Assessing Student Learning

The Assessment Movement have has a focal point of higher education discussions for over 20 years. However, despite the attention given them, (Ewell 2002) describes the Assessment Movement as “broad but not deep”, and (Angelo 2002) states that “…neither assessment nor the scholarship of teaching has yet to make the deep and lasting impact on teaching and learning or academic culture that proponents have hoped for” (p. 189). In effect, assessment data rarely is used to improve student learning.

A primary goal of Pii is to support faculty in creating environments that foster improved student learning. An important part of our strategy is providing tools that help our faculty understand how and to what extent the resources, relationships, media, structures, interactions, activities and assignments that make up learning experiences contribute to students achieving the stated learning outcomes for a course or program.

Tips for Assessing Student Learning:

1. Clearly define learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are simply statements of what you expect students to know and/or be able to do as a result of planned learning experiences. Clearly articulating outcomes helps focus students on learning and help faculty align expected learning, learning activities and resources, and assessment in ways that improve the potential for using assessment to improve student learning.
2. Start with data you already have. You already have rich sources of student data to help you understand how and to what extent students are learning in your course. Tests, papers, assignments, etc. all provide some evidence of how students are meeting your learning outcomes for the course. This summative data demonstrates a students competency at a given point in time. The data can also be used formatively to improve student learning. The trick is to find ways to analyze this existing data to help you understand how to improve student performance over time. Pii can help you design an assessment strategy that uses existing data.
3. Identify the gaps. It is important to examine what you don't know about student learning in your course. A simple way to approach this is asking the question: "At the end of this unit of instruction, what do I not know about student learning relative to my stated learning outcomes?" Pii can help you identify gaps and design a strategy to fill those gaps.
4. Use tools available at Pii to supplement existing assessment data. This is what this section of the web is really all about. This section provides information on some of the tools available from Pii to help you assess student learning in your course.