Assessing Student Learning

"How might we might help teachers use classroom assessments to gather appropriate evidence for all valued learning goals? How might our classroom assessments serve to promote learning, not just measure it? This book addresses these questions by offering a practical and proven Assessment Planning Framework. The Framework examines four different types of learning goals, considers various purposes and audiences for assessment, reviews five categories of assessment methods, and presents options for communicating results. This updated edition addresses the assessment of academic standards as well as transdisciplinary outcomes (e.g., 21st century skills), and describes the principles and practices underlying standards-based grading"--

The first edition of Assessing Student Learning has become the standard reference for college faculty and administrators who are charged with the task of assessing student learning within their institutions. The second edition of this landmark book offers the same practical guidance and is designed to meet ever-increasing demands for improvement and accountability. This edition includes expanded coverage of vital assessment topics such as promoting an assessment culture, characteristics of good assessment, audiences for assessment, organizing and coordinating assessment, assessing attitudes and values, setting benchmarks and standards, and using results to inform and improve teaching, learning, planning, and decision making.

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.

How can we help teachers use classroom assessments to gather appropriate evidence for all valued learning goals, and to use those assessments not just to measure learning but to promote it? This book provides an answer in a practical, proven, and principled Assessment Planning Framework that moves away from solely multiple-choice tests toward a wide range of approaches to classroom assessment activities, including performance-based assessments. The Framework examines four different types of learning goals, considers various purposes and audiences for assessment information, reviews five categories of classroom assessment methods, and presents options for communicating actionable results. To the authors, the primary purpose of classroom assessment is to inform teaching and learning, rather than simply to assign grades. This concise resource will be a reliable go-to reference for teachers, school leaders, mentors, and coaches in guiding classroom assessment practices and understanding their underlying principles. Book Features: Builds on the classic book Understanding by Design, written by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.Offers a practical, nontechnical presentation appropriate for teacher preparation and busy practitioners (K–16).Explores different purposes for, and methods of, classroom assessment and grading.Addresses assessment of academic standards as well as transdisciplinary outcomes, such as 21st-century skills.Describes the principles and practices underlying standards-based grading.

This book documents the importance of assessing student learning, and provides student affairs professionals with specific techniques, ideas, and examples for assessing student learning and development in academic and student support services.

This book examines important advances and offers a realistic image of the state of the art in student learning outcomes assessment in higher education—a field close to the core of nearly every higher education institution. Producing sound information on what students know and can do is critical to higher education practitioners and future social prosperity. Spanning international, national and institutional developments, the book presents methodological and empirical insights, highlights research challenges, and showcases the enormous progress made in recent years. The book will be of interest to researchers in education assessment and neighbouring fields, and stakeholders like institutional leaders, teachers and graduate employers looking for better insight on returns, governments searching for information to assist with funding and regulation, and members of the public wanting more clarity about outcomes and public investment. This book was originally published as a special issue of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.

While there is consensus that institutions need to represent their educational effectiveness through documentation of student learning, the higher education community is divided between those who support national standardized tests to compare institutions’ educational effectiveness, and those who believe that valid assessment of student achievement is based on assessing the work that students produce along and at the end of their educational journeys. This book espouses the latter philosophy—what Peggy Maki sees as an integrated and authentic approach to providing evidence of student learning based on the work that students produce along the chronology of their learning. She believes that assessment needs to be humanized, as opposed to standardized, to take into account the demographics of institutions, as students do not all start at the same place in their learning. Students also need the tools to assess their own progress. In addition to updating and expanding the contents of her first edition to reflect changes in assessment practices and developments over the last seven years, such as the development of technology-enabled assessment methods and the national need for institutions to demonstrate that they are using results to improve student learning, Maki focuses on ways to deepen program and institution-level assessment within the context of collective inquiry about student learning. Recognizing that assessment is not initially a linear start-up process or even necessarily sequential, and recognizing that institutions develop processes appropriate for their mission and culture, this book does not take a prescriptive or formulaic approach to building this commitment. What it does present is a framework, with examples of processes and strategies, to assist faculty, staff, administrators, and campus leaders to develop a sustainable and shared core institutional process that deepens inquiry into what and how students learn to identify and improve patterns of weakness that inhibit learning. This book is designed to assist colleges and universities build a sustainable commitment to assessing student learning at both the institution and program levels. It provides the tools for collective inquiry among faculty, staff, administrators and students to develop evidence of students’ abilities to integrate, apply and transfer learning, as well as to construct their own meaning. Each chapter also concludes with (1) an Additional Resources section that includes references to meta-sites with further resources, so users can pursue particular issues in greater depth and detail and (2) worksheets, guides, and exercises designed to build collaborative ownership of assessment.The second edition now covers: * Strategies to connect students to an institution’s or a program’s assessment commitment* Description of the components of a comprehensive institutional commitment that engages the institution, educators, and students--all as learners* Expanded coverage of direct and indirect assessment methods, including technology-enabled methods that engage students in the process* New case studies and campus examples covering undergraduate, graduate education, and the co-curriculum* New chapter with case studies that presents a framework for a backward designed problem-based assessment process, anchored in answering open-ended research or study questions that lead to improving pedagogy and educational practices* Integration of developments across professional, scholarly, and accrediting bodies, and disciplinary organizations* Descriptions and illustrations of assessment management systems* Additional examples, exercises, guides and worksheets that align with new content