How to create your own student learning assessment tools
Developing Tools and Strategies to Assess Student Learning
Educators have at their disposal a wide variety of educational assessment tools to measure student learning outcomes. From published instruments to locally developed assessments, each has its place in higher education and in your assessment toolbox. This seminar will teach you how to develop your own tools and strategies to assess learning.
Despite all of its complexities, educational assessment has two very simple goals: deciding what you want your students to learn and making sure they learn it. The way you go about achieving those goals should be grounded in strategies that have consequential and pedagogical validity, provide reasonably accurate and truthful results, and contain clear and important goals. Given today’s budget constraints, cost effectiveness is an important factor as well.
If all of that sounds like a tall order, Developing Tools and Strategies to Assess Student Learning delivers a common sense approach for making sense of it all.
Led by Linda Suskie, vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, this seminar looks at the strengths and weaknesses of assessment tools, and how you can create your own tools to measure student learning. You’ll learn:
- The role of assessment in the teaching/learning process.
- The four key characteristics of effective assessment tools and strategies.
- The difference between “direct” and “indirect” evidence of student learning.
- Which tools return the most information in proportion to the time spent developing and using them.
Suskie also provides tips on how to:
- Identify the assessment information that’s already available at your institution.
- Develop different types of rubrics to evaluate student work.
- Create multiple choice tests that assess more than basic understanding.
- Use reflective writing to assess attitudes, values, and dispositions.
- Write effective “prompts” for essays and other assignments.
Who will benefit from this seminar:
- Faculty
- Faculty Development Personnel
- Academic Affairs Personnel
- Academic Administrators
- Department Chairs
- Academic Deans
- Continuing/Extension Education Personnel
If you have any questions contact Customer Service at 800-433-0499 or (608) 246-3590 or email us at support@facultyfocus.com.
Linda is an internationally recognized speaker, writer, workshop facilitator, and consultant on a broad variety of higher education assessment topics. Her latest book is the second edition of Assessment of Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide (Jossey-Bass). Among her other publications are Assessment to Promote Deep Learning (Stylus) and Questionnaire Survey Research: What Works (Association for Institutional Research). She is a Vice President at the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accreditor of colleges and universities in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.