Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education

2015-01-20
Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education

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  • Author: George D. Kuh
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
  • ISBN: 1118903390
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 309

American higher education needs a major reframing of student learning outcomes assessment Dynamic changes are underway in American higher education. New providers, emerging technologies, cost concerns, student debt, and nagging doubts about quality all call out the need for institutions to show evidence of student learning. From scholars at the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA), Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education presents a reframed conception and approach to student learning outcomes assessment. The authors explain why it is counterproductive to view collecting and using evidence of student accomplishment as primarily a compliance activity. Today's circumstances demand a fresh and more strategic approach to the processes by which evidence about student learning is obtained and used to inform efforts to improve teaching, learning, and decision-making. Whether you're in the classroom, an administrative office, or on an assessment committee, data about what students know and are able to do are critical for guiding changes that are needed in institutional policies and practices to improve student learning and success. Use this book to: Understand how and why student learning outcomes assessment can enhance student accomplishment and increase institutional effectiveness Shift the view of assessment from being externally driven to internally motivated Learn how assessment results can help inform decision-making Use assessment data to manage change and improve student success Gauging student learning is necessary if institutions are to prepare students to meet the 21st century needs of employers and live an economically independent, civically responsible life. For assessment professionals and educational leaders, Using Evidence of Student Learning to Improve Higher Education offers both a compelling rationale and practical advice for making student learning outcomes assessment more effective and efficient.

Planning and Assessment in Higher Education

2011-01-25
Planning and Assessment in Higher Education

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  • Author: Michael F. Middaugh
  • Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
  • ISBN: 1118045521
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 262

PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness In this era of increasing pressure on higher education institutions for accountability, Planning and Assessment in Higher Education is an essential resource for college and university leaders and staff charged with the task of providing evidence of institutional effectiveness. Michael F. Middaugh, a noted expert in the field, shows how colleges and universities can successfully measure student learning and institutional effectiveness and use these results to create more efficient communications with both internal and external constituencies as well as promote institutional effectiveness to support student learning. "How can the assessment of institutional effectiveness be used to provide a solid foundation for planning? Middaugh has crafted a comprehensive, practical guide that also explains what accrediting agencies really want and need to know about these topics." Elizabeth H. Sibolski, executive vice president, Middle States Commission on Higher Education "Only Michael Middaugh, the unquestioned national leader in this field, could write such a lucid overview of how to make institutional assessment and planning really work as a tool rather than as a tedious requirement. He helped invent and shape the focus of national assessment rubrics and now offers his insights into how to make them work for your institution." John C. Cavanaugh, chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education "Middaugh provides extremely helpful and practical guidance and insights on how colleges and universities can use assessment tools and frameworks to improve both academic programs and administrative operations. A valuable and timely book for all higher education leaders." James P. Honan, senior lecturer on education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"Proof," Policy, and Practice

2023-07-03

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  • Author: Paul E. Lingenfelter
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000979156
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 186

How can we “fix” our schools? Improve graduation rates in college? What works?These are questions that make the headlines and vex policy makers, practitioners, and educational researchers. While they strive to improve society, there are frequently gulfs of mutual incomprehension among them.Academics, longing for more influence, may wrongly fault irrationality, ideology, or ignorance for the failure of research to inform policy and practice more powerfully. Policy makers and practitioners may doubt that academics can deliver ideas that will reliably yield desirable results. This book bridges the divide. It argues that unrealistic expectations lead to both unproductive research and impossible standards for “evidence-based” policy and practice, and it offers promising ways for evidence to contribute to improvement. It analyzes the utility and limitations of the different research methods that have been applied to policy and practice, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of educational reform strategies. It explains why using evidence for “accountability” often makes things worse rather than better.Paul Lingenfelter offers educational researchers and policy makers a framework for considering such questions as: What problems are important and accessible? What methods will be fruitful? Which help policy makers and practitioners make choices and learn how to improve? What information is relevant? What knowledge is valid and useful? How can policy makers and practitioners establish a more productive division of labor based on their respective capabilities and limitations? He cautions against the illusion that straight-forward scientific approaches and data can be successfully applied to society’s most complex problems. While explaining why no single policy or intervention can solve complex problems, he concludes that determination, measurement, analysis, and adaptation based on evidence in specific situations can lead to significant improvement. This positive, even-handed introduction to the use of research for problem-solving concludes by suggesting emerging practices and approaches that can help scholars, practitioners, and policy leaders become more successful in reaching their fundamental goals.

Beyond the College Transcript

2020-03
Beyond the College Transcript

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  • Author: Pam Bowers
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9781948213127
  • Category :
  • Languages : en
  • Pages :

An Evidence-based Guide to College and University Teaching

2016-06-10
An Evidence-based Guide to College and University Teaching

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  • Author: Aaron S. Richmond
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1317283279
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 229

What makes a good college teacher? This book provides an evidence- based answer to that question by presenting a set of "model teaching characteristics" that define what makes a good college teacher. Based on six fundamental areas of teaching competency known as Model Teaching Characteristics outlined by The Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP), this book describes how college faculty from all disciplines and at all levels of experience can use these characteristics to evaluate, guide, and improve their teaching. Evidence based research supports the inclusion of each characteristic, each of which is illustrated through example, to help readers master the skills. Readers learn to evaluate their teaching abilities by providing guidance on what to document and how to accumulate and organize the evidence. Two introductory chapters outline the model teaching characteristics followed by six chapters, each devoted to one of the characteristics: training, instructional methods, course content, assessment, syllabus construction, and student evaluations. The book: -Features in each chapter self-evaluation surveys that help readers identify gaps between the model characteristics and their own teaching, case studies that illustrate common teaching problems, discussion questions that encourage critical thinking, and additional readings for further exploration. -Discusses the need to master teaching skills such as collaborative learning, listening, and using technology as well as discipline-specific knowledge. -Advocates for the use of student-learning outcomes to help teachers better evaluate student performance based on their achievement of specific learning goals. -Argues for the development of learning objectives that reflect the core of the discipline‘s theories and applications, strengthen basic liberal arts skills, and infuse ethical and diversity issues. -Discusses how to solicit student feedback and utilize these evaluations to improve teaching. Intended for professional development or teacher training courses offered in masters and doctoral programs in colleges and universities, this book is also an invaluable resource for faculty development centers, college and university administrators, and college teachers of all levels and disciplines, from novice to the most experienced, interested in becoming more effective teachers.

Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education

2013-10-14
Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education

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  • Author: George A Brown
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1136183418
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 332

There is no doubt about the importance of assessment: it defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves - it is a necessary part of helping them to learn. This text provides background research on different aspects of assessment. Its purpose is to help lecturers to refresh their approach to the assessment of student learning. It explores the nature of conventional assessment such as essays and projects, and also considers less widely used approaches such as self- and peer-assessment. There are also chapters devoted to the use of IT, the role of external examiners and the introduction of different forms of assessment. With guidelines, suggestions, examples of practice and activities, this book will become a springboard for action, discussion and even more active learning.

Higher Education Quality

2016
Higher Education Quality

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  • Author: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN:
  • Category :
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 12

This National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) policy statement outlines the warrant for multiple, systematic approaches to obtain evidence of authentic student achievement. The importance of assessing student learning in college has yet to capture the attention of policy makers or the public. Indeed, few outside the academy know what the phrase, student learning outcomes assessment, means. And yet the information outcomes assessment produces when done well is foundational to addressing some of the greatest challenges the country currently faces. Documenting learning and using that evidence to improve student and institutional performance is a challenging, complicated process, however, since 2008 NILOA has been tracking what colleges and universities are doing to document and improve student performance and institutional effectiveness. From work in the field, NILOA has distilled five principles that if enacted in mission-relevant ways can spread and accelerate assessment work worthy of the promises colleges and universities make to their students, policy-makers, and the public. The five principals outlined are: (1) Develop specific, actionable learning outcomes statements; (2) Connect learning goals with actual student assignments and work; (3) Collaborate with the relevant stakeholders, beginning with the faculty; (4) Design assessment approaches that generate actionable evidence about student learning that key stakeholders can understand and use to improve student and institutional performance; and (5) Focus on "improvement," and "compliance" will take care of itself. It is no longer beyond the capacity of a college or university to articulate expectations for learning, to document student progress toward these expectations, and to use the resulting evidence to improve student success. Doing this job and doing it well is within their grasp.

Student Evaluation in Higher Education

2016-07-15
Student Evaluation in Higher Education

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  • Author: Stephen Darwin
  • Publisher: Springer
  • ISBN: 3319418939
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 195

This book provides a comprehensive and engaging analysis of the purpose and function of student evaluation in higher education. It explores its foundations and the emerging functions, as well as its future potential to improve the quality of university teaching and student learning. The book systematically assesses the core assumptions underpinning the design of student evaluation models as a tool to improve the quality of teaching. It also analyses the emerging influence of student opinion as a key metric and a powerful proxy for assuring the quality of teachers, teaching and courses in universities. Using the voices of teachers in the day-to-day practices of higher education, the book also explores the actual perceptions held by academics about student evaluation. It offers the first real attempt to critically analyse the developing influence of student evaluation on contemporary approaches to academic teaching. Using a practice-based perspective and the powerful explanatory potential of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), the implications of the changing focus in the use of the student voice - from development to measurement - are systematically explored and assessed. Importantly, using the evidence provided by a unique series of practice-based case studies, the book also offers powerful new insights into how the student voice can be reconceptualised to more effectively improve the quality of teaching, curriculum and assessment. Based on this empirical analysis, a series of practical strategies are proposed to enhance the work of student evaluation in the future university to drive pedagogical innovation. This unique volume provides those interested in student evaluation with a more complex understanding of the development, contemporary function and future potential of the student voice. It also demonstrates how the student voice - in combination with professional dialogue - can be used to encourage more powerful and substantial forms of pedagogical improvement and academic development in higher education environments.

Advancing Assessment for Student Success

2023-07-03
Advancing Assessment for Student Success

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  • Author: Amy Driscoll
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000977056
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 221

This book is about student success and how to support and improve it. It takes as its point of departure that we--as faculty, assessment directors, student affairs professionals, and staff--reflect together in a purposeful and informed way about how our teaching, curricula, the co-curriculum, and assessment work in concert to support and improve student learning and success. It also requires that we do so in collaboration with our colleagues and our students for the rich insights that we gain from them.Conversational in style, this book offers a wide variety of illustrations of how your peers are putting assessment into practice in ways that are meaningful to them and their institutions, and that lead to improved student learning. The authors provide rich guidance for activities ranging from everyday classroom teaching and assessment to using assessment to improve programs and entire institutions.The authors envisage individual faculty at four-year institutions and community colleges as their main audience, whether those faculty are focused on their own classes or support their colleagues through leadership roles in assessment. If you plan to remain focused on your own courses and students, you will find that those sections of this book will help you better understand why and how assessment leaders do what they do, which in turn will make your participation in assessment more engaging and increase your expertise in facilitating student learning. Because the authors also aim to strengthen connections between the curriculum and co-curriculum and include examples of co-curricular assessment, student affairs professionals and staff interested in doing the same will also find ideas in this book relevant to their work.Opening with a chapter on equity in assessment practice, so critical to learning from and benefitting our diverse students, the authors guide you through the development and use of learning outcomes, the design of assignments with attention to clear prompts and rubrics, and the achievement of alignment and coherence in pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment to better support student engagement, achievement and success. The chapter on using student evidence for improvement offers support, resources, and recommendations for doing so, and demonstrates exciting uses of student wisdom.The book concludes by emphasizing the importance of reflection in assessment practices--offering powerful examples and strategies for professional development--and by describing appropriate, creative, and effective approaches for communicating assessment information with attention to purpose and audience.

Redesigning Higher Education

1994-11-13
Redesigning Higher Education

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  • Author: Lion F. Gardiner
  • Publisher: Jossey-Bass
  • ISBN:
  • Category : Education
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 244

This monograph reviews empirical studies on various aspects of higher education relating to the effectiveness of instruction in regard to four areas: curriculum, instruction, campus psychological climate, and academic advising. After an introduction, the first section describes the development of critical skills, how these skills develop, and the conditions believed necessary to produce them. The following four sections examine the four core areas central to student development and the contribution research suggests they now make to the development: (1) curriculum (methods, the intellectual climate of the classroom, students' involvement, effects of the curriculum); (2) instruction (classroom tests and grades); (3) the campus climate (integration into the campus community, commuter and part-time students, students involvement with faculty, and minority group members); and (4) academic advising (developmental advising, the necessity for training in advising, and evaluation, recognition, and reward of advising). The next three sections describe opportunities for dramatic gains in students' learning, examining evidence about the relative capacity of students to learn at a very high level; describing seven specific changes which can improve students' learning, and addressing issues of leadership, management, and professional development. The final section presents a vision and a challenge to develop a new kind of community on campus. (Contains approximately 650 references.) (DB).