Dr. Glenna Malcolm

Glenna Malcolm believes that program assessment has the potential to provide key data that can inform programs about their students’ learning and readiness for a variety of discipline-relevant fields. Information gleaned from assessment efforts can also help inform programs and teachers where to concentrate efforts to revise or enhance aspects of their degree program for the future.

In her role as program assessment leader (PAL) in Biology, Dr. Malcolm has spearheaded assessment efforts within her program at University Park and across Biology programs at Commonwealth campuses since 2018. She also led multiple discussions with Biology faculty across campuses when program learning outcomes (PLOs) were initially defined and then later when they were revised. In Spring 2022, Dr. Malcolm served as the Eberly College of Science (ECoS) Administrative Fellow for program assessment. During that time, she benchmarked processes for supporting assessment efforts at multiple colleges at University Park, interviewed all the PALS in the 4-year degree programs in ECoS, and explored potential technological solutions for making assessment processes more transparent and efficient. An outcome of the fellowship was that Dr. Malcolm developed a report for how to amplify learning outcomes research and curricular evaluation throughout ECoS in partnership with then, Associate Dean Mary Beth Williams and other stakeholders.

Dr. Malcolm also collaborates with dozens of faculty members in her assessment efforts. For example, one year, she facilitated Biology in the assessment of student quantitative skills across campuses using a common Qualtrics survey with vetted questions from concept inventories. The following year, Dr. Malcolm met regularly with small groups of faculty members to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of the GQ requirements for the degree program; these discussions included MATH and STAT faculty in these GQ courses. After benchmarking other Big10 universities, determining student career goals in the major, and examining the prior year’s assessment data on quantitative skills, Biology decided to make the curricular change of requiring one calculus course rather than two, along with the one statistics course that had been required. Conversations around student learning in calculus is an ongoing collaborative process. This year, Dr. Malcolm plans to assess student bio-literacy skills, in collaboration with multiple BIOL4## course faculty at University Park, through administration of a Qualtrics survey with vetted questions from the Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS). Over time, she hopes these assessment efforts will lead to an action plan for long-term, quality assessment that will be valued by the Penn State Biology program as a tool that provides a pulse of the student experience in Biology.