I was driving home yesterday and thinking of a myriad of things I needed to accomplish at the office. There is an upcoming site visit I am chair for the Higher Learning Commission that I need to finalize, I’m chairing and Institutional Committee that is having listening sessions, our Program Review software implementation and first cycle are starting to wrap up and I need to reach out to different groups, etc., etc. It dawned on me in all my musing that I wasn’t thinking about assessment.
When I looked at the blog site today I realized how little I had blogged this Fall on assessment. I found that I had allowed myself to become distracted with all the other components of my life in higher education. That’s not acceptable! But I know that faculty at my institution have the same problem. It is not that they don’t care about assessment or improving student learning. It is the distractions of all the “other” things involved in the teaching and learning endeavor.
So I am making a pledge to spend time focused ASSESSMENT – working with faculty to improve student learning. Finding new resources to encourage and promote assessment. Celebrating the assessment triumphs of my colleagues. Let’s do it together.
Sheri H. Barrett
