Outcomes Assessment Reports

a newsletter and Web log by Frank Vozzo   Director of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment

 

April 10, 2006

In this report:

• Your archives contain assessment treasures.
• The AAC&U addresses the Federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
• Celebrating the small victories.

Within the last ten years you have probably been asked more than once to write a report summarizing your accomplishments (e.g. results from a grant-funded project).  If the report had anything to do with teaching and learning, go back and reread it now, and see if it qualifies as outcomes assessment.  It probably does.

Perhaps you were responsible for curricular innovations or special interactions with students. What led you to conclude that change was needed?  How did you judge the effectiveness of your new approach?  Did you identify next steps that have yet to be taken?

Taking a fresh look at your own archives can give you inspiration and some ideas on how to assess teaching and learning today.

The U.S. Department of Education established a commission to study the future of higher education.  The commission’s chairman, Charles Miller, recently suggested that a national standardized test of student learning outcomes could be useful for comparing the performances of colleges to one another.  The president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities has replied with an open letter to the commission, which carries these summary statements:

We hope that the Commission will not place primary emphasis on standardized testing as the catalyst for new levels of college quality and accountability. As Derek Bok has pointed out (Washington Post, March 5, 2005), when tests stand outside the curriculum, students have little reason to try their best, and faculty are unlikely to either trust or act on the results of their “volunteer” efforts.

Calling for milestone and capstone curriculum-embedded assessments will have much greater influence over the long term because it will move cumulative assessments to the very core of faculty and student work. Making milestone and cumulative assessments the standard will focus faculty and student attention alike on new efforts to strengthen and demonstrate the level and breadth of student learning.

The open letter cites the AAC&U “Greater Expectations” report, which I wrote about two weeks ago.

This will be the last OARs newsletter for a while.  I have enjoyed putting these newsletters together each week, and hope to resume the practice in the fall.  It has been very satisfying to have colleagues I meet around campus tell me that something in my newsletters has been useful to them or to other people they know.  Thanks for reading--I celebrate this small victory over the widespread feelings of meeting and e-mail fatigue.

It has been a pleasure to see that much of the work of assessing student learning outcomes is already being done; what is lacking is documentation of the work.  Once again I share this important advice: put all of your efforts into public view—for the sake of helping your faculty colleagues and your students to persist with good practices.  And remember that assessment is an integral part of the academic process, not an add-on or an afterthought.  Be proud of your own accomplishments!

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