As an institution of higher education, MCTC recognizes its primary purpose as helping students learn.  An important goal of the MCTC Strategic Plan 2005-2010 is the ability to demonstrate student learning in all programs and the general education curriculum. In order to achieve this goal, the college has implemented an intentional and multifaceted assessment initiative.

This plan has a two-pronged approach that focuses on both program and general education student learning outcomes.

To ensure that continuous improvement of student learning is at the center of the college’s efforts, MCTC has implemented structural reorganizations to place responsibility for the assessment across many institutional levels.  Processes have been put into place not only to promote improved student learning but to require that results are gathered and actions are taken to respond to those results.

Since 2002-03, Assessment Coordinators have submitted reports, plans, results and recommendations for the improvement of assessment efforts. Beginning in 2004-05, MCTC has required all programs and departments to collect evidence on student mastery of skills specific to each area.  Every year each program/department plans an assessment activity, collects evidence and thereafter plans improvements based on the evidence gathered.  Deans evaluate these assessment efforts in the annual Academic Program Review.  The evaluations suggest that programs and departments have steadily advanced their assessment efforts, with faculty listing many improvements being made as a result of these efforts.

To view the annual reports, please visit MCTC Assessment Results and Improvements.

In 2002-03, MCTC began collecting evidence on student mastery of the college’s four General Education Competencies (Communication, Critical Thinking, Social Responsibility and Personal Responsibility/Life Skills).  For four years, the college focused on Communication - implementing assessments on Writing, Reading, Speaking and Information Literacy.  The evidence collected showed that, for three of the four sub-competencies, the college met its target of having 70% of students performing at a satisfactory level or higher. 

In 2006-07, the college began collecting evidence on Critical Thinking.  Again the target was met, with 70% of the students assessed in critical thinking tasks  performing at college-level or above.  In 2007-08, 61% of the students performed at college-level or above.  In that year, a group of sophomore-level students also took the nationally-normed critical thinking test Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) with MCTC’s mean score (62.3) higher than the national average score of students taking this test (60.9). In 2009-10, focus will shift to assessing Social Responsibility.

The goal of the college-wide assessment initiative has been to foster not only awareness and shared understandings of the General Education Competencies, but also to promote their intentional instruction and assessment in courses across the curriculum.  To that end, college-wide rubrics for four communication skills have been developed, and instructors have shared specific communication and critical thinking activities that they have conducted in their courses.

• Communication Skills Rubrics
• Sample Instructor Assignments and Rubrics