1. ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT By Dr. Clarice Ford

3. Outcomes ■Program Outcome - Illustrate what you want your program to accomplish. ■Student learning and Development Outcome – depict cognitive abilities, as well as affective dimensions that you desire your program to instill or enhance. ■Input Outcomes – typically define your standards for student acceptance and participation into particular programs. ■Student Needs Outcome – are where students prioritize their service and educational needs. The students’ learned articulation of needs often informs the writing of program outcomes. ■Service Utilization Outcomes – seek to set standards for the utilization of services and facilities.

4. ■The concepts of ‘learning’, ‘personal development’, and ‘student development’ are inextricably intertwined and inseparable” (Schroeder, Blimling, McEwen, & Schuh, 1996, p. 118) ■Nationally, attention has turned to understanding how student learning is delivered. Many are being asked to illustrate how their services contribute to student learning.

5. ■To assure that students have sufficient and various kinds of educational opportunities to learn on develop desired outcomes, faculty and staff often engage in curricular and cocurricular mapping” (Maki, 2001) ■“The institution provides students support programs, services, and activities consistent with its mission that promotes student learning and enhance the development of its students” (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, 2000)

6. Ask the following questions: ■What do students need to know in order to be well prepared to leave the institution? ■How are we teaching them that information? ■Do we provide them opportunities prior to their leaving for them to demonstrate that they have learned what we think they should? ■How will we know that they have learned what we think they should?

7. Helpful Reminders ■Go ahead and write every program outcome down. ■You may want to start with specific activity outcomes and build program outcomes from those. ■You can start with institutional, division, or unit outcomes and see how your program and activities tie to those.

8. Helpful Reminders ■Then, move to implementing the entire assessment cycle one outcome at a time, making everything for that systematic – in other words, begin to form “habits” of assessment. ■Celebrate assessment victories. ■Advertise your assessment learnings and decisions made. ■Incorporate student in all facets of assessment planning and implementation, if your program is ready.

9. The Question of Time ■As you can see, this is a time-consuming process (Maki, 2001; Palobma & Banta, 1999) ■The purpose of committing time to reflect and plan for assessment is that you examine more carefully the “why” of what you are doing and the “how” you are doing it (Maki, 2002; Palomba & Banta, 1999).

10. Reallocate Your Time and Services ■In some cases, you may need to recast your services so that you can provide opportunities to assess student development and learning. ■You may even need to offer fewer services so that you can reallocate time to assessment.

11. Dr. Peggy Maki (2002), senior scholar at the American Association for Higher Education, may also prove helpful in stimulating different ways to approach the writing of your outcomes: –What do you expect your students to know and be able to do by the end of their education at your institution? –What do the curricular and the cocurricular “add up to?” –What do you do in your programs to promote the kinds of learning and development that your institution seeks?

12. –Which student benefit from which cocurricular experiences? –What cocurricular processes are responsible for the intended student outcomes the institution seeks? –How can you help students make connections between classroom learning and experiences outside of the classroom? –How do you intentionally build upon what each of you hopes to achieve?

13. Recast Your Services ■What are the thinking tasks, intellectual experiences, and/or cocurricula experiences that need to be designed relative to the preparation level and diversity of the students at your institution? ■Can the interpersonal transactions that occur in the everyday life of the student and that reflect cultural orientations service as a basis for potential new models of critical thinking? What curricular experiences will promote this skill development? ■What structures need to evolve to assure that students have the opportunity to enhance their academic self-concept and understand their role in the culture of learning at your institution?

14. ■There is increase value in assessing student development and learning. ■You demonstrate your role in the partnership for student learning and development and you illustrate through example your direct contribution to your institutional mission. (Bresciani, 2002, p. 2)

15. ■Alexander Astin (1996, p. 132) said “our choice both of student outcomes and of instruments for measuring these outcomes are ultimately based on value judgements.” Astin’s statement regarding the choice of assessment tools is significant, as there are many tools available to measure the outcomes you articulate for your unit. Carefully considering your options by reflecting on what it is that you want to measure and how you can gather the best evidence is vital to the success of your work. It is also important to note that choosing a tool and implementing it is only one portion of the assessment process.

16. ■Outcomes-based assessment begins with identifying your unit’s or program’s mission, objective and, of course, outcomes. ■Thoughtful planning is imperative for successful assessment. After the identification of your unit’s mission, objective, and outcomes, you are ready to gather evidence.

17. Things to Consider Before Choosing a Tool ■Which outcome(s) do you want to measure? ■What do you need to know in order to determine that students know or can do what you have identified in the outcome(s)? ■Are there set criteria already in place, or do you need to create the criteria?

18. QUESTIONS?