Departmental Assessment Update - Ocean and Earth Science and Technology Report
Department: Meteorology
Program: BS
Level: Undergraduate
1. List in detail your undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) for each degree/certificate offered.
Graduates should have a wide knowledge of the observed typical behavior of weather phenomena in both the tropics and higher-latitude regions of the world, and an understanding of the basic mathematical theory used to model such phenomena. Students should be able to synthesize this basic knowledge to produce a practically useful weather forecast in a real-world situation, and do this at a level of sophistication that would be acceptable to major employers in the field such as the US National Weather Service. Students should develop oral and written communication skills at a level acceptable to major employers in the field.
2. Where are these SLOs published (e.g., department web page)?
Published on the department web page http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/met_outcomes.htm
3. Explain how your SLOs map onto your curriculum, i.e., how does your curriculum produce the specific SLOs in your students?
In the first two years our majors students take descriptive level courses on weather phenomena while they are also taking courses in basic mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science offered in other departments to prepare for the final, more rigorous, two years of the program. In these two years the students take the main theoretical courses in atmospheric thermodynamics,dynamical meteorology and tropical meteorology, along with courses in satellite meteorology and meteorological instrumentation to deepen their empirical knowledge and knowledge of practical techniques in the field. In the final year the students take at least one of our two Capstone courses on Synoptic Meteorology and Forecasting. These courses allow students to synthesize the empirical and theoretical knowledge they obtained earlier in application to the very concrete problem of short-term weather forecasting. Students in their final year also have the option of taking our Undergraduate Thesis course which also provides an opportunity to synthesize the knowledge obtained throughout their undergraduate program.
4. What specific methodologies were used to collect data? In developing your response, consider the following questions:
The Department uses a variety of methodologies to assess our results, in both the sense of performance indicators and the students' attitudinal indicators. The performance indicators we use for assessment are: (i) the results of our students in our Capstone Synoptic Meteorology and Forecasting courses. This is a great way for us to see how well our students have grasped the concepts they were taught earlier and see if they have developed both the technical and communication skills to tackle a concrete problem. All our students must take at least one of these courses to graduate, so this is applied to 100% of our students (at least those who graduate). (ii) the results of students in our Capstone Undergraduate Thesis course. Here each student is tackling a different problem undertheir own particular faculty mentor. However, we strongly encourage ALL faculty to attend and participate in the oral thesis defence, and the evaluation meeting for the faculty afterward. This is another great opportunity to see if our students are really have a firm grasp of basic knowledge and techniques they will need in their subsequent careers. This course is still optional, and has only been available for the last three years, and about 20% of our B.S. graduates during that time have taken it. We will encourage more of our students to take this course. (iii) informal interactions with the employers of our students. In our case we have a National Weather Service Forecast Office colocated with our Department. We are able to get very detailed and frank assessments of the performance of those of our students who work at the Forecast Office as coop students, and also of many of our graduates who have gone to work for the National Weather Service in Hawaii and elsewhere. The attitudinal indicators we use for assessment are: (i) written course evaluations. All courses in the Department are evaluated by students in anonymous format at the end of term. We generally have close to 100% of enrolled students returning these evaluations. The student evaluations are examined by the individual instructor for each course, and for all courses in the department by the Chair. (ii) Oral exit interviews for our graduates conducted by the SOEST Student Services Specialist, who provides a written summary of the overall comments received each year. This summary report is reviewed by the Chair and the Undergraduate Advisor, and has been very useful input to faculty discussions concerning improvements in the undergraduate program.
5. How were the assessment data/results used to inform decisions concerning the curriculum and administration of the program?
Improvement of our undergraduate program is a constant subject of discussion among our faculty and all such discussion and subsequent actions are based on the assessment indicators of SLOs described above. Specific recent and ongoing changes to our program include: (i) In response to our assessment results we recently revamped the course sequence in the 3rd and 4th years for our majors students. (ii) In response to the SLO assessment, notably the student course evaluations and exit interviews, we are currently completely redesigning our Meteorological Instrumentation course (MET305) to be more up-to-date and to emphasize more hands-on activities. Significant expenditures of money and time have gone into upgrading the laboratory facilities and designing the course content. The redesigned course is being offered for the first time in Fall 2006.