Agility and Relationships to Inspire Assessment for Student Learning
International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education (Berlin, 2024)
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 | 1:30pm | Poster 10
Poster Abstract | Strategic Directions
Fulfilling a university-wide assessment plan for student learning is no small feat. Navigating institutional culture(s), perspectives around the purpose and use of assessment, labor and capacity, and balancing the need for external reporting, while remaining narrowly focused on centering teaching and learning for student success is an iterative process that requires agility and strong relationships. My poster presentation will illuminate on the structuring of university-wide assessment for student learning, centering relationships across-departments for success, assessment as an iterative process, and intentionally embedding support mechanisms throughout the system.
Assessment for student learning opens the door for meaningful engagement into what, how and why learning occurs for all learners; this in turn, informs practice, pedagogy and curricula to better support all students.
Brief Narrative
The University of Wyoming is in the process of implementing a new Institutional Assessment Plan for Student Learning. As we engage in this work together as a campus community we are intentional to consider culture, capacity and relationships along the way.
Below is a visual journey (walking through Berlin) to include selected quotes from literature used in our assessment learning community and that inform, and hopefully reflect, our practice.
Thank you for visiting our poster. - Heather
Heather E. Webb Springer, MA
Associate Director of Assessment
Ellbogen Center for Teaching & Learning | University of Wyoming
hwebb1@uwyo.edu
Meaningful & Manageable Program Assessment
“One such fear that we’ve encountered many times is the fear that assessment is really a way to evaluate the performance of individual faculty.” (Massa & Kasimatis, 2017, p. 141)
Institutional Culture
"The process should be meaningful and impactful." (2017, p. 141)
“The culture should value high-quality teaching.” (Felten & Lambert, 2020, p. 61)
Purpose & Use
“So what could institutional intentionality and grit look like?” (Felten & Lambert, 2020, p. 73)
“When we work to understand and improve student learning outcomes, we are indirectly working to understand and improve achievement of our mission.” (Massa & Kasimatis, 2017, p. 13)
Labor & Capacity
“Assessment involves work. If it is done well, it is work that easily fits within your already numerous responsibilities, all the while helping you to improve teaching and learning in your program.” (2017, p. 43)
Relationships
"Institutional Progress on Assessment" (2010, p. 185-86)
assessment as an iterative process
recognizing the work of assessment
Chapter 12: Engaging Faculty in the Assessment Process at the University of West Florida | Eman M. El-Sheikh, Justice Mbizo, Claudia J. Stanny, George L. Stewart, Melanie A Sutton, Laura J. White, and Michelle Hale Williams, University of West Florida
"To be an advocate for student learning, I think we first have to advocate for both students and learning." (Gannon, 2020, p. 36).
"Monitoring investments in faculty development to support the adoption of engaged and relational pedagogies and curricula." (Felten & Lambert, 2020, p. 74).
“We might conclude that key to authenticity is the idea of responsiveness, which includes attempting to listen to and know the individual, fully attending and engaging with the individual and also developing trust.” (Gravett, 2023, p. 64)
Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto
"What's really valued here, learning or endurance?" (Gannon, 2020, p. 33)
Assessment as an Iterative Process
"Assessment as teaching. I became passionate about assessment as a transformational means of pedagogy capable of improving teaching and learning." (Matthews, Chapter 6: How it Took a Whole Village, 2010, p. 93)
Support
"Understanding the diverse and evolving experiences of students as individual people beyond the discourses of satisfaction, measurement and marketization has become imperative." (Gravett, 2023, p. 27)
"The idea that we might always be evolving, always learning, does not mean that we should not also experience joy within the moment." (2023, p. 111)
Notes to Share
Structure: The Assessment Team at the Univeristy of Wyoming is part of our Center for Teaching and Learning (Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning, ECTL). ECTL is a department within Academic Affairs on campus.
The Assessment Team: The Assessment Team is comprised of four staff members, 1. Associate Director of Assessment, 2. Assistant Director of ECTL (responsible for ECTL data and impact), 3. Assessment/Scholarship fo Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Specialist, 4. Assessment Data Analyst (responsible for General Education Assessment).
Committees: From our Assessment Team we chair three main campus-committees related to assessment, 1. University Assessment Coordinators, 2. HLC Assessment Academy Team, 3. Institutional Assessment Plan Working Group. As part of General Education Assessment, we also participate in the General Education Committee and the Next Generation General Education Committee.
Development: We utilize additional funding as allocated per fiscal year to support educational and professional development opportunities related to assessment and SoTL. We utilize these funds to support our staff as well as faculty, instructors and staff outside the ECTL. Development expenditures can include attendance at national and international conferences, seminars and online webinars, learning communities, and assessment literature, for example.
References
Assessment by Design: A Practical Approach to Improving Student Learning, Sheri H. Barrett, 2023, Routledge (Stylus Publishing, LLC).
Assessment Clear & Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education (2nd ed.), Barbara E. Walvoord, 2010, Jossey-Bass.
Coming to Terms with Student Learning Outcomes Assessment: Faculty and Administrators’ Journeys to Integrating Assessment in Their Work and Institutional Culture, Edited by Peggy L. Maki, 2010, Chapter 6 and Chapter 12, Routledge.
Meaningful & Manageable Program Assessment: A How-To Guide for Higher Education Faculty, Massa & Kasimatis, 2017, Routledge.
Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto, Gannon, K. M. 2020, Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, ISBN 978-1-9491-9951-2.
Relational Pedagogies: Connections and Mattering in Higher Education, Karen Gravett, 2023, Bloomsbury Academic (London, Great Britain).
Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College. Felten, Peter, and Leo Lambert, 2020, Johns Hopkins University Press.