PART 1: In this unit, you used the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills, or DAACS, to assess your college readiness in the subject areas of reading, writing, math, and self-regulated learning. Your Summary Report provided you with feedback and resources that you can use to increase your chances of success here at UMGC. We have incorporated this assignment in your PACE course because research shows that students who use DAACS are significantly more successful than those who do not.
In this Discussion forum, please share some examples of how you can use what you learned from DAACS in your time here at UMGC. post your reflections on taking the DAACS assessment by answering one of the following prompts:
- What is one area of reading, writing, math, or self-regulated learning that you could improve, according to DAACS? What feedback or resource within the DAACS could support you in improving in this area?
- What is an area in which you did really well? How might you capitalize on your strengths to succeed in college? Please explain.
- What is an area of self-regulated learning that you committed to improving in your essay? What strategies did you identify that can help you improve? What can you do to follow through on your improvement plan, this semester and beyond, with specific strategies?
- When you explored the links to recommended resources in your feedback, what did you learn there? Thinking of one or two, how will they help you? Would you recommend the resources to others? If not, what might be more helpful?
- PART 2: In this unit, we will focus on the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills, or DAACS. DAACS is a tool that assesses your skills in reading, writing, math, and self-regulated learning, and provides you with personalized feedback and resources to succeed. Research shows that students who have used DAACS are significantly more successful than those who do not, which is why we are asking you to use it.DAACS is NOT a test! Its purpose is not to judge you, or to give you a grade on your learning habits and behaviors, math, writing, or reading skills. It is intended to help you learn more about your readiness for college-level academic work and provide you with the tools you need to succeed.For this assignment, you will take four DAACS assessments. They include an assessment for your self-regulated learning, which targets your learning habits and behaviors that affect your success in college or any other disciplined endeavor. The other assessments will target your writing, reading, and mathematics skills. Again, there is no assumption of failure in these assessments, regardless of how you do. A “diagnostic assessment” is a tool to help you understand where your strengths and opportunities lie so that you can focus your attention on the areas that need improvement. When you have completed the assessments, you will be sent results and feedback in a Summary Report, which will also include very targeted resources to help you learn (or re-learn) concepts in the four areas. After you have read through your results and feedback, we suggest that you explore a recommended resource or two. We will be interested to know how helpful the resources are to help you close any gaps in your readiness in any of the four areas. Here are detailed instructions:First, navigate to umgc.daacs.net. Log in using your UMGC login, complete the four assessments, and review the feedback. Many students choose to start with the Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) assessment, which takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. These assessments are untimed—you can start and stop them at any time, and you do not need to complete all four assessments in one sitting. Remember: your DAACS results do not influence your grade for this assignment; all that is required is that you complete the assessments and submit your summary report.To explore the recommended resources, click on the links embedded throughout your DAACS feedback. For example, you can explore the SRL Lab (srl.daacs.net) by clicking on the “Learn”, “See”, and “Do” buttons at the bottom of each page in your SRL feedback. Another example is the Online Reading Lab (https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/). You can find links to this very helpful site in Suggestions for Improvement at the bottom of each page in the reading feedback. These are just a couple of the many resources available in DAACS that can help you become a better college student. Consider your feedback a wealth of resources that you can use and return to any time in your educational journey.After taking the assessments, reviewing the feedback, and exploring some of the recommended resources, download your summary report and then upload it to the Unit 2: DAACS Assessment Assignment Folder by the end of Unit 2, Tuesday, 11:59 p.m. ET.
