Hi Kohlrabi,
Definition of 'assessment' is as follows:
Assessment is a means for focusing our collective attention, examining our
assumptions, and creating a shared culture dedicated to continuously
improving the quality of higher learning. Assessment requires making
expectations and standards for quality explicit and public; systematically
gathering evidence on how well performance matches those expectations and
standards; analyzing and interpreting the evidence; and using the resulting
information to document, explain, and improve performance.
1) Assessment should focus on improving student learning;
2) The focus of assessment should not be limited to the classroom, but
include the wide range of processes that influence learning;
3) Assessment is a process embedded within larger systems;
4) Assessment should focus collective attention and create linkages and
enhance coherence within and across the curriculum; and
5) Tension between assessment for improvement and assessment for
accountability must be managed.
Originating from an external force, accreditation and assessment are taken
as burdensome to faculty responsibilities, arousing resistance to
compliance and resulting in short lived commitment. It would make a lot of
difference if origin of the commitment to assessing student learning come
from within the institution. Thus faculty members desire to instill in
their students: help create individuals who will question, challenge, and
view an issue from multiple perspectives and wonder.
Channeling faculty intellectual curiosity into exploring relationships
between pedagogy and student learning extends curiosity into the focus of
their teaching, into the ways in which students integrate, draw upon, and
use the knowledge, abilities, habits of mind, and ways of knowing and
problem solving. Rather than disconnected from content and teaching,
assessment becomes the means of ascertaining what and how well students
achieve what faculty members intend them to achieve.
Institutional leaders need to frame a commitment to assessment as a
professionally responsible endeavor, integral to teaching, that contributes
to higher education’s learning about student learning.
Far from being mere service, assessment; a creative and systematic study of
situated teaching practices, which utilizes particular forms of research
and knowledge, belongs in the scholarship of teaching.
Institutions that claim assessment as their own will likely transform
themselves to sustain a focus on student learning.
Methods that provide direct evidence of student learning and development
include the following:
1) Portfolios that collect student work over time and demonstrate students’
abilities to monitor and reflect on their work, providing longitudinal
evidence of student learning and development.
2) Course-embedded assignments, providing evidence of how well students
transfer learning into a new context.
3) Capstone projects, providing evidence of how well students integrate and
apply principles, concepts and abilities into a culminating project.
4) Observations of student behavior, providing evidence of how well
students practice or apply an ability, such as how they participate in
collaborative problem-solving internally or externally juried reviews of
student projects or performances, providing evidence of students’
problem-solving abilities.
5) Externally reviewed internships, providing evidence of students’
problem-solving abilities in a work environment
6) Performance on a case study, along with students’ analysis of how they
solved the case study, providing evidence of students’ abilities to apply,
synthesize and solve problems. Case studies may be used over time to track
the development of students’ knowledge or abilities, essays blind scored
across units, providing evidence of students’ abilities to represent ideas,
solve problems, synthesize locally designed tests, providing evidence of
how well students’ achievement matches institutional expectations.
7) Standardized or national licensure tests, providing evidence of
student's achievement based on norms established outside of an institution.
Some of the indirect methods are:
1) Alumni, student, or employer surveys- providing self-reports or reports
from those who observe or work with students during their studies or after
they graduate.
2) Student focus groups- providing interpretations or perceptions of
student learning.
3) Graduate follow-up studies- providing evidence of how well an
institution prepared students for advanced work.
4) Percentage of students who go on to graduate school- providing evidence
of how well an institution prepared students for advanced work.
5) Retention and transfer studies- providing evidence of institutional
success.
6) Job placement statistics- providing evidence of how well an institution
has prepared students for entry into the workplace.
Hope this helps.
(Search term used:
assessment learning education)
Warm Regards,
Soltionpro_ga |
