ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT UPDATE
As the semester draws to a close, IAA wants to wish all of you a happy holiday season! In our final Academic Assessment Update of 2021, we celebrate an IAA authored article in a national assessment publication, provide a status update on our annual peer-review of academic program and general education student learning outcome assessment documents, share some details about the work of our student outcomes SACSCOC compliance certification team, highlight the comprehensive action plans developed by the MA Spanish program, and announce the launch of the Learning Improvement Lab.
IAA Data Visualization Strategies Featured in National Assessment Publication
Our IAA academic assessment team is pleased to announce the publication of an article featuring our work in Assessment in Practice, a publication of the National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment geared towards providing meaningful examples from the field for assessment practitioners. The article "Data Pathways: Innovative Approaches to Visualizing Assessment Results," features data visualization strategies developed to illustrate the meta-data compiled through our annual peer-review of assessment documents and highlights the insights that can be gained through analysis of assessment processes at an institutional level.

Congratulations to Brad Sturz, Jaime O'Connor, and Delena Bell Gatch for this accomplishment!
Peer-review of Assessment Documents -
Status Update
An important part of the annual academic assessment cycle for both academic programs and core courses is the peer-review process by which faculty provide feedback on the assessment processes used to measure student learning and drive learning improvement. Following the submission of academic program and general education student learning outcome assessment documents on October 1st, IAA conducted an initial quality check of all submitted documents before facilitating the peer-review process by the Academic Assessment Steering Committee (AASC) and the General Education and Core Curriculum (GECC) Committee.

The GECC initiated their review of 91 general education student learning outcome assessment documents in early October. Each document is reviewed by two committee members independently. Following the individual review, the two raters meet to compare scores and comments to reconcile any discrepancies and produce a unified feedback document which will be shared with the core course coordinator, department chair, associate dean, and dean.

The AASC follows a similar process for all academic program student learning outcome assessment documents. With 145 documents to review for the 2020-2021 academic year, the membership of the AASC was expanded to 44 members, and rubric calibration training for all members -- both new and returning -- was conducted through a course in Folio to ensure timely and consistent scoring and feedback on assessment documents. Review of academic program assessment documents by the trained committee members began in early November.
Student Outcomes SACSCOC Compliance Team Update
IAA hosted the kick-off of the SACSCOC Reaffirmation of Accreditation on September 15, 2021 with an overview of the fourteen standards of accreditation and the extensive preparation process that will take place over the next three years, leading to the submission of our compliance certification document prior to off-site and on-site review. As part of this kick-off, compliance certification teams were established and assigned to specific standards to begin an initial audit for compliance.

The Student Outcomes Compliance Certification Team is assigned to two standards that define SACSCOC requirements for assessment: Standard 8.2.b Student Outcomes: Educational Programs and Standard 8.2.b Student Outcomes: General Education. A team of faculty and staff have spent the past three months comparing current institutional policies and procedures against these standards and will report out at the next Compliance Certification Team meeting in February.
Excellence in Academic Program Assessment:
MA Spanish
Developing an action plan based on assessment results requires careful reflection on and interpretation of assessment data. Implementing that action plan requires genuine collaboration and shared responsibility among program faculty and department leadership, with a common goal of improving student learning.

The MA Spanish program submitted a 2019-2020 academic program assessment document based on a two-year reporting cycle. The two-year reporting cycle is granted by recommendation of the AASC for those programs who show a strong commitment to assessment and who have demonstrated an established and sustainable assessment process over consecutive years. Programs on the two-year cycle must maintain their assessment process in each year and summarize the process, results, and action plans for both years in a single report at the conclusion of the two-year cycle.

As part of this two-year cycle, the MA Spanish had proposed action plans for each of their program student learning outcomes that focused on specific learning activities and engagement across graduate courses. In the second year of the two-year cycle, the program proposed and created additional learning supports for students in the form of documents and rubrics that were shared early in the program to help prepare students for the expectations of oral and written presentations and exams aligned with specific program student learning outcomes.

Following the implementation of these action plans, the program again reflected on assessment results and identified where students met or fell below intended targets for each program SLO. Based on this analysis, the program identified some strategies to continue from the previous action plan, as well as some new strategies to adopt to further reinforce student learning. In the action plan, some items are indicated to be the responsibility of the program director, while others are shared by all faculty, and some are assigned to faculty teaching specific courses. In addition, the program intends to examine the target level of proficiency specified by program SLOs compared to professional standards set by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), a leading professional organization, to make adjustments to curriculum or assessment measures as necessary.

The action plan for future improvements shows thoughtful consideration of previous steps taken as well as additional opportunities for improvement in response to assessment results within the context of disciplinary standards. It shows evidence of collaboration among faculty and program leadership to arrive at practical and manageable steps to help students succeed and meet meaningful learning targets. 
From the Assessment Coordinator
Here we are at the end of another semester! During finals week, I can’t help but remember the chaotic rush of wrapping up classes, fueled by caffeine and visions of sleep. Part of that frenzy was submitting final grades and reflecting on the triumphs and disappointments that define the human experience we call teaching and learning. There was always the student who I knew could have gotten a higher grade if only they hadn’t slacked off on the final assignment, or the student who skated through the class with a decent grade but missed out on genuine learning because of lack of engagement. But then, there were also those shining star students who accidentally happened upon a passion for the subject and excelled out of sheer curiosity and interest. At the end of it all, I always wondered what I could have done to help each of these students to learn more in my class, and I ended each semester thinking ahead about what I could do to benefit the next group of students.

Ultimately, that is the purpose of assessment, and how I ended up doing the kind of work that I do today. At the core of really good assessment is a desire to improve learning. All of the learning outcome wordsmithing, assignment design, rubric calibration, test blueprint development, and data collection is part of unraveling the underlying alchemy of learning for a specific group of students in a specific context at a specific point in time. We, as educators, try to use the insights gained from assessment to generate more conducive learning circumstances to help students achieve more in the future. These are the kinds of stories we highlight in our Excellence in Assessment features in the Academic Assessment Update – stories of academic programs and core courses who closely examine the results of their assessment processes to strategically plan for improvements to teaching and curriculum with the goal of improving student learning.  

This is why IAA is pleased to launch a new service for our faculty, the Learning Improvement Lab, starting in Spring 2022. The Learning Improvement Lab will offer resources, courses, workshops, and other collaborative opportunities focused on using assessment to improve student learning. We hope you’ll register for our flagship course in the Spring and join us as we continue to pursue all that is best in teaching and learning.

Onwards and upwards!

Jaime
Register for the Learning Improvement Lab
The Learning Improvement Lab is pleased to announce the launch of its flagship course in Spring 2022!

This introductory 16 week asynchronous course will be facilitated over 8 two-week modules through Folio. Each module includes:

  • A written lecture on a specific stage of the assessment process
  • Short videos on assessment best practice topics
  • Additional resources, worksheets, and checklists
  • An opportunity to submit drafts of assessment document sections for review/feedback by IAA staff
  • A quiz to test understanding of assessment concepts
  • An optional Zoom discussion session to review module content and ask additional questions

This course is ideal for those new to assessment or those who are hoping to get a head start on their 2021-2022 assessment documents following a step-by-step process with opportunities for feedback at each stage. Click here for a detailed course outline.
Call for Panelists: Student Engagement in Assessment

The Learning Improvement Lab is making a call for panelists to present as part of a discussion on Student Engagement in Assessment.

Students are an often overlooked group of stakeholders in academic assessment processes, yet they are arguably the group that stand to benefit the most from accurate interpretation and effective application of assessment results.

If you have worked with students or alumni on any of the following assessment-related activities, please click the button below to share your experiences:

  • Developing/reviewing student learning outcomes
  • Developing/reviewing assignments
  • Developing/reviewing rubrics
  • Developing/reviewing multiple-choice tests
  • Reviewing/interpreting assessment results
  • Developing action plans based on assessment data
Institutional Assessment and Accreditation (IAA) works collaboratively with faculty, staff, and administration to ensure the quality of the programs and educational experiences offered by the university, addressing the unique assessment needs of courses, departments, colleges, or units through individual and group consultations, professional development workshops, recommendations for technology implementation, and best practice reference materials.