Assessment Plan Instructions
Clarification and Instruction for Faculty
This document explains in more detail the requests highlighted in the assessment overview. If you have questions or comments, please contact the assessment coordinator for your school or college. You may also contact Jacquelyn Miller at 296-5446.
Template 1 asks you to list your student learning outcomes for the department/program at the top of the template. For each assessment activity, please indicate which department/program outcomes are being assessed for each project (column 1) and the embedded assignment or other activity that you will examine (column 2). If the project involves an indirect rather than direct measure, indicate in column 2 the indirect measure or instrument you will use (e.g., questionnaire, focus group, survey). We have provided a sample of Template 1.
Please be sure that you list student learning outcomes, not departmental or faculty outcomes. You may have fewer or more than 6 outcomes. The number 6 is arbitrary and you can delete unneeded numbers or add more numbers.
We suggest an embedded senior assignment as the direct measure of learning. An embedded assignment can be any student work that is already assigned and graded in a senior course. A direct measure of learning refers to any actual work that students produce. We are asking you to focus on senior work because we need evidence related to program outcomes, not just course outcomes. If focusing on senior work is not appropriate or helpful to the department, or if you are already planning an assessment activity related to courses or a series of courses that contribute to program outcomes, by all means follow your plan, reserving senior work focus for a future year.
An indirect measure is most often someone's judgment regarding what has been learned. The judgment can be made by a variety of people connected to the program, including students themselves, board members, employers, groups of faculty, and the like.
You will note that each year’s assessment report includes the completed assessment projects for the previous year plus the planned assessment projects for the upcoming year.
Every October 1, you will be submitting the following:
By October 1, 2009, departments/programs should therefore submit to their assessment coordinator the following:
2008-2009 template:
2009-2010 template with columns 1-3 filled out.
The University Assessment Committee would also appreciate a short (1-2 page) narrative report for one of the year’s assessment projects. The narrative would provide context and flesh out some of the most important details. However, a narrative is not required.
In many cases, faculty may wish to focus an upcoming year’s assessment project on implementing and assessing changes in assignments or instructional methods recommended by the previous year’s assessment project. Taking time to implement the changes agreed upon and to assess whether or not they actually do improve teaching, learning or the curriculum is an important process that warrants serious faculty attention. It is acceptable therefore to alter a department’s original assessment plans to pursue the assessment goal deemed most important by the faculty.
Indicate connections between departmental student learning outcomes and university student learning outcomes if you have not already done so or if there are changes.
Template 2 asks you to indicate which of your departmental outcomes contribute to a university outcome. This template does not ask you to “fit” all of your departmental student learning outcomes into one of the university outcomes. Rather, it asks for connections or relationships. If an outcome is connected only to the university learning outcome devoted to the major field, simply check that box. But if a departmental outcome is connected also to parallel university outcomes, check the appropriate boxes. We have provided a sample of Template 2.
Not all departments will have as many or as few student learning outcomes as Template 2 indicates. Leave blanks or add rows as necessary.
Be aware that, during each summer, the planning reports will be posted on the web (InSite, our SU intranet, only) for others to consult.
Departments/ programs that are meeting professional accreditation standards or have been implementing plans routinely will have more detailed assessment plans/ reports than the basic plan/ report we request. These units may want their publics to see all of the steps they are taking to learn how their students are achieving outcomes. In that case, simply add rows as needed to the template or provide attachments.
To assist your planning, John Bean has created two documents (“How to Get the Assessment Monkey Off Your Back,” and “Developing a Departmental Plan for Assessing Senior Work”), which explain direct and indirect measures, give examples of different kinds of senior work which department members are more than likely already assigning and grading, and describe how to create an effective, basic plan.