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Math instructor plots student success at BCC
new slt BCC math Harrington at blackboard
Barton Community College math instructor Jo Harrington writes on a whiteboard in algebra class. - photo by COURTESY PHOTO


The success of students at Barton Community College can be shown on a series of spreadsheets maintained by math instructor Jo Harrington.
Some 18,000 test questions from general-education courses taught at Barton are recorded on the spreadsheets each year, along with the percentage of students who got the correct answers. Each test question is tied to a desired competency, such as critical thinking or problem solving. In the past eight years since this assessment model was developed, more than 100,000 questions have been entered.
It’s not test scores and pass rates that are being measured, Harrington said, showing one of his own course assessments as an example. In College Algebra, students are expected to understand linear applications. So, even if 90 percent of his students pass their algebra test, if only 60 percent correctly answer a question about linear applications, he knows that’s an area to focus on.
Harrington and other Barton employees reported on course assessments last week at a BCC Board of Trustees meeting. During the meeting, President Dr. Carl Heilman noted that while course assessments are nothing new, BCC now ties the assessments to “critical outcomes.” During a 2001 accreditation inspection, before this model was adopted, Barton’s assessment tools were seen as a weakness, Heilman told the trustees. “By 2008, they saw what we were doing and now it’s a strength,” he said. “Jo does a very good job of pulling it all together.”
Harrington works with a number of instructors, in brick-and-mortar classrooms and online, across campuses and at area high schools where BCC courses are taught.
The result is hard data that shows how the college is improving, said history instructor Mike Cox, joining the meeting from Barton’s Fort Riley campus. “It shows ‘what went right that we can reinforce,’ and ‘what can we improve?’”