1
Unit Profile
1.1
Briefly describe the program-level planning unit. What is the unit's purpose and function?
Our degrees and certificates emphasize the knowledge and skills required for immediate (direct from our program without the need for a 4 yr degree) entry-level success as a drafter / designer supporting the architectural, civil, and mechanical engineering professions. These include graphic standards and practices, technical analysis and communication, material sciences, and the design and critique processes. In addition, projects include environmental (sustainable) design, product economics, and legal considerations. Current computer technologies and various design software for three dimensional modeling and two dimensional drafting are used throughout the program. Emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality and Applied Drone Technology provide cutting edge training for our students who wish to stand out to local employers. Graphic documentation and a portfolio of work are created for each course.
The professors in Design and Engineering Technology each present their own (diverse) professional experiences in order to provide students in our program with the opportunities to (1) develop their technical and artistic design capabilities, (2) engage in critical and creative thinking as they solve complex design problems, (3) participate in lifelong learning as they build the ability to learn new skills through research, (4) succeed in a competitive global work environment as they excel in the latest skills, techniques,and methods used in the local design industries, and (5) exhibit responsible citizenship benefit society as well as themselves as they practice professional ethics and principles of quality management. Our primary goal is to provide an immediate pathway to a career, and as such we participate strongly in the ARC Design Hub in order to foster creativity, flexibility and responsible risk-taking on the part of our students. This collaboration with many departments at the college recognizes that excellence is essential for accomplishing ARC's mission to help students identify their educational goals and achieve successful learning and for supporting the college's employees and serving ARC's community and region and so that becomes one of the primary missions of the Design Hub and our department. In strongly supporting the Design Hub internship program (via Perkins and Strong Workforce allocations made through the department), we are able to promote self value to our interns by ensuring that they know that they are our most valued resource. We work hard to promote fair compensation to our faculty and staff members (needs improvement). Our department faculty are regularly part of our work to ensure that all students and faculty have a safe, secure and supportive work environment and a culture that recognizes excellence, encourages meaningful involvement in interest-based, decision-making process; and provides opportunities for professional development, service and leadership.
2
Assessment and Analysis
The program review process asks units to reflect on the progress they've made towards achieving the goals they identified in each of the Annual Unit Plans they submitted since their last Program Review.
Follow this link to access your previous EMP submissions.
For Faculty support, please contact Veronica Lopez at lopezv@arc.losrios.edu.
2.1
Consider the progress that has been made towards the unit's objectives over the last six years. Based on how the unit intended to measure progress towards achieving these objectives, did the unit's prior planned
action steps (last six years of annual unit plans) result in the intended effect or the goal(s) being achieved?
Below Expectations:
A primary goal of our unit over the last six years has been to increase our enrollments and success rates for all measured groups. We have experimented with various outreach models, dual education, and internal advertisement on campus. Most of these efforts have had negligible or no effect despite significant resource (time and $$) allocations. Many of our DI groups show a significant decrease or "no growth" in enrollments; compounded with an overall flat success rate (even though we meet our Department Set Standards).
Met or Exceeded Expectations:
Utilize innovative, high-quality instructional methods and technologies ... Another goal has been to provide training in cutting edge technologies to our students. In this respect, our department has excelled as evidenced by our integration of drone data acquisition, Virtual Reality, and computational analysis into our everyday lessons and assignments. Our development of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is continuing with new and improved technologies (Dynamo).
Met or Exceeded Expectations:
Provide students with personalized, proactive support ... In this respect, our department is strong as shown by our list of recruitments ... many of which we are not able to fill due to the small number of students in our program. A major part of this was our success in providing Design Hub internships for our students who were then able to translate that experience into jobs upon (or before) graduation.
The standard data set is intended to provide data that may be useful in promoting equity and informing departmental dialogue, planning, decision making, and resource allocation.
Recent updates include (1) better integration with ARC’s Data on Demand system to provide users with more sophisticated and nuanced ways of exploring their unit’s data and (2) greater emphasis and access to disproportionate impact data
(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.
To access the Enrollment or Disproportionate Impact data 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).
(To streamline the standard data set, the productivity data element has been removed, as has the green-yellow-red light icon system for all data elements except for department set standards.)
The two data sets show 5 years of fall or spring duplicated enrollment, disaggregated by gender and ethnicity. Note that ARC's data-on-demand tool will soon provide considerably more sophisticated ways of viewing and analyzing
your planning unit's headcount and enrollment trends.
- Green
- current fall/spring semester enrollment is equal to or exceeds the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
- Yellow
- current fall/spring semester enrollment reflects a decline of less than 10% from the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
- Red
- current fall/spring semester enrollment reflects a decline of 10% or more from the prior year's fall/spring enrollment.
The two data sets show 5 years of fall or spring productivity (WSCH per FTEF: the enrollment activity for which we receive funding divided by the cost of instruction).
Note that ARC's data-on-demand tool will soon provide considerably more sophisticated ways of viewing and analyzing your planning unit's productivity trends.
- Green
- current fall/spring semester productivity is equal to or exceeds the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
- Yellow
- current fall/spring semester productivity reflects a decline of less than 10% from the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
- Red
- current fall/spring semester productivity reflects a decline of 10% or more from the prior year's fall/spring productivity.
Precision Campus Report Links
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).
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
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.
Email Standard Data Set link
In addition to reflecting on the metrics shown above, it may prove useful to analyze other program-level data to assess the effectiveness of your unit.
For instructional units, ARC's Data on Demand system can be used to provide program and course
level information regarding equitable outcomes, such as program access or enrollment, successful course completion, and degree or certificate achievement
(up to 30+ demographic or course filters are available).
You might also consider pursuing other lines of inquiry appropriate to your unit type (instructional, student support, institutional/administrative support).
Refer to the Program Review Inquiry Guide under the resources tab for specific lines of inquiry.
2.2
What were the findings? Please identify program strengths, opportunities, challenges, equity gaps, influencing
factors (e.g., program environment), data limitations, areas for further research, and/or other items of interest.
Enrollment:
According to the data, our enrollments are slightly down (3% - 4%) on the short term and significantly down over the full data shown.
Productivity:
Our productivity shows a significant decrease, but this is partly due to the fact that our DESGN 498 WEXP course does not fully account for the multi-unit students who bring the productivity much higher.
DI Groups:
In general, our results are positive except with African American students.
Department Set Standards:
These are generally met except for DESGN 350. This course is a 5 unit course of which only part is relevant to our Landscape Tech students who must also take the class. This course is a prime candidate for a curriculum change that will split it into two courses to address this problem.
Our anecdotal assessment is that factors outside of our control steer students away from technical careers (and into 4yr degree programs) that are poorly understood at the high school and college entry levels. In addition, our pathways for students who are entering college (promise campaign) also steer students into 4yr prep classes that do not support success in our program. Our most significant and successful work has been in our collaboration in the implementation of the ARC Design Hub. As the DESGN department volunteered to be the administrative center point, our department has gained substantial enrollment from a wide variety of disciplines on the campus that would not normally be considered DESGN. In addition, by using Design Hub expertise, our department has been able to quickly and effectively implement advanced / emerging technologies into our program so that our students are able to find gainful employment at a very high rate ... most even before completing their studies. Additional anecdotal assessment indicates that economic and life barriers have a substantial impact on our student's ability to succeed. We have seen that some students who are provided a "work option" that supports their career choice do indeed manage to complete our program and to achieve gainful employment where they might otherwise not have been able to do so.
3
Reflection and Dialog
3.1
Discuss how the findings relate to the unit's effectiveness. What did your unit learn from the analysis and how
might the relevant findings inform future action?
Based on our program's enrollments, we believe that we must become more flexible in order to capture and sustain enrollments for ALL of our students. This flexibility may include pathways through our program, methods of assessment, applicability of lecture / lab / work experience hours to graduation requirements, and the use of skill based recognition our students' learning.
In addition, our program stands behind our philosophy that we must teach a broad based (tools and industries) set of design skills rather than just a series of computer skills. Our challenge is to fully prepare our students for any number of workplace situations while still developing fluency in their individual skill sets.
Also, we find that technology advancement is accelerating, and we must invest in a process that will allow us to maintain both the cutting edge and the older technologies in order to satisfy the full spectrum of our local area industry needs.
Finally, we find that many new teaching technologies are available that would help our faculty be more impactfull to our students ... but we do not have professional technical support to create high quality, lessons, tutorials, on-line study guides ... etc, that would support appropriate intellectual property rights and copyright licensing standards. Our department believes that in order to provide high quality education, in a flexible manner that will allow each student to fulfill their promise, we must have strong resource support to produce the materials that we feel are needed.
3.2
What is the unit's ideal future and why is it desirable to ARC? How will the unit's aspirations support accomplishment of the mission, improve institutional effectiveness, and/or increase academic quality?
The Design Hub Leadership Team has proposed a structure that will integrate departmental work experience needs into a formal on-camps internship program. If this proposal is acted on, then the DESGN department hopes to reorganize much of our lab hours from our second year courses into work experience hours. This will allow a more flexible opportunity for both the faculty and the student body. It will also allow for an increase in productivity while allowing a decrease in facility usage. Finally, the proposal emphasized workplace training as part of our degree and certificate requirements ... and we believe that this is a powerful way to bring new technology to our program in the most fast and efficient manner.
4
Strategic Enhancement
4.1
Identify/define one or more program-level objectives which enhance the unit's effectiveness. What does your unit intend to do to work towards its ideal future? How will success be measured?
Knowing that our students need flexibility in order to attain their educational goals in a timely manner, our primary goal is to:
- Provide a pathway to a degree or certificate that is based on demonstrated skills and work based learning.
- Provide flexibility in assessing the student's demonstrated attainment of required skills
- Provide an "0n Campus" work based learning platform to serve those students who are unable to meet "Off Site" work experience requirements.
This objective will require collaborative work with the DESGN faculty, AS Curriculum Committee, and the administration. Success will be measure by
- Creation of a reasonable pathway to achieve this goal that is formalized through curriculum and our faculty teaching assignments
- An increase in enrollments in DESGN coursework
- Improved performance for our DI groups
4.2
How will the unit's intended enhancements support ARC's commitment to social justice and equity?
Our DI groups often find themselves without adequate resources (shelter, food, access to internet) to effectively meet the stringent lecture / lab system that our department currently has in place. With one or two minor inconveniences (for many of us), these students find themselves hopelessly behind and they drop the class in order to maintain their ability to take it again later.
By being more flexible in how we assess achievement and how we provide units for work place learning, these students can receive the credit that they deserve for the all work that is completed ... without penalty to their GPA if they are not able to complete a full 5 unit class in one semester ... and with potentially less affect on their financial aid.
