The main difference between SLO statements and course objectives is that SLO statements demonstrate an overarching understanding or application of a core aspect of the course, while objectives are the small pieces of subject matter that build-up to the broader SLO.

SLOs should be “regularly assessed” as part of the instructional cycle, and the Faculty Senate at Cerritos College voted in March 2022 to define regular assessment as follows based on the recommendations of the SLO subcommittee’s recommendation. Please check with your department chair to verify.  

Faculty Senate approved at three-year SLO cycle where every course SLO must be assessed and analyzed at least once.

• How best to utilize the three years is left to the program/department.
• Programs must develop and document their three-year plan in their strategic planning and program review reports.
• All plans must:
  1. Develop, modify, or review course, certificate/degree, and program SLOs
  2. Design and create an assessment plan for course SLOs
  3. Conduct an assessment(s) of course SLOs
  4. Input assessment results into eLumen
  5. Discuss and analyze data from assessments
  6. Determine and document any refinements(action plan)to the program based on SLO data into eLumen (e.g., changes to curriculum, pedagogy, assessment strategy, etc.)
• The Senate SLO Committee highly recommends all programs work toward the goal of evaluating every course SLO for each course section offered and review their course SLO data annually as part of their unit/ strategic planning.

CSLOs stand are Course Learning outcomes for a course, PSLOs are Program Student Learning Outcomes, and ISLOs are Institutional Learning Outcomes.

At Cerritos College, all CSLO assessment must be documented in eLumen where it is mapped to PSLOs and ISLOs. In eLumen, this data can also be disaggregated, posted publicly and populated to Institutional Program Review. For instructions please refer to this form.

Because the calculation of a course grade often involves a combination of various information sources that include data unrelated to the SLO (i.e., punctuality, participation, assessments of other objectives), the course grade does not directly represent the student’s achievement of the SLO. This weakens the validity of the overall course grade as a measure of an individual SLO because appropriate evidence to support the interpretation of the course grade for its intended use as an SLO achievement measure cannot be adequately established. Therefore, course final grades cannot be used as SLO measures. However, individual assessments and grades within a class ideally should be linked to specific SLOs. In Canvas, instructors can link rubrics for assignments to individual SLOs for a class through “Outcomes.” 

At Cerritos College, we value student engagement in the SLO process to center learning (not just grades) as a focus for courses, so it is helpful for students to see the clear connection between an assignment/ assessment and a learning outcome.

In addition to connecting a learning outcome to an assignment or test, faculty can also use student presentations, portfolios or other high-impact practices (HIP) to assess student learning. SLO assessment should be done as part of summative assessment at the end of the instructional cycle.

While faculty may use Canvas to monitor and assess CSLOs, there are several reasons, these result need to be posted in eLumen. Canvas is not public, so reports can not be run and shared using Canvas. Furthermore, CSLO templates must be created from the official SLOs in the COR in eLumen, and SLO results are automatically populate into the Institutional Program review report in eLumen.