Standardized tests have been cyclically resurrected as assessment tools and repeatedly found wanting. This new issue looks at the broad range of skills; effective writing, information literacy, critical/analytical thinking, moral awareness, general communication ability, and more; desired in college graduates and explores the difficulties in designing successful measures of general education learning outcomes that satisfy all stakeholders. Click here to view all five installments of Trudy Banta's Assessment Update Collections.
The first edition of Assessing Student Learning has become the standard reference for college faculty and administrators who are charged with the task of assessing student learning within their institutions. The second edition of this landmark book offers the same practical guidance and is designed to meet ever-increasing demands for improvement and accountability. This edition includes expanded coverage of vital assessment topics such as promoting an assessment culture, characteristics of good assessment, audiences for assessment, organizing and coordinating assessment, assessing attitudes and values, setting benchmarks and standards, and using results to inform and improve teaching, learning, planning, and decision making.
A valuable source of clear, simple guidance on how to assess general education student learning outcomes Based on an exhaustive review of the scholarship, as well as the input of numerous academics at learning institutions around the country, this volume in the acclaimed New Directions for Institutional Research series provides faculty members and assessment teams with the tools they need to assess general education student learning outcomes While Part 1 provides a broad overview of the subject, Part 2 delves into the six key general education learning outcomes, namely, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, intercultural competence, teamwork, civic knowledge and engagement, and integrative and applied learning.
Engage and Inspire through active learning with Karen Huffman's Psychology in Action, the acknowledged leader of active learning and student success. This flagship book's new edition helps students examine their own personal studying and learning styles with several new pedagogical aids -- encouraging students to apply what they are learning to their everyday lives. Through its welcoming voice, Psychology In Action continues to offer a program through the book and media with ongoing study tips and psychological techniques for mastering the material as well as integration of technology through WileyPLUS. Additionally, author Karen Huffman has created a new Video Tutorial Series explaining and contextualizing over 80 of the most difficult concepts in introductory psychology by using examples and applications not discussed in the text; hands-on demonstrations developed in the author's classroom; and "virtual field trips" in which students see psychology in real world settings. Psychology in Action is available in alternate versions (eBooks and custom) for professors and students. For more information, visit the "Instructor's Resource" tab or "Student Resource" tab below.
State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.
The Code of Federal Regulations is a codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the Executive departments and agencies of the United States Federal Government.
This monograph focuses on general education, the one common curricular component that most institutions of higher learning share at the undergraduate level. Also known as the "core curriculum," this uniquely American curricular form is among the common interests of regional accreditation associations throughout the United States. In publicly financed institutions, it is also the area most likely to be the subject of "assessment for accountability" efforts by the public and their representatives. The monograph is user-oriented like the others in the series. Specific examples of models of general education assessment activities (through use of results to improve student learning) are provided for a comprehensive community college, a major state university, and a private college. Users are encouraged to adjust and adapt the models described to best meet their institutional circumstances and culture.
While there is consensus that institutions need to represent their educational effectiveness through documentation of student learning, the higher education community is divided between those who support national standardized tests to compare institutions’ educational effectiveness, and those who believe that valid assessment of student achievement is based on assessing the work that students produce along and at the end of their educational journeys. This book espouses the latter philosophy—what Peggy Maki sees as an integrated and authentic approach to providing evidence of student learning based on the work that students produce along the chronology of their learning. She believes that assessment needs to be humanized, as opposed to standardized, to take into account the demographics of institutions, as students do not all start at the same place in their learning. Students also need the tools to assess their own progress. In addition to updating and expanding the contents of her first edition to reflect changes in assessment practices and developments over the last seven years, such as the development of technology-enabled assessment methods and the national need for institutions to demonstrate that they are using results to improve student learning, Maki focuses on ways to deepen program and institution-level assessment within the context of collective inquiry about student learning. Recognizing that assessment is not initially a linear start-up process or even necessarily sequential, and recognizing that institutions develop processes appropriate for their mission and culture, this book does not take a prescriptive or formulaic approach to building this commitment. What it does present is a framework, with examples of processes and strategies, to assist faculty, staff, administrators, and campus leaders to develop a sustainable and shared core institutional process that deepens inquiry into what and how students learn to identify and improve patterns of weakness that inhibit learning. This book is designed to assist colleges and universities build a sustainable commitment to assessing student learning at both the institution and program levels. It provides the tools for collective inquiry among faculty, staff, administrators and students to develop evidence of students’ abilities to integrate, apply and transfer learning, as well as to construct their own meaning. Each chapter also concludes with (1) an Additional Resources section that includes references to meta-sites with further resources, so users can pursue particular issues in greater depth and detail and (2) worksheets, guides, and exercises designed to build collaborative ownership of assessment.The second edition now covers: * Strategies to connect students to an institution’s or a program’s assessment commitment* Description of the components of a comprehensive institutional commitment that engages the institution, educators, and students--all as learners* Expanded coverage of direct and indirect assessment methods, including technology-enabled methods that engage students in the process* New case studies and campus examples covering undergraduate, graduate education, and the co-curriculum* New chapter with case studies that presents a framework for a backward designed problem-based assessment process, anchored in answering open-ended research or study questions that lead to improving pedagogy and educational practices* Integration of developments across professional, scholarly, and accrediting bodies, and disciplinary organizations* Descriptions and illustrations of assessment management systems* Additional examples, exercises, guides and worksheets that align with new content
