How to Assess Students at the Course and Program Level

1. Seema C. Shah-Fairbank, P.E., PhD Director of Assessment and Program Review, Division of Academic Affairs Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Sarah M. Hershman Research Technician How to Assess Students at the Course and Program Level

2. Learning Objective During Workshop • Identify artifacts for assessment • Identify assessment tools to evaluate artifacts • Analyze assessment artifacts • Introduction to strategies to close the loop

3. Why Do We Assess? • Improve our operations • Ensure that students are learning the outcomes, not just the content • Inform others of the contributions and impact of our program/unit • Demonstrate what we are accomplishing for our students, faculty, staff, and community • Support the university/college/department strategic plan and accountability activities

4. Learning Outcomes Program Level – Student Learning Outcomes Course Learning Outcomes • Student learning outcomes clearly state the specific and measureable behaviors students will display to verify learning has occurred at the program level. • Key characteristics of student learning outcomes include 1) clarity, 2) specificity, (this means they are worded with active verbs stating observable behaviors) and, 3) measurability. • CLOs clearly relate to topics, assignments, and exams that are covered in the present course. • CLOs should be measurable and map to SLOs for assessment. • CLOs are more detailed and specific, they identify the unique knowledge and skills expected to be gained from a given course.

5. Artifacts for Assessment of Student Learning

7. Assessment Tools

8. Why Make A Rubric? Contains Scoring Criteria Communicates Expectation Assessing Student Work Achievement Level Supports Learning Feedback Directions on What Is Good Consistent, Efficient & Objective Demonstrates Ways to Improve Plan Activities Accordingly

9. Rubrics https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/

10. Example of a Course Rubric – Assessment and Grading

11. Example from a Course: M = 86.39, SD = 6.54, Range = 20.5

12. Recommendation - Strategies • Combine Assessment and Grading • Levels of Achievement • Assessment may only look at a few criteria • Avoid Reinventing - Search for Existing Rubrics • Available online • Available from colleagues on campus • Available from off-campus colleagues • Modify existing rubrics to serve your needs • Faculty and Student Affairs professionals working together to assess student learning

13. Exam Design • Align questions to learning outcomes • How many questions/items? • As many as you need - Capture student learning • Think about the time (student(s) may need 3x as long) • Instructions • Group items by test type • How to record answers • Whether or not to show work • Point values for each item • Neatness • Rule of Thumb • Don’t let one early incorrect answer repeatedly penalize a student • Alternative: tell students to assume specific answer to prior item • Student’s capacity is a limited resource

14. Assessment • Align exams and problems that students performed on to CLO or SLO • Grade/Assess if the students have met the learning • Set a criterion for success – 75% of students will get each item correct • Determine percent-correct for each item

15. Evaluation of Results Course Level - CLOs Program Level - SLOs

16. Evaluate Results – Close the Loop • Was the item/assignment written clearly • Are there changes that need to be made within this course or a prior course • Are there curricular changes needed at the program level • Are there different pedogeological methods to teach the material

17. Assessment at Program LevelCurriculum Matrix

18. Workload • Too much assessment may lead to superficial approaches to learning (surface learning). • Consider your assessment tasks as part of the overall assessment workload for the student (students are doing several modules, not just your own module). • Use both formative and summative assessment, combined in continuous assessment to assess student learning. Formative assessment involves giving feedback during the module so that students can continuously develop and improve. Summative assessment sums up achievement. • Too much assessment may impede providing constructive and timely feedback to students.

19. Questions – Comments - Practice Seema C. Shah-Fairbank, P.E., PhD shahfairbank@cpp.edu Marisol Cardenas marisolc1@cpp.edu

20. Resources • https://www.cpp.edu/~academic-programs/program-review/assessment-student-learning/rubrics.shtml • http://woodard.latech.edu/~kklopez/EDCI489CReadWriteThinkWeb/podcastrubric.html • http://manoa.hawaii.edu/assessment/howto/rubrics.htm#p4 • https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics