Welding
2023-2024 Program Review
1 ) In 3-5 sentences, describe your unit to an audience of potential students. Many units take this information from their website. If it has been awhile since your unit has updated its website, take this opportunity to design a brief description of your unit for today’s students.
The ARC Welding Technology department offers students the opportunity to pursue an Associates in Science degree or several certificates. The department is committed to preparing students for success in an exciting, in-demand career field. Our faculty have decades of industry experience. They work closely with local employers and our partners with the American Welding Society to ensure that they will gain the skills and training to have a successful career.
We offer an extremely low-cost program that provides all the tools and materials students need to complete the program, no textbook costs whatsoever, and an open lab for additional support and skill building. Industry recognized certifications are offered in the form of both welder and NDT inspector qualifications. Our program offers time-saving online lecture instruction with an emphasis in hands-on lab experience.
2 ) Who is disproportionately impacted in your unit?
Based on the reports generated, it would appear that "below poverty level" groups are the most common disproportionately affected group, listed as having as high as a 34 percentage point gap in some cases. Other groups that also appear as disproportionately impacted are "multi-race", "hispanic/latino", "white", and "male". It is noted that our two fully online classes have high disparities for those "below poverty level" in A B rates. This may be due to access to technological resources.
Use the Disproportionate Impact* reports below to answer question #2. These reports show how student achievement outcomes vary by gender, race/ethnicity, veteran, foster youth, disability, and income/poverty level status to enable users to engage in more advanced student-centered and equity-centered analysis, reflection, and planning. These reports are integrated with ARC's Data on Demand system to provide users with more sophisticated and nuanced ways of exploring their unit's data. To access the reports, you may be prompted to log in to ARC's Data on Demand system. If so, click on "Log in with ARC Portal" and enter your Los Rios single sign-on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
*This link provides the California Community College Chancellor's Office's definition of disproportionate impact.
Disproportionate Impact
The disproportionate impact (DI) links now direct you to your unit’s DI data in ARC Data on Demand. The DI data will show which student groups are experiencing disproportionate impact for course success rates (A, B, C, Cr, P), A-B rates, and course completion rates (students who did not withdraw) at the course level.
In addition, a new report on intersectional DI (e.g., ethnicity/race by gender) is available for assessing intersectional Di for course success rates. The intersection DI report defaults to the subject code level (e.g., all ENGWR courses). Use the org tree in the side bar to filter to individual courses (click on the right arrow next to American River College, right arrow next to your division, right arrow next to your department/discipline, then select the specific course to view).
If prompted to log in, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single-sign on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
3 ) What equity advancing actions have your programs already taken?
We have removed as many costs to students as possible, coverting all of our classes to zero textbook costs, eliminating lab fees, and providing all tools and materials to students. We have also created an open lab program to provide a center for the program that is open to provide any extra support, resources, or help students need.
4 ) What will be your unit’s strategies for eliminating disproportionate impact (DI)?
We plan on improving current strategies to provide even more resources to students at no cost to them, improving the quality of materials, instruction, and resources both in our classes and in open lab. We would also like to be able to offer additional sections of our classes in different modalities, in-person and online/in person hybrid to provide support to students with different learning, schedule, and transportation difficulties in disproportionately impacted groups. Our new facility will expand our abilty to serve our disproportinately impacted students with better access to classroom and lab activities.
5 ) What support do you need to eliminate disproportionate impact (DI)?
We have been fortunate to be able to receive funding to support our program for instructional, equipment, and material resources. This cost continues to grow and we will need to continue to recieve this support and be able to improve in these areas. We are working with a company to provide curriculum materials across the board for our classes that will offer improved instruction in 9 different languages. This will increase the cost for what we offer currently so we will need the continued support in funding for these materials with little cost to our students. We also need increased FTE allotment to be able to offer additional sections of our overcrowded classes to make sure our instructors can teach effectively.
6 ) What other issues or concerns have affected your unit and are important for you to bring up?
According to the data, our enrollments have increased by 23% and our headcount 8% overall, increasing by an additonal 143 students in the last three years. Our waitlists are completely full in almost all classes with multiple sections. The welding industry has a huge amount of opportunity for these students, we wish to be able to accomodate all the students who want to enter our program. We have added additional instructors, temporary instructional assistants, and student help for our open lab program as well to help with overcrowded classes. We need additional permanent IAs to help with the huge task of managing our lab and material processing activities. In the new facility, we will have the opportunity to offer two lab sections simultaneously. We will need adiitonal FTE to be able to offer these additional sections when classes are fully waitlisted. This will ensure that we can teach to the vibrant, effective, and resilient standard we strive to maintain.
The Enrollment, Department Set Standards, and SLO Data Set may be additional considerations and helpful for answering this optional question, but not required. To access the reports, you may be prompted to log in to ARC's Data on Demand system. If so, click on "Log in with ARC Portal" and enter your Los Rios single sign-on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
Enrollment
The enrollment links now direct you to your unit’s enrollment data in ARC Data on Demand (5 years of duplicated enrollment for Fall or Spring terms). Using the filters available along the left side navigation in ARC Data on Demand, enrollment data can now be disaggregated or filtered on a number of course or student characteristics to provide more fine-tuned exploration and analysis of enrollment data. Examples include disaggregating by course, ethnicity/race, gender, and age.
If prompted to log in, click on “Log in with ARC Portal” and enter your Los Rios single-sign on credentials (same as Canvas or Intranet).
Department Set Standards
Shows course success rates (# of A, B, C, Cr, and P grades expressed as a % of total grade notations) compared to lower and upper thresholds. Thresholds are derived using a 95% confidence interval (click the report link for details). The lower threshold is referred to as the Department Set Standard. The upper threshold is referred to as the Stretch Goal.
- Green
- Most recent academic year exceeds the upper threshold
- Yellow
- Most recent academic year falls between the lower and upper threshold
- Red
- Most recent academic year falls below the lower threshold
SLO Data Set
The faculty's continuous review of student achievement of course SLOs is documented using the Authentic Assessment Review Record (AARR), which involves a review of student work demonstrating achievement of the course SLO. Faculty record student achievement for a randomly assigned course SLO based on one or more authentic assessments that they regularly perform in their classes. The aggregated results are then reviewed annually as part of Annual Unit Planning, in which the results may serve as the basis for actions and, if applicable, resource allocation, and are aligned with college goals and objectives.
The AARR summary link provides an aggregate of the results of the most recent AARR implementation. The AARR results by SLO link provides a more detailed view, including the specific ratings assigned by faculty to each randomly assigned course SLO, and what, if any, actions were taken.
Note: Established thresholds (i.e., green/yellow/red indicators) have yet to be developed for SLO data.
In your program review process, you may want to refer to the goals and actions in your Annual Unit Plans since your last Program Review. Follow this this link to access your previous AUP submissions. For Faculty support, please contact Veronica Lopez at lopezv@arc.losrios.edu.