sessions – Assessment by Design

Conference Debrief

Posted on May 3, 2016 by mmcmull5 — No Comments ↓

Another year, another great conference! It was wonderful to get to visit with so many colleagues at the Regional Assessment Conference on April 22. I heard a range of presentations on campus assessment initiatives and strategies, enjoyed a dynamic keynote address (Dr. Jillian Kinzie rocks!), and ultimately came away invigorated— with a host of ideas for moving forward on my own campus. As we’ve taken time to catch up this past week, I’ve been working on my “to-do” list. After digging my conference room and office out from under all of RCCAC 2016 materials, I pulled together some takeaways from this year’s conference: Assessment works! Kinzie shared some excellent stories and examples of colleagues and institutions that are closing the loop on assessment and making strides in student learning. (Be sure to revisit her presentation under the “RCCAC Keynote 2016” tab above.) There are multiple assessment roads. My colleagues and I shared lots of assessment strategies that have worked well Continue reading Conference Debrief→

It’s Complicated

Posted on February 3, 2015 by mmcmull5 — No Comments ↓

General Education curriculum: Who owns it? Who assesses it? And, importantly, who decides on changes based on the assessment data? Big questions, even bigger answers. These are just a few of the complications that swirl around higher education assessment. At this year’s conference, we have two sessions that not only bring these broad questions into tight focus but also offer specific strategies for making gen ed assessment happen. In an afternoon breakout titled “Structuring and Scaling Up Embedded Assessment of General Education Outcomes at St. Louis Community College,” presenters will share their redesigned system-wide general education assessment, including best practices, early findings, obstacles, and future directions. In the final breakout session of the day, Johnson County Community College will share an AQIP action project to develop a comprehensive assessment plan which encouraged broad faculty participation, early implementation, and analysis of first results. These presenters will also address the difficulties of aggregating different kinds of data, hence the session title, “Apples Continue reading It’s Complicated→