Questions/suggestions:
1. If the Distance Education Committee was formed after the Program was developed, how do they relate now?
ANSWER: The Distance Education Committee is a sub-committee of the Educational Planning Committee. Pursuant to Article 40 of the AFT Contract - http://lamission.edu/de/article40.htm it will "serve the function of communicating and advising the college in its decision-making regarding Distance Education (DE) issues. It should report to the college’s Educational Planning Committee or its equivalent and should include DE faculty, information technology staff and administrators involved in DE course development and delivery. The college curriculum committee and the DE Committee should address DE efficacy as it relates to the total instructional program."
The DE and Curriculum has established a rubric for reviewing and approving new DE Curriculum - see http://www.lamission.edu/enrollment/c/C100907/DE_Rubric.doc - All of the paralegal curriculum (12 law classes which form the paralegal certificate) had been developed in 1987, and updated on a regular basis.
Any new law Certificates would require approval through the new DE/Curriculum procedure of course review. The Paralegal Program has submitted four new proposals for certificates under a new Career Technical Education (CTE) Innovation funds which include Legal Nurse Consultant I and II, Patient Rights Advocate, Legislative Research Analyst, and Special Needs Legal Advocate - see http://abogado.pbwiki.com/cte - If approved, these new certificates would be required to have their new classes and course DE shells reviewed under the content rubric review procedure of the DE/Curriculum Committees.
The Online Paralegal Certificate program follows any new established guidelines as proposed by the DE Committee (for example, the DE Committee recommends each DE Class list the Syllabus, Textbook, phone number, office hours, etc. for each of the Mission College Online classes - see http://missiononline.pbwiki.com/fall2008
2. Is there is discussion about a “plan” to start assessing SLOs—what and when would plan that be?
ANSWER: The onliine Law Faculty are meeting on 11/22/08 in their Fall 2008 meeting, and at that time will review the SLO's and provide a plan on assessing the SLO's. The faculty has determined that it will assess "case briefs" written by students starting Winter and Spring 2009. See the sample rubrics under consideration at http://lawrubrics.pbwiki.com - The Law faculty will pick one or two of the categories to assess (eg. "spotting legal issues", and "court reasoning and rationale"). The Law faculty will pull some past student work on "case briefs" and then meet in December 2008 and early 2009 to practice "norming" their assessments, and will determine what sample case briefs receive a grade or assessment of 1,2, 3, or 4, and will discuss the factors to consider in ensuring uniformity in assessing "case briefs" across our law discipline. Assessment will be based on selecting randomized, and anonymous postings from students, and the selected postings will be graded by a law faculty member who is not the online instructor to ensure more objectivity in the assessment.
* Also for D: Evidence of Adequate Resources, it would be good to include an organizational chart, a budget and analysis of how the Program’s budget is integrated with the College budget;
* Standard 2.A needs more discussion about SLOs development and assessment for the Program;
* Standard 2.B states that “…this will require an expansion of services.” What does this mean? There is previous narrative that describes the online student services thoroughly; Perhaps some of the narrative can be moved or repeated as Standard II.B is addressed;
* Generally, if there is anything that can be explained clearly in the narrative, please do so and include documentation of evident in the appendix.
As per Dr. Barbara Beno’s September 24th memo to the field regarding the New Distance Education Requirements of the Higher Education Act of 2008, our member institutions must develop way to authenticate “…that the student who registers in a distance education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit;” Please include any progress toward this requirement.
Thank you, Alma. Would you like me to schedule LA Mission for the Februaury 20 or March 13 2009 Substantive change Committee meetings? Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.
Have a good week,