Developing an Assessment Process: Exercises
These are exercises for developing or expanding an assessment process. The first one illustrates how a Department works on its long range academic planning--the framework for developing assessment of student learning. The second one discusses one method to identify and generate data, useful for assessing student learning. The third one illustrates how to make sense of the data: analytic techniques. The forth one, and perhaps the most important, illustrates how a department makes all decisions as to achieve a single goal: continuous improvement of students learning.
A good reference for working on these exercises is Mary J. Allen, Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education, Anker Publishing Co., Bolton, 2004
The following exercises are based on a conceptual framework, which integrates them. Other conceptual frameworks are possible.
Conceptual Framework
Planning
An exercise on how to work on a long-range planning within an academic unit when the goal is student learning. In this way assessment stands within the broader framework of educational effectiveness.
The exercise illustrates how to identify existing data sources for each stage of the student learning cycle. It suggest ways to expand the content of existing data sources, before creating new data sources.
