steps in the cycle and consideration of improvements that need to be made, based on the analysis of learning outcomes. Improvement: Although the practice of assessment with this cycle is ongoing, the final step is implementing improvements and re-assessing to know if students are grasping learning outcomes ("closing the loop").
6. Improvement: Although the practice of assessment with this cycle is ongoing, the final step is implementing improvements and re-assessing to know if students are grasping learning outcomes ("closing the loop").

How does our assessment work?

The practice of assessment is woven throughout curricular and co-curricular programming. This page describes the innerworkings from the course level to programs to college-wide outcomes. Your CMC Academic Support Team is here to help you in this work.

Course Assessment:

At the course level, Course Student Learning Outcomes (CLSOs) and Colorado Department of Higher Education's GT Competencies (or “Guaranteed Transfer” general education competencies) are assessed. Colorado Mountain College references the Colorado Community College System's Common Course Numbering System for courses, including course student learning outcomes (CSLOs).

Most CMC courses are part of a larger program or collection of required courses, such as a degree or certificate program, general education course requirements, and CEPA ("Concurrent Enrollment Program at CMC") course offerings. The CSLOs map to Program Learning Outcomes (or PSLOs) or GT Competencies

In Canvas, GT Competencies, PSLOs, and ISLOs can be assessed at the course level using the "Outcomes" tools. Please review the tutorial videos in Learning Hub to learn the functionality of this feature that can embed assessment of SLOs in your courses and learning activities.

Program Assessment:

At the program level, Program Learning Outcomes (or PSLOs) exist for programs that lead to a credential, such as an associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or a certificate program. Program directors and faculty are to assess, on a rotating basis, three to five PSLOs each year (unless there are other PSLO assessment requirements by program-specific accreditors, such as nursing). PSLO assessment can be informed through CSLO assessment. PSLOs map to and support ISLOs.

Programs, with involvement of all program faculty, are to submit an annual assessment report to SLAC (CMC's Student Learning Assessment Committee) by mid-October. These assessment reports are reviewed by SLAC and included in each program's 5-year Program Review. Over the course of five years, a program should have assessed all PSLOs at least once and closed the loop by re-assessing improvements. (Student learning assessment is just one of several elements of Program Review. Academic Council oversees the 5-year review process.)

Institutional Assessment:

At the institution level, ISLOs (Institutional Student Learning Outcomes) support Colorado Mountain College's mission and are the learning outcomes we expect students who graduate from CMC to be able to know and do. The PSLOs, co-curricular learning outcomes, and GT Competencies map to the ISLOs. We can assess the ISLOs through these programs and outcomes as well as through the High Impact Practice of student ePortfolios, which are being implemented through a pilot in Fall 2022. Canvas Outcomes reports at the course, program, and college level can provide assessment data of learning mastery. In addition to direct assessment, ISLOs can be assessed through indirect assessments such as student college outcomes (retention and graduation rates and job placement), demographic data, student engagement surveys, alumni surveys, and more.

During 2022, CMC's new ISLO Taskforce with cross-college representation is embarking on reviewing and updating the Institutional Student Learning Outcomes to best support the mission, students, and communities of CMC as well as align with CMC's designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution. Please check CMC's Basecamp for announcements, invitations, and updates.

Colorado Mountain College has adopted a new, more reflective structure for assessment reporting. Our goal is that all faculty practice assessment and focus on "improvement of student learning." To ensure that faculty are well supported and that programs are conducting assessment, we ask these four primary questions in our reporting processes. (A variety of collection tools and platforms are used. For example, some reports are submitted online through MS Forms or Qualtrics.)

The Four Assessment Questions:

1. What information/evidence/data did you gather to inform you about student learning for the outcomes you planned to assess?
2. What did you discover? What were your conclusions?
3. What do you plan to do the same and differently based on your discoveries about your students and their learning?
4. What support or resources do you need to make your plans happen?

Learning, and dare I say assessment, can and should be FUN! Active learning can happen through properly designed assessment methods. Active learning strategies are described in the "Champions of Reimagined Assessment", which is a series of brief videos describing alternative assessments. I encourage you to watch some of these to gain ideas for inclusive and equitable assessments that give students belonging and relevancy to their learning. Here are some examples of formative direct assessments that could be used in place of traditional assessments such as mid-semester exams:

Sources: Talking About Teaching: The Future of Grading and Assessment (The Chronicle, 2022), Concept Mapping as an Assessment (2020), Champions of Reimagined Assessment (2022)

Consider assessment methods that not only let you as the professor know your students learned the outcome(s) but are inclusive for students who may not have previous knowledge or understanding. Constructing alternative assessments can take extra time and creativity, but the benefit to students and your own professional growth as an educator can be remarkable.

Student-Centered Assessment

The journal article "Equity and Assessment: Moving Towards Culturally Responsive Assessment" by Erick Montenegro and Natasha A. Jankowski (January 2017) provides evidence-based research about equity and assessment.

Here are some recommended assessment strategies for equity and inclusivity of students:

• Spend the initial class getting students excited; focus very little on grades.
• List all assignments for the course up front.
• Provide explicit instructions of assessment, especially for group learning/projects.
• Create detailed rubrics.
• Conduct bias reviews of tests and other assessments.
• Minimize disposable assessments, such as written exams.
• Allow multiple attempts if needed for learning.
• Allow lowest score dropping from grade.
• Use a variety of assessments throughout the course.
• Consider open notes/open book exams.
• And...use a growth mindset! (What CAN be done?, our strengths vs. deficit, not doing, can't be done, etc.)

Concluding Focal Point:

Has the student truly learned? How can I as the instructor ensure my students learn the intended outcome(s)?

Transparency in Learning and Teaching

• CDHE GT Competencies Rubrics January 2022
• Course SLO Mapping Template

Centering equity and inclusion in course design, the selection of course materials, assessment, and course delivery is crucial in ensuring that we are honoring our mission of being student-centered; it is also good pedagogy. Establishing a welcoming and diverse learning environment is key to student engagement and retention and we can do this from day one with diversity statements in our syllabus.

• CCCS Equity University, Dr. Pedro Noguera
• Culturally Responsive Teaching

Worksheets

• DEI Worksheet Self Audit

• 6 Quick Ways to Be More Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom
• Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity?
• The Case for Inclusive Teaching
• How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive
• It's in the syllabus … or is it? How biology syllabi can serve as communication tools for creating inclusive classrooms at a large-enrollment research institution
• A Matter of (Teaching) Style: Active Learning and Student Identities
• Traditional Teaching May Deepen Inequality. Can a Different Approach Fix It?

• Inclusive Teaching by Kelly A. Hogan & Viji Sathy
  • ISBN: 9781952271649
  • Publication Date: 2022-08-01
  • Summary: Award-winning teachers offer practical tips for addressing inequities in the college classroom and for making all students feel welcome and included. In a book written by and for college teachers, Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy provide tips and advice on how to make all students feel welcome and included. They begin with a framework describing why explicit attention to structure enhances inclusiveness in both course design and interactions with and between students. Inclusive Teaching then provides practical ways to include more voices in a series of contexts: when giving instructions for group work and class activities, holding office hours, communicating with students, and more. The authors finish with an opportunity for the reader to reflect on what evidence to include in a teaching dossier that demonstrates inclusive practices. The work of two highly regarded specialists who have delivered over a hundred workshops on inclusive pedagogy and who contribute frequently to public conversations on the topic, Inclusive Teaching distills state-of-the-art guidance on addressing privilege and implicit bias in the college classroom. It seeks to provide a framework for individuals and communities to ask, Who is being left behind and what can teachers do to add more structure?
• Reframing Assessment to Center Equity by Gavin W. Henning (Contributor), Gianina R. Baker (Contributor), Natasha A. Jankowski (Contributor), Anne E. Lundquist (Contributor), & Erick Montenegro (Contributor)
  • ISBN: 9781642672565
  • Publication Date: 2022-04-12
  • Summary: This book makes the case for assessment of student learning as a vehicle for equity in higher education. The book proceeds through a framework of "why, what, how, and now what." The opening chapters present the case for infusing equity into assessment, arguing that assessment professionals can and should be activists in advancing equity, given the historic and systemic use of assessment as an impediment to the educational access and attainment of historically marginalized populations. The "what" chapters offer definitions of emerging terms, discuss the narratives of equity in evidence of student learning, present models and approaches to promoting equity, and explore the relationship between knowledge systems and assessment practice. The "how" chapters begin by progressively moving from the classroom to the program, then beyond the program level to share examples from student affairs. Subsequent chapters address the problem of equitable access to STEM fields; culturally responsive practices within the context of community colleges; the ongoing work of culturally situated assessment practices in Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and the role of technology-enabled assessment as a possible tool for equitable assessment. The final two chapters in the book address the "now what", providing a way for assessment professional to develop individual awareness within their practice as a next step in the equity journey, and a conceptual framework to anchor equity in their work.

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Further reading:

• Valencia, R. R. (Ed.). (1997). The evolution of deficit thinking: Educational though and practice. The Falmer Press/Taylor & Francis.
• Garcia, G. A., Núñez, A. M., & Sansone, V. A. (2019). Toward a multidimensional conceptual framework for understanding "servingness" in Hispanic-serving institutions: A synthesis of the research. Review of Educational Research, 89(5), 745-784.
• Vargas, N., & Villa-Palomino, J. (2019). Racing to serve or race-ing for money? Hispanic-serving institutions and the colorblind allocation of racialized federal funding. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 5(3), 401-415.

eBook: From equity talk to equity walk: Expanding practicioner knowledge for racial justice in higher education. 

Transforming deficit myths about learning, language, and culture.

"Siento que siempre tengo que regresar al inglés": Embracing a translanguaging stance in a Hispanic-serving institution. 

Transladoras sin fronteras: Merging linguistic borderlands to take up students' translanguaging corriente 

Literacy insights: A curated collection of academic articles

• Community cultural wealth co-constructed praxis guide
• Community cultural wealth guide
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• Burciaga, R., & Erbstein, N. (2012). Latina/o dropouts: Generating community cultural wealth. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 6(1).
  This article builds upon a community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005) to discuss how strategies for school presistence are articulated, cultivated, and employed through individual aspirations and practices.
• Espino, M. M. (2014). Exploring the role of community cultural wealth in graduate school access and persistence for Mexican American PhDs. American Journal of Education, 120(4), 545-574.
  This article focuses on the extent to which devalued forms of capital along with limited access to valued cultural capital facilitated the access and persistence of 33 Mexican American PhDs who earned their doctorates in a variety of disciplines at 15 universities across the United States.
• Liou, D. D., Antrop-González, R., & Cooper, R. (2009). Unveiling the promise of community cultural wealth to sustaining Latina/o students' college-going information networks. Educational Studies, 45(6), 534-555.
  The authors discuss how a model of community cultural wealth, which is comprised of different forms of cultural capital, can promote school improvement and the development of teacher-student information networks. The role of critical race theory in school-based power dynamics is commented on.
• Luna, N. A., & Martinez Ph D, M. (2013). A qualitative study using community cultural wealth to understand the educational experiences of Latino college students. Journal of Praxis in Multicultural Education, 7(1).
  This qualitative study provides rich narratives on how Latino students used community cultural wealth, including knowledge, skills, abilities and networks, to excel in educational settings and overcome obstacles.
• Pérez II, D. (2017). In pursuit of success: Latino male college students exercising academic determination and community cultural wealth. Journal of College Student Development, 58(2), 123-140.
  Discourse about Latino male college students centers on their low enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates. Two asset-based theoretical frameworks were used to understand how 21 Latino males' academic determination was nurtured and sustained by cultural wealth at selective institutions.
• Samuelson, C. C., & Litzler, E. (2016). Community cultural wealth: An assets-based approach to persistence of engineering students of color. Journal of Engineering Education, 105(1), 93-117.
  Background Community cultural wealth, or the types of cultural capital that students of color employ, has been used to understand the persistence of students of color in engineering. The assets-based theory of community cultural wealth helps identify the cultural resources that these students develop in their families and communities and bring to engineering.
• Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69-91.
  This article conceptualizes community cultural wealth as a critical race theory (CRT) challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural capital. CRT shifts the research lens away from a deficit view of Communities of Color as places full of cultural poverty disadvantages, and instead focuses on and learns from the array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that often go unrecognized and unacknowledged.
• Yosso, T. J., & Burciaga, R. (2016). Reclaiming our histories, recovering community cultural wealth. Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA Research Brief, 5.
  A research brief from the Center for Critical Race Studies at UCLA exploring and refining the CRT frameworks.