Assessment Reboot Pat Hutchings National Institute for Learning

Assessment Reboot Pat Hutchings National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment

How is Assessment Going? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Thriving (what’s encouraging? ) Struggling (how, why? ) Some of both Hard to know Some other reality Discuss in pairs or 3 s—about 5 minutes. We’ll hear some comments.

Goals for this Session • To explore a paradigm shift for assessment • To understand its implications for you, your program, your institution…and our students • To locate useful resources • To increase the group’s collective intelligence about how to improve the learning experience of ALL students • To generate and share ideas about follow up

On Many Campuses… The work we ask students to do in our courses and programs Institutional goals for student Learning Assessment

Connecting the Pieces The work we ask students to do in our courses and programs Institutional goals for student Learning Assessment …creating a different campus culture

A Paradigm Shift From To

It’s a Thing

Findings • Campuses turning to more authentic measures of student learning • Capstones • Classroom assignments • Rubrics • Most valuable for IMPROVING student learning and success: classroom-based work

Implications 1. A focus on assignment design (and alignment) 2. Connecting assessment to professional development 3. Think: community organizing 4. Equitable learning for all students

1. A Focus on Assessment Design §Assignments animate high-level learning outcomes. §Student work on course assignments provides direct, credible, actionable evidence of student achievement. §The design of assignments matters for student learning.

Assignments Matter • WPA/NSSE • Large scale study of writing for learning • The amount of writing matters but… • Assignment design matters more • Especially assignments that pose “meaningmaking tasks”

The Transparency Framework • TILT Higher Ed • Stage 1: Most promising interventions? Assignments • Stage 2: Making assignment purpose, tasks, and criteria “transparent”= gains for all… • And especially for first-generation, lowincome, under-represented students

Lovely. . . But Lonely

Courseocentrism “Our experience of teaching in hermetically sealed classrooms makes us— to coin a word —“courseocentric. ” Courseocentrism—like its ethno-, ego-, and Euro- counterparts— is a kind of tunnel vision in which our little part of the world becomes the whole. ” Gerald Graff, ”It’s Time to End Courseocentrism”

Assessment Archipelago? The Goal: To work intentionally on assignments to build transparent, aligned pathways for students.

2. Connecting Assessment and Professional Development 1984: Involvement in Learning 1986: Time for Results

Today High priority: More faculty development around assessment and improvement

Reconnecting to the Regular Work of Teaching and Learning “We have given short shrift to helping faculty learn how to develop and use good assessments [aka assignments] in their own classes and how to use grading information to understand improve their own teaching. ” Suskie, Blog, May 21, 2017

What Would This Look Like? • Disciplinary and cross-disciplinary conversations about goals for student learning • Decoding the disciplines, bottlenecks, threshold concepts • Charrettes focused on collaborative assignment design, with an eye to alignment • Faculty Learning Communities for inquiry into learning and teaching (aka sotl) • Community organizing

3. Think: Community Organizing (not measurement)

Funny Because It’s True?

The Problem Formulating questions for inquiry and evidence gathering Discussing results, findings, what Data DATA GATHERINGneeds to be done, gathering and how • With thanks to Charlie Blaich

4. Equitable Learning for Students • Commitment to closing achievement gaps • Feedback—to teachers and students • …“in the present tense” • Valuing what matters most: Individual student performance

Assessment as Campus Culture • A shared focus on outcomes • Common language • Habits of inquiry and questioning • Collaboration and respect • Reflection, going meta, meaning making • Positive restlessness

Let’s Talk 1. What did you hear today that struck you or surprised you? 2. In what ways does this “reboot” vision of assessment map onto realities—or possibilities--on your campus? • Things you’re doing that move in these directions and support them? • Things you can imagine doing or would like to see happen?

OA Resources for Further Work • The Assignment Library • The Assignment-Design Toolkit • charrette protocol, invitations, facilitation guides feedback forms, questions for discussion, campus/disciplinary models and materials, incl TILT • Transparency in Learning and Teaching • Research reports • More example assignments • Guidance for faculty and for students

But Wait: There’s More

Something to Share

Resources Part I • American Association for Higher Education. (1992). Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning. Washington, DC: AAHE. • Beach, A. L. , Sorcinelli, M. D. , Austin, A. E. and Rivard, J. K. (2016). Faculty development in the age of evidence: Current practices, future imperatives. Sterling, VA: Stylus. • Blaich, C. F. , & Wise, K. S. (2011, January). From gathering to using assessment results: Lessons from the Wabash National Study. (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 8). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. • Condon, W. , Iverson, E. R. Manduca, C. A. Rutz, C. , & Willett, G. (2016) Faculty development and student learning: Assessing the connections. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Resources Part II • Hutchings, P. (2010). Opening doors to faculty involvement in assessment. Occasional Paper #8. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). • Jankowski, Natasha A. 2017. Unpacking Relationships: Instruction and Student Outcomes. Washington DC: American Council on Education. • Jankowski, N. A. , Timmer, J. D. , Kinzie, J. , & Kuh, G. D. (2018). Assessment that matters: Trending toward practices that document authentic student learning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). • Maki, P. (2017). Real-time student assessment: Meeting the imperative for improved time to degree, closing the opportunity gap, and assuring student competencies for 21 st century needs. Sterling, VA: Stylus

Note to Self Something you’d like to do as a follow-up to this session?