2020 Scholarship of Assessment Grant Recipients
2020 Recipients
Annette Teasdell-Africana Studies
Project Title: The Efficacy of Assessment Strategies in LBST 2212 African American Literature and Culture
Project Description: The faculty member examined the assessment instruments utilized in LBST 2212 to
determine if they contributed to positive student outcomes for diverse learners in a 100% asynchronous
online environment. Data analysis from four sections of the course taught over four years revealed that
underrepresented minority students (African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander)
performed better than non-URM students (White and Asian), transfer students performed better than
new freshmen, and females performed better males.
Sharon Watson – Anthropology
Project Title: Introduction to Applied Anthropology: Social Justice, Action and Chang
Project Description: Designed a new core course to expose students to the application of anthropology
to “real world” issues, as well as to explicitly demonstrate to students the myriad of career opportunities
for anthropologists beyond academia. New course and module objectives were developed and course
assessments were revised and aligned with activities and objectives.
Tonya Bates and Samantha Furr-Rogers – Biological Sciences
Project Title: Development of Skills-Based Learning Objectives in BIOL 1110: A Multipurpose Course
Project Description: Faculty created the new course level and module level learning objectives and
ensured that activities, assignments, and assessments were mapped to the new learning objectives.
During the course of their work, faculty discovered that students were required to read and interpret
data in the form of tables and graphs as course activities but these skills were not reflected in the course
or module level learning objective and that gaps in course content existed. These were also addressed
as part of course redesign.
Sonyia Richardson and Amy Peters – School of Social Work
Project Title: Investigating Student Outcomes for Part of Term Courses
Project Description: Faculty examined student outcome differences in online, part-term courses, short
condensed, 7.5 week courses, face-to-face, online courses, and face-to-face, full-term courses. SOWK
1101, SOWK 2182, and SOWK 2183 were selected because these were courses that delay the start time
in upper-division courses and/or on-time graduation. In SOWK 1101, when the course was offered in all
three formats, there were no statistically significant differences across section types for student paper
assignment scores or quizzes. Results for SOWK 2182 and SOWK 2183 indicated statistically significant
differences for paper assignments and quiz scores for the varied course sections types.
Angela Mitchell and Jan Rieman – Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies
Project Title: WRDS and FYW Alignment: Finding Common Ground
Project Description: Faculty wanted to accomplish the following: 1) re-write First Year Writing student
learning outcome, 2) create a shared portfolio assignment for faculty volunteers to pilot in Fall 2020,
and 3) develop a scoring rubric for program assessment. Student-friendly student learning outcomes
were written and aligned with assignments, developed a plan on creating faculty buy-in for a common
artifact, and changed the rubric grading scale.
Ellen Wisner – Biological Sciences
Project Title: : Increasing course structure and alignment in BIOL 2120
Project Description: The goal of this project was to address the alignment of five of teaching modules in
Biology 2120. Existing in-class activities and summative assessments were aligned with the learning
objectives. In addition, new practice quizzes and exam questions were designed such that they focused
on helping students make connections between class content and their own life and career goals.