Post on 15-Dec-2014
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Assessment as a Way of Understanding & Improving Student
Learning
William S. Moore, Ph.D.
Policy Associate, Assessment, Teaching & Learning
WA State Board for Community & Technical Colleges bmoore@sbctc.ctc.edu
360-704-4346
College of the SiskyousJanuary 12, 2007
As you can clearly see
on slide 397…
•Courtesy of “Dilbert” & Scott Adams
Oh, no—not
another case of
PowerPoint
poisoning!!!
Overview of Workshop
• Understanding the Context
• Beginning with the End in Mind
• Facilitating Student Learning
• Making Judgments about Progress
• Putting the Pieces Together
• Exploring other Questions
• Focusing on Assignments as Assessments
“Assessment is…”
Accreditation: Caught between Competing Worldviews?
Compliance: “prove”
Self-reflection; “improve”
WHY?
WHO?
WHAT?
ACCOUNTABILITY ASSESSMENT
“Them” (external)
Measures & answers
“Us” (internal)
Evidence & better-informed judgments
AC
CR
ED
ITA
TIO
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The Promise of Assessment
• Create a new notion of educational excellence for higher education
• Reframe our understanding of accountability
• Revive/strengthen a sense of campus community by focusing on significant, collective purposes
Collective Sense of Purpose
Assessment...requires us to work together, and to do unfamiliar things like setting common goals and standards, devising methods of assessment, interpreting the results, and using them to improve and coordinate our teaching. [It thus] possesses all the appeal and efficiency of committee work, in particular the kind visited upon us by administrators.
Robert Holyer, Change, Sept./Oct., 1998
Beginning with the End in Mind
Underlying Perspectives Drive Key Questions
What do we want students to know & be able to do??
Knowledge
Curriculum
Knowledge as a Set of Tools
• “Situated” or grounded in specific contexts in which it is used (and learned)
• Expertise as body of knowledge organized around “big ideas,” not isolated facts
Making Judgments about Progress
Evidence
How do we judge
competence on key outcomes?
Assessment
What do we want students to know & be able to do??
Knowledge
Curriculum
Underlying Perspectives Drive Key Questions
A Sampling of Assessment Approaches
• Research papers, essay tests
• Self-evaluations• Interviews• Performance tasks
(e.g., cases, problems, etc.)
• Multiple-choice tests
• Projects, field work• Standardized tests,
surveys• Peer evaluations• Portfolio collections
of work• External assessor
ratings• Focus groups
Core Principles of Assessment• Assess the things that really
matter, not just the things easily assessed
• Emphasize the quality and quantity of conversations about assessment evidence
• Use a variety of approaches and multiple indicators
Facilitating Student Learning
How do we judge
competence on key outcomes?
What do we want students to know & be able to do??
Knowledge Assessment
Curriculum
Underlying Perspectives Drive Key Questions
Learning
How do we promote
learning most effectively?
Pedagogy Grading
Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:
•Things you will need to know in later life (2 hours)…
•Things you will NOT need to know in later life (1198 hours). These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in ‘-ology’, ‘-osophy’, ‘-istry’, ‘-ics’, and so on. The idea is, you memorize these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget them. If you fail to forget them you become a professor and have to stay in college the rest of your life.
College Learning???
Dave Barry, 1981
Learning as Deep
Understanding
• Collaborative work around authentic, “situated” activities
• “Learning to be” vs. “learning about”
• Teacher’s roles: modeling, scaffolding, fading, coaching
Putting the Pieces Together
• Course
• Department/Program
• Institution
Multiple Levels of Assessment
General Education Assessment Decisions:
• Definition: what matters?
• Focus: individual students or programs?
• Level of emphasis: what’s a program?
• Nature of evidence: direct or indirect?
• Approach: external or embedded?
Student Learning Institutional Outcomes Effectiveness
Observing & judging
performance based on explicit criteria
Providing feedback based
on those judgments
Reflecting regularly on the strengths & weaknesses of the
institution
Asking fundamental questions about learning and the
conditions for learning
Scary Issues Around Assessment
• Assuming “accountability” leads to real improvement
• Getting lost in administrivia
• Worshipping numbers• Obsessing over
“objectivity” & “being scientific”
Every complex question has a simple answer…
And it’s wrong.
H.L. Mencken
A Sampling of Assessment Resources/Gatherings
• The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges
http://www.rpgroup.org/• Academic Quality Improvement Program
http://www.aqip.org/• Western Assessment Conference
http://business.fullerton.edu/events/AssessmentConf/• International Assessment & Retention Conference
http://www.naspa.org/assessment/index.cfm • Partial listing of other assessment conferences
http://www.assessmentconferences.com/• WA Assessment, Teaching, & Learning site
http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu/college/e_assessment.aspx (annual conference, regular e-newsletter)
ExploringOther Questions
Focusing on Assignments as Assessments
Clarifying ‘Good Work’:Making Implicit & Private Judgments
Explicit & Public
• Review concrete examples of real work
• Develop shared notions of quality • Define what constitutes adequate evidence of
quality
• Discuss learning experiences that help foster the desired performances
Good assessment tasks are
interchangeable with good
instructional tasks.Lorrie Shepard
“The role of assessment in a learning culture,” 2000
The best assessment tools are the
minds of teachers and
learners