The College Outcomes (General Education/Institutional Learning Outcomes) listed below represent a set of abilities and qualities desired of students earning either a degree or certificate from Palomar College. This page provides definitions and rubrics for each outcome as well as teaching resources for Palomar instructors. Each year, the College assesses student progress in achieving these outcomes. Click here to view our three-year timeline for assessing the College Outcomes and for more information about the College’s institutional and general education degree outcomes.
- Brief Definitions of All Institutional and General Education Outcomes
- Rubrics for all Institutional and General Education Outcomes
- Faculty, please use this document to align course and program SLOs to the College's GE/ILOs.
GEILO Assessment Reports
2019 Ethical Awareness (Meeting Minutes, 2019-2020)
2018 Teamwork and Problem Solving
2016 Digital Literacy
Communication
Outcome Definition and Rubric
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools:
Teaching Strategies that Teach Speech Skills by Jordan Cataplano
Student Resources:
Preparing a speech
Books
Note: The following books are Open Education Resources–they can be revised, remixed, and redistributed freely without having to contact the authors for permission.
Chapters on “Effective Speech Writing,” “Supporting Your Speech with Evidence,” and “Writing Speech Introductions and Conclusions that Work for You” in Using Your Speech Power! provide guidance on several dimensions of oral communication, including Central message and organization, Conceptualization of Ideas, Student’s position, Conclusions and related outcomes, etc.
Visual Aids from Business Communication for Success gives students advice about the benefits and pitfalls of using visual aids during speeches.
Videos
Note: The following videos are available in the library’s online collections. In addition to the links provided here, the database also offers embed codes and LTI links, which are additional ways to add the videos to Canvas or other websites.
Rehearsal from Brilliant Public Speaking offers concrete suggestions for rehearsing a speech.
Overcoming Nerves from Brilliant Public Speaking offers concrete suggestions for handling the natural feeling of nervousness before speaking.
Considering Effective Slideshows from Public Speaking—Incorporating Research, Visual Aids, and Multimedia gives specific advice about preparing useful slides and using them effectively during the presentation.
Citing your sources in your speech
Note: The following videos are available in the library’s online collections. In addition to the links provided here, the database also offers embed codes and LTI links, which are additional ways to add the videos to Canvas or other websites.
How and When to Use Copyrighted Work from Public Speaking—Incorporating Research, Visual Aids, and Multimedia explains the concept of Fair Use, which defines how speakers are allowed to use copyrighted materials.
Credit Where Credit is Due: Citing Sources and Using and Citing Primary and Secondary Sources from Public Speaking—Incorporating Research, Visual Aids, and Multimedia explains the components of oral or written citations in speeches.
Delivering a Speech
Books
Note: The following books are Open Education Resources–they can be revised, remixed, and redistributed freely without having to contact the authors for permission.
Chapters on “Effective Speech Delivery” and “Communicating Effectively” in Using Your Speech Power! provide guidance on several dimensions of oral communication, including Language and Delivery.
Movement in Your Speech from Business Communication for Success gives concrete advice about how to use movement during a speech and how to avoid making distracting movements.
Videos
Note: The following videos are available in the library’s online collections. In addition to the links provided here, the database also offers embed codes and LTI links, which are additional ways to add the videos to Canvas or other websites.
Using Visual Aids and Using Multimedia from Public Speaking—Incorporating Research, Visual Aids, and Multimedia offer tips for avoiding common problems when using visual aids and multimedia.
Public Speaking: Principles of Public Speaking—Delivery is a 33 minute instructional video that includes advice about vocal and nonverbal delivery and minimizing distractions. It’s also easy to link students directly to the clips that are most relevant to the dimension of oral communication that you’re focused on.
Outcome Definition and Rubric
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Spring 2020! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructors Tools:
7 Easy Ways to Support Writing in Any Content Area This list includes showing students samples of the writing you are asking them to do and spending some time in class evaluating the samples using a rubric to help students to internalize the standards you have for their writing and what you value most highly when you are evaluating their work.
Evaluating and Grading Multilingual Writing offers three examples of how professors approach evaluating and giving feedback to students who are writing in a language that they are still learning. The author gives pros and cons for each approach.
Efficiently Grading Student Writing offers tips for spending more time giving and guiding assignments so that you can spend less time grading, it also recommends limiting your comments to “teachable moments” rather than commenting on all errors.
Grading Written Assignments provides a sample checklist to help focus your grading and increase effectiveness.
Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback If you spend a lot of time writing comments to students, you may want to consider building in a revision process like the one described here to make your comments worthwhile.
What Do Professors Really Say about College Writing? A report from focus groups with faculty across the disciplines.
The Word on College Reading and Writing is an open textbook that you can adapt or revise to fit your students’ needs without asking for additional permission from the authors. This textbook is well reviewed by college professors and could be used in any class to supplement your discussions about your expectations for students’ writing.
Computation
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools:
Palomar College Math Across the Curriculum
Statistics and Quantitative Literacy by Richard Scheaffer. This article outlines the central role of basic statistics concepts in quantitative literacy.
Best Practices for Quantitative Reasoning Instruction a project of the City University of New York (CUNY) Quantitative Reasoning Alliance. This page describes six principles for effectively teaching quantitative literacy.
If you’re still not sure what’s considered quantitative reasoning, this Study Packet for the Qualitative Reasoning Assessment at Wellesley College might provide some concrete examples.
Tools to Use in QL Assignments:
Census Reporter A user-friendly website for analyzing data from the American Community Survey and the U.S. Census.
Note: The following materials are Open Education Resources–check the licenses to determine if they can be revised, remixed, and redistributed freely without having to contact the authors for permission.
PhET Simulations Openly licensed simulations of math concepts and applications from the University of Colorado, Boulder. The website also includes a library of activities created by faculty who use PhET simulations in their courses. Examples include Displaying, Analyzing and Summarizing Data and Curve Fitting to understand data relationships.
Project Quantum Leap Activities Sampler This is a collection of real-world-application assignments developed at Laguardia Community College to help students learn and apply algebra concepts.
Numerical Data Analysis is an example of a writing assignment requiring students to analyze and represent the meaning of numerical data that are provided by the instructor.
Extract Meaningful Information from Data is a set of graphs and questions designed to have students apply critical evaluation techniques to recognize misleading or incomplete conclusions drawn from data and data visualizations.
Creative, Critical, and Analytical Thinking
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools:
Questions are a big part of critical thinking and the following resources should help you when you’re posing your questions to students and when you are supporting students to learn to pose well-formed questions themselves.
Questioning Strategies offers guidance for using questions while you’re teaching. It suggests how to prepare questions and how to handle students’ responses and non-responses.
Checking for Understanding Activities includes a list of question stems on pg. 3 to help you write questions to use during lectures and discussions.
Self-evaluation and metacognition are often considered important facets of critical thinking. The following resources should help you to support students’ development as metacognitively aware and self-reflective learners.
Structures for Student Self Assessment from the Foundation for Critical Thinking offers suggestions for in-class activities, some of which could be adapted for distance education, that will encourage students to articulate their understanding so that they can engage in self-evaluation and peer-evaluation. The suggestions for strategies related to reading and listening may be particularly useful.
Communicating in Math Classrooms includes a video and background essay illustrating techniques for encouraging students to consider and explain their reasoning during problem-solving activities. Though based on a math example, the technique could be applied in many classes.
Reading is a necessary precursor to much of the critical thinking we ask our students to do. The following resource may help you to anticipate and address difficulties your students will encounter when they are adjusting to the reading required in college courses.
Harvard Report This summary of a (possibly fictional) research study done at Harvard is a reminder that we need to help our students learn to avoid “obedient purposelessness” when reading for classes. “The exercise of judgment in reading requires self-confidence, even courage, on the part of the student who must decide for himself what to read or skip.”
Strategies to Help Students “Go Deep” When Reading Digitally is an article with a few suggestions from UC Berkeley’s History-Social Science Project about how students can be taught to interact with digital texts to find main ideas and to paraphrase in order to digest difficult texts.
Student Resources:
7 Ways to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills is a brief, informal webpage that tries to explain critical thinking, how it differs from “everyday thinking” and what it takes to think critically. It might provide an introduction to your students about the purpose and value of the CT skills you require in your class.
Thinking-Intensive Reading this page offers students tips on how to read critically in order to be ready to use what they have just read.
How to Mind Map a Textbook is a step-by-step guide to creating a set of mind-maps to facilitate note taking and to make it easy to refer back to a visual, well-organized representation of the book you’re reading.
A Simple Guide to Text Annotation includes what type of information to be looking for in the text in order to annotate it and some suggestions for annotation shorthand.
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools:
Librarians are available to deliver instruction sessions tailored to your students’ assignments that will prepare your students to plan their research process, find and select appropriate sources, avoid plagiarism, and accurately cite sources. You can request an instruction session by filling out this library instruction request form. Librarians can also create research guides for your in-person and online courses to provide additional structure for your students as they work on research assignments.
Librarians are also available to consult with you about resource-based assignments that you are creating or revising. Librarians can help you to strengthen the information literacy components of your assignments and to ensure that your assignment requirements are feasible given the materials available in the library’s print and electronic collections. You can request a consultation by filling out this librarian consultation request form. You can earn Professional Development credit for the time you spend consulting with a librarian about your assignments.
Student Resources:
Dashboard Information Literacy Tutorials These self-paced, multi-media tutorials developed by Palomar College professors introduce students to concepts including Avoiding Plagiarism, Evaluating Sources, Citing Sources in MLA, APA, or Chicago, and Using Sources in their assignments.
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
Definition:
Teamwork is behaviors under the control of individual team members (effort they put into team tasks, their manner of interacting with others on team, and the quantity and quality of
contributions they make to team discussions.) - AAC&U
- Teamwork dimensions (page 3 and 4 of the 2018 teamwork assessment report)
Instructor Tools:
Quick Guide to Managing Groupwork This guide focuses specifically on applying cultural competence when using team-based projects in your classes.
Group projects are difficult because of ambiguity. Novices benefit from guided practice, so you may want to provide significant structure for students the first time they engage in teamwork in your class. In Teamwork is Best — Or is It? the author offers a list of questions to ask yourself about how you have designed the team-based assignment for your students. Any element of this list that you have not chosen to structure for your students is one that you may need to devote class time to teaching students how to structure for themselves.
Assessing Groupwork from Center for the Study of Higher Education gives a clear list of elements to include in well-designed team-based assignments. And Assessing by Groupwork from University of New South Wales, Sydney offers even more detail about how to prepare a team-based assignment, including considering the communication technologies you’re going to suggest that teams should use.
Studies show that (1) fair assessment of teamwork (acknowledging individual contributions), (2) teaching teamwork skills and (3) team formation approaches are key factors in how learners experience team-based assignments, and Bad attitudes: Why design students dislike teamwork describes how to structure these elements well in order to minimize unnecessary barriers to teams’ success.
Student Resources:
Team member roles quiz. This quiz is a self-assessment to help students identify what type of role they are likely to feel comfortable in when working in a group and it is followed by examples of how those roles are successfully played for the benefit of the team.
Reflecting on teamwork. This worksheet asks students to reflect on their experiences working in teams and could be a good ice-breaker activity when introducing a team-based assignment.
Team Contract. This contract can be used in class to help teams establish their ground rules. Students will need instruction on the elements of the contract and examples of answers to the contract questions.
Team Member Evaluation Rubric. This template allows a team to create their own list of criteria for evaluating team members. Examples of criteria are provided in the form.
Managing Conflict. This guide provides steps for talking about and resolving conflicts.
Note: The following materials are Open Education Resources–they can be revised, remixed, and redistributed freely without having to contact the authors for permission.
Ethics of Teamwork module with reading and activities. Powerpoints are provided. The purpose of this module is to add structured planning steps to group projects in order to reinforce the skills needed for successful teamwork.
Using Technology to Facilitate Meetings excerpt from Business Communication for Success is a good reminder to students about the tools they can use to meet with their teams when they can’t meet face-to-face and offers suggestions for preparing to use these tools effectively.
Conflict Resolution book chapter from Working in the Food Service Industry The chapter provides examples of how to handle disagreements and how to come to positive resolutions.
Community, Multicultural/Global Consciousness and Responsibility
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools:
- Strategies for the Incorporation of Civic Education in the Classroom
- Facing History and Ourselves, Assignments related to civic dilemmas and civic engagement
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas
Instructor Tools
- Ethics Unwrapped, University of Texas. Includes over 50 case studies that match ethical concepts to real world situations.
- Ethics Case Studies, A set of ethics case studies from physics research, with an activity and discussion guide for courses and seminars in science ethics.
- USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, A collection of ethics case studies in the fields of anthropology, bioethics and medicine, business, engineering, the environment, international relations, journalism, the military, physics, sociology, and more.
- Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB), Ethics case studies related to accounting.
- The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and Santa Clara University, Case studies in business ethics.
Outcome Definition and Rubric:
- Definition and Rubric
- Coming in Fall 2019! Rubrics will be available for instructor use in Canvas