Collaborative Assessment:

A Strategy to Relate, Reflect, and React

Leah Barrett, Assistant Vice President, Student Affairs Matt Barone, Assistant Director, Campus Life

Josh Fegley, Assistant Director, Health Promotion & Prevention Services

Sara Kelly, Assistant Director, Residential Life/Learning Communities

Session Outcomes

Participants will identify elements that contribute to the development and maintenance of a collaborative “culture of assessment.”

Participants will describe a model for “mapping” student learning within individual departments and throughout a division, including the development of a divisional assessment team.

Participants will describe the cycle of assessment and how results are used to enhance student learning and development.

What do you hope to learn today?

A Culture of Evidence Defining a Culture of Evidence

“A culture wherein indicators of performance are regularly developed and data collected to inform decision-making, planning, and

improvement.”

National Higher Education Benchmarking Institute

How do you know you are working within a Culture

of Evidence?

A Culture of Evidence Defining a Evidence

Institutional Commitmen

t

Continuous Process

“Closing the Loop”

Focus on Student Success

Stakeholder Involvement

Cumulative &

Collaborative

Culture of

Evidence

A Culture of Evidence Characteristics of Good Evidence

• Relevant• Verifiable• Representative • Cumulative• Actionable • Collaborative!

A Culture of Evidence Principles of Good Assessment (Astin &

Banta)

• The assessment of student learning begins with educational values

• Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and occurring over time.

A Culture of Evidence Student Learning

Social Context

Academic Context

Institutional Context

STUDENTBehavior Meaning Making

Cognition/Emotion

INTEGRATED OUTCOMESConstruction of

knowledgeConstruction of meaning

Construction of self in society

Interconnectedness of Student LearningLearning Reconsidered, 2004

A Culture of Evidence Principles of Good Assessment (Astin &

Banta)

Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clearly stated purposes.

Assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes.

Assessment works best when it is ongoing, not episodic.

A Culture of Evidence Principles of Good Assessment (Astin &

Banta)

Assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved.

Assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about.

Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change.

Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public.

A Culture of Evidence Defining a Evidence

Institutional Commitmen

t

Continuous Process

“Closing the Loop”

Focus on Student Success

Stakeholder Involvement

Cumulative &

Collaborative

Culture of

Evidence

Brockport’s Assessment Revolution

• 2007

– VPSA – What are we doing with assessment?• 2009

– First Workshop on SLOs– 1st version of EAT– Learning Reconsidered

• 2010 - 2012

– 2nd version of EAT & Steering Committee

Creating Buy-In

• Leadership from the top• Attend national conferences– NASPA Assessment & Persistence

Conference– Assessment Institute

• Read, attend workshops, discuss & repeat

• Involvement by each department• Accountability – performance planning

Foundational StructureEnrollment Management & Student Affairs Assessment

Team – Guiding literature

• Learning Reconsidered• Assessment Reconsidered • Student Success in College by Kuh • Various scholarly articles

– Structure & Functions• Professional Development & Training• Outreach • Marketing & Communication• Data Analysis • TK20

Engaging Every Department

• Positively persistent approach to meaningful, inclusive assessment•A journey, not a destination•Programmatic and learning outcomes process •Improvement oriented approach•EMSA Assessment Website•Strategic plan example•Learning outcomes for different departments and programs•Briefing Book •Closing the loop•Professional development schedule

Departmental Assessment Programs

• Campus Life• Health Promotions/Prevention

Services• Residential Life/Learning

Communities

A cycle of assessment

Adapted from The Center for Assessment and Research Studies at James Madison University.

Reflect and React

• What: Explain the outcomes of the program and the ways in which you collected the data.

• So What: Discuss results with your team to determine what the data is telling you.

• Now What: Explain how you will use this information in the future.

• Closing the Loop Documents

Lessons Learned & Accomplishments

• EAT Website• Training and development is continuous• Programmatic learning outcomes• Departmental learning outcomes• Trained students in focus group facilitation• Shared data across the division• Administered more surveys, documented more

observations, analyzed more results• Stopped using some survey tools• Closing the loop documents• Middle States Accreditation • Proposals for conferences…telling our story

Discussion

• Where are you in your process?• What challenges exist?• Who is involved in your

program/assessment processes for your division/department?

• What assessment tools do you use?• How do you use and share assessment

data? • Anything you’d like to discuss!

Wicked Awesome Ideas!

• How will what you have learned during this session contribute to your personal development, professional development, or both?

• As a result of your attendance at this educational session, what question(s) do you have that is important for the profession to further examine?

• Please identify one “wicked awesome idea” that you will take with you and try to implement immediately in your jobs or to further discuss with colleagues at your home institution.

Questions/Comments

Leah Barrett, lbarrett@brockport.eduMatt Barone, mbarone@brockport.edu

Josh Fegley, jfegley@brockport.eduSara Kelly, skelly@brockport.edu

Upcoming Opportunities

• Western New York Enrollment Management & Student Affairs Assessment Consortium, June 18th at Rochester Institute of Technology

• NASPA Assessment & Persistence Conference, June 7-9 in Tampa

• Assessment Institute in Indianapolis October 28 - 30, 2012