Welcome to the Web Guide
Overview
Assessing student learning is a hot topic in higher education. Students, parents, donors, policy-makers, and others are demanding that colleges and universities demonstrate that their degrees certify learning, not simply attendance.
Given the increasing number of resources available to assist college and university professionals as they develop comprehensive assessment programs, what makes this source unique? I suggest the following:
- The majority of resources focus more on classroom learning than on cocurricular learning. While one could apply many of the concepts in this web guide to classroom learning, my emphasis is on assessing learning outside class, especially in the cocurriculum.
- Program evaluation courses in traditional master's preparation programs have largely mirrored the content of research methods courses. Though related, the work of learning assessment is distinct, especially as applied by practitioners.
- Related to this, many current resources do not translate theory into practice. My goals are to present a big picture vision for assessment and also to break this vision down into tangible practices. You will find links to several examples throughout this web guide that help demonstrate what the concepts look like in practice.
- Many current approaches to assessing learning in the cocurriculum are labor intensive -- while they are great models, few practitioners have the time or money to implement such efforts. My goal is to present a model that practitioners can put to practice in just a couple hours a month.
- In contrast to many of the expensive approaches advocated by some, this web guide is free! My purpose is not to make money, but to help innovative student affairs practitioners as they design the future work of the profession.
In order to make this resource as user-friendly as possible, I provide a list of the contents in the right-hand column. Those of you with more assessment experience may wish to jump directly to a topic of interest. For those of you who are newer to assessment, I suggest you work through the contents from top to bottom, at least during your first visits.
Finally, I am still learning and I would greatly appreciate your ideas, critiques, resources, etc. - anything that you feel would be a helpful addition to this site. If you would like to share your thoughts, please email me.
Why Assessment?
"Students have a right to know that the mission of the university, which they adopted for themselves when they enrolled, has indeed been realized by them personally."*
The most important reason to assess learning in the cocurriculum is that it is the right thing to do - it helps to promote a higher quality of learning. If that is not enough, remember that major stakeholders are demanding it.
Still not enough? How about a quick story? I'll never forget my first budget meeting as a young dean of students. Various individuals around the room came with their proposals. Someone in admissions demonstrated how an investment in her program would translate into a certain number of new students, and thus, tuition revenue. Someone from the foundation demonstrated how each dollar invested in his department brought a return of several dollars in gifts from donors. The faculty representative spoke about student to faculty ratios, benchmarks from other schools, and even student retention. I spoke about vague numbers in the counseling department, the value of diversity programming, and cool new programs in the residence halls. In other words, I basically said, "Why don't you just give the dollars to someone else." What did I learn? In order to effectively secure funding for cocurricular programs - programs that I know will contribute to student learning - I have to demonstrate how dollars allocated for the work of student affairs professionals translate into measurable returns on the investment in terms of student learning, satisfaction, and retention.
If these are not reason enough, consider the next job that you will apply for. Think about your resume - it's not the paper or the formatting that really sets one resume apart from another, is it? Check out these two example resumes if you would like -- who would you hire? I think you'll get the point.
Planning Your Time
Time can be one of the greatest enemies of assessment. Student affairs professionals are busy and extra time comes at a premium. With that in mind, I designed this model for implementation over a three year time period. Some schools or programs will be able to work more quickly, while others will take longer -- feel free to adjust the timeline to three phases as needed.
Likewise, my goal is that professionals dedicate 1-2 quality hours a month to assessment, especially during the early phases. If the process takes too much time, it will become a burden, which will result in practitioners either dropping the effort, or making it a poor quality last-minute task. With this in mind, I recommend the following time commitment:
- 2-4 hours once a year during a staff retreat;
- 1 hour a month for preparation/work time for participating professionals;
- 1 hour a month for team meetings, ideally integrated into regular staff meetings;
- 2-4 hours at the end of each year/phase to write up the results.
As with most theory-to-practice efforts, I believe that learning assessment will ideally become a natural part of the work of a quality student affairs professional. Practitioners will not see assessment as something extra to do, but as an integrated part of what they already do. Remember that this takes time -- it will not happen overnight.
* Concordia University System, 1995, p. 5
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