I love the beginning of a new school year. Everything seems fresh and new. New students, new classes, and, of course, new assessments!
If you are a faculty member, the beginning of the academic year is a great time to consider if assessment strategies from last year accomplished your goals. Did the rubric measure what you expected? Did the pre/post test show the gains that your students achieved? Did students meet the benchmarks you established? Were the student results well over, or well under the mark?
These are some pertinent questions to ponder as you review assessment strategies for the coming year:
- What student learning did you measure?
- Did the assessment instrument capture the learning as expected?
- If not, can the instrument be tweaked? Or
- Do you need to start over?
- How are you examining the assessment data?
- Are you looking beyond averages?
- Is the data evenly distributed?
- Are there large gaps in performance?
- How will you impact the curriculum with the results of the assessment data?
- If you are satisfied with student performance on this learning outcome, is it time to look for a new learning outcome to measure?
Finally, it is important to remember that assessment results that don’t ultimately impact curricular decisions are not worth gathering! So as you start this academic year, take a fresh look at your assessment practices and see what areas you might need to refresh with the beginning of a new academic year.
Sheri H. Barrett, Ed.D.