Assessing for Learning

Acknowledgements Preface to the Second Edition 1. Developing a Collective Institutional Commitment A Culture of Inquiry; Dialogue about Teaching and Learning across the Institution; Anatomy of the Collaborative Process; Viewing the Process at Work; Planning the Assessment Process Backwards; Who Are Your Students?; What Do You Want to Learn about Your Students' Learning and When Do You Want to Learn?; Principles of an Inclusive Commitment; Identifying Anchors; Accountability; The International Context. The Bologna Process; The Science of Learning; The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; Disciplinary and Professional Organizations' Focus on Student Learning; Institutional Focus on Learning-Centeredness; Institutional Focus on Becoming a Learning Organization; Roles and Responsibilities across the Institution; Faculty, Administrators, Staff, Students and Other Contributors to Student Learning; An Institution's Principles of Commitment Statement; Higher Education's Ownership 2. Beginning with Dialogue about Teaching and Learning The Continuum of Learning. Beyond an Aggregation of Courses, Credits, and Seat Time; A Focus on Integration; Coordinating Committees; Dialogue Focused on Expectations for Learning; Dialogue Focused on the Design of the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum; Maps and Inventories of Educational Practices; The Design of Our Work 3. Making Claims about Student Learning within Contexts for Learning Learning Outcome Statements; Levels of Learning Outcome Statements; Collaboration to Develop and Review Outcome Statements; Strategies for Developing Outcome Statements; Development of Outcomes-based Syllabi to Promote Enduring Learning; Students' Accountability for Learning 4. Raising and Pursuing Open-Ended Research or Study Questions to Deepen Inquiry Into and Improve Student Learning Beyond the Accountability Fixation; A Problem-Based Approach to Assessing Student Learning; Case 1. Making the Invisible Visible in Physics; Case 2. Shifting to A New Paradigm; Case 3. Changing Multiple Practices; Case 4. Changing Pedagogy to Address Levels of and Obstacles to Learning; The Seeds of a Problem-Based Approach to Assessment; A Scholarly Problem-based Approach to Assessment; Collaborative Tasks in a Problem-Based Assessment Process; Flexible Approaches to the Problem-Based Assessment Process; Three Representative Technology-focused Dissemination Projects; Educators as Lifelong Learners about Their Educational Practices 5. Identifying or Designing Tasks to Assess the Dimensions of Learning The Range of Texts That Demonstrate or Represent Learning; Multiple Methods of Assessment; Direct and Indirect Methods of Assessment; Methods along the Continuum of Learning. Formative and Summative; Points of Learning; Issues of Alignment; Properties of a Method. Validity and Reliability; An Overview of Standardized Instruments and Locally Designed Authentic, Performance-based Methods; An Overview of Technology-enabled Direct and Indirect Assessment Methods; Appendix A. Strategies for Reviewing and Selecting Standardized Instruments; Appendix B. Institutional Example. Goddard College; Appendix C. Goddard College; Appendix D. An Inventory of Traditional and Technology-enabled Direct and Indirect Methods 6. Reaching Consensus about Criteria and Standards of Judgment Interpretation of Student Achievement; Scoring Rubrics; Strategies to Develop Scoring Rubrics; Strategies to Assure Inter-relater Reliability; Threaded Opportunities for Institutional and Student Learning; Appendices. Sample Scoring Rubrics 7. Designing a Cycle of Inquiry A Design for Institutional Learning; Some Key Institutional Contributors; Key Decisions. Determining Your Sample Size, Identifying Times and Contexts for Collecting Evidence, Scoring Student Work and Administering Instruments, Analyzing and Representing Results, Collectively Interpreting Results and Making Decisions, Re-entering the Assessment Cycle; A Narrated Cycle; Development of an Ongoing Commitment; Appendix A. Institutional Example. University of Maryland; Appendix B. Program Assessment Form 8. Building a Core Institutional Process of Inquiry over Time A View of the Whole; Some Representative Structures, Processes, Decisions, Channels and Forms of Communication; Assessment Committees; Offices of Institutional Research and Planning; Processes and Decisions; Channels and Forms of Communication; Resources and Support. Human, Financial, and Educational; Resources and Support. Technological; Locally Designed Assessment Management Systems; Some Representative Commercially Designed Assessment Management Systems; Campus Practices that Manifest an Institutional Commitment; Signs of Maturation; Appendix A. Institutional Example. University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Appendix B. Descriptions of Some Representative Commercially Designed Assessment Management Systems; Appendix C. Consent Form