Using Evidence Of Student Learning To Improve Higher Education

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.

This book is a step-by-step guide for improving student learning in higher education. The authors argue that a fundamental obstacle to improvement is that higher educators, administrators, and assessment professionals do not know how to improve student learning at scale. By this they mean improvement efforts that span an entire program, affecting all affiliated students. The authors found that faculty and administrators particularly struggle to conceptualize and implement multi-section, multi-course improvement efforts. It is unsurprising that ambitious, wide-reaching improvement efforts like these would pose difficulty in their organization and implementation. This is precisely the problem the authors address. The book provides practical strategies for learning improvement, enabling faculty to collaborate, and integrating leadership, social dynamics, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and faculty development. In Chapter 2, the authors tell a program-level improvement story from the perspective of a faculty member. Chapter 3 inverts Chapter 2. Beginning from the re-assess stage, the authors work their way back to the individual faculty member first pondering whether she can do something to impact students’ skills. They peel back each layer of the process and imagine how learning improvement efforts might be thwarted at each stage. Chapters 4 through 9 dig deeper into the learning improvement steps introduced in Chapters 2 and 3. Each chapter provides strategies to help higher educators climb each step successfully. Chapter 10 paints a picture of what higher education could look like in 2041 if learning improvement were embraced. And, finally, Chapter 11 describes what you can do to support the movement.

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.

Universities are increasingly being required to pay greater attention to improving teaching and enhancing student learning. This text will assist universities and colleges to achieve these goals by establishing an approach to institutional change which is well-founded on both research and practical experience.

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.

The book makes an important contribution to the discourse on student experience in higher education. The book includes chapters that cover important aspects of the 21st century student experience. Chapters cover issues such as: new trends and insights on the student experience; the changing profile of students in higher education and performance measures used to assess the quality of student experience, institutional approaches in engaging students, using student voice to improve the quality of teaching, COVID-19 and its impact on international students, innovative partnerships between students and academic staff, student feedback and raising academic standards, the increased use of qualitative data in gaining insights into student experience, the use of innovative learning spaces and technology to enhance the learning experience, and the potentially disrupting nature of student feedback and its impact on the health and wellbeing of academic staff, and the increased use of social media reviews by students.

A survey of exemplary SoTL research projects and the use of their results on a broader scale. When the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) emerged, it often concentrated on individual faculty practice in one classroom; it is now, however, increasingly common to find work in SoTL focused more broadly. SoTL studies may engage with a cluster of courses, a program, a particular population of students, a pedagogical approach, or a field—all of which are represented in the essays collected here by authors from a diverse array of institutions and nations. This volume features examples of SoTL research conducted in, and applied to, a variety of contexts and disciplines, offering a theoretical framework for an expanded vision of SoTL—one that moves beyond the individual classroom.

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