SLOs and The Delusion of Progress

SLOs

and

The Delusion of Progress

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). This is a great example of a terrible program. It's well intended, as are all bad programs, however it can hardly pass the criteria for good policy. The intent is that California's community college professors should be compelled to self evaluate their own courses. An example SLO: "Students can list the social and political factors behind the American Civil War". Unfortunately, SLOs have become a (permanent?) part of the landscape for many American colleges. It's implementation differs from campus to campus, but the general idea is to compel college professors to define benchmarks and goals for improving courses. Some happy bureaucrat can then check off when benchmarks are met - hence the delusion of progress. Basically it's as simple as that.

If the college professor is worth his salt, he regards the SLO as busy work. It's little more than an interruption from real teaching and research. Professors cope by composing trivial SLO benchmarks. Just enough to get the bureaucrat off their backs.

My wife is a college professor who has philosophically accepted that such busy work is part of the job. She shared with me a telling anecdote a while ago. She told how from time to time the staff was compelled to meet and discuss SLO progress. One of the newer professors became disgusted with the obvious waste of time. The more experienced educators groaned at the outburst, as if to say, 'Yes, we all know that it's a waste of time. We still have to get it done'.

At a meeting my wife attended, she was surprised to hear an administrator promise '100% of courses will have SLOs assessed in six months'. Here was a bureaucrat promising something to other bureaucrats without checking with the faculty who were actually doing the work. That same administrator gleefully reports the percentage compliance every semester, as if that number proved anything about effective teaching. As my wife puts it, SLOs are designed by the an instructor, assessed by the instructor with no oversight, and then analyzed by the same instructor, who must produce a long report on the matter. The instructor is encouraged to either show improvement, or to change the SLO or change the course if no improvement is shown. That is a recipe for a miraculous 1-2% improvement every time!