Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education
Introduction
Intro Part 2
Navigation
Course Topics
Training SLOs
Training Tools Training Strategies
Section 2
Background and Rationale for Assessment
Section 3
Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
Section 4
Assessment Tools and Data
Section 5
Course Assessment
Section
6
Program Assessment
Section
7
Closing the Loop
Section
8
Implementing Assessment Training on
Campus
Section
9
References & Resources
Assessment Tools used in this Training
This course intentionally embeds assessment activities in an attempt to model assessment not only as a means to collect data, but also as a tool to both engage students and teach material (see the first link to the right detailing the tools used). Some of these assessment activities involve short immediate feedback questions using a technique developed by Angelo and Cross called Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). However, while very valuable, assessment of student learning goes beyond the short anonymous feedback techniques used in CATs. Classroom Assessment Techniques as described by Angelo and Cross’s are discussed in Section 4.
Some assessments within this coursework will involve self-evaluative questionnaires to help you define your teaching practice. Most of these are quick surveys, linked to online forms, scored automatically, and often provide comparisons with people from the same and other disciplines.
When the inbuilt assessments ask you to discuss ideas or classroom practices with other faculty - please do this; dialogue is essential to the assessment process and will initiate rich professional discussions. As you talk to others keep the followings things in mind:
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each course and classroom has unique factors |
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disciplines have unique language and culture |
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cross disciplinary conversations are invaluable |
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ultimately discipline-specific conversations best define student competencies |
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everyone is a learner when it comes to assessment |
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as professionals we are both guided and constrained by the principles of academic freedom (see link to the right for the official AAUP academic freedom policy) |
When any activity in the training involves answers, information, or guidelines beyond your own opinion, the answers will be linked to the activity.
* Personal Note; Using this material in a workshop or live course, where interaction between participants occurs, is far more effective than doing the course as an individual, but workshops are not always feasible, hence the website.
Strategies for Using this
Material
Resources and Links
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Angelo & Cross, 1993
Academic Freedom
AAUP statement on Academic Freedom
Academic Freedom Rights & Responsibilities
Janet Fulks (jfulks@bakersfieldcollege.edu)
& Kate Pluta (kpluta@bakersfieldcollege.edu)
Assessing Student Learning in Community Colleges (2004), Bakersfield
College
07/11/2006