Student Learning Services
The Office of Institutional Effectiveness offers student learning-related workshops throughout the year and, as needed, departmental, unit, and/or individual consultations for faculty, staff, and administrators across the campus. Workshops are listed on the OIE calendar, and participants must register at training.lsu.edu; or to schedule a consultation, please contact Dr. Tara Rose, Director of Assessment. Workshop and consultation topics are listed below, along with additional student learning assessment resources and best practices.
Workshop & Consultation Topics
Applying the Backwards Design Framework
Applying the Backwards Design Framework provides beginner level material needed to design your courses/programs. Participants will be introduced to three stages of backwards design: (1) identifying the desired results; (2) determining acceptable evidences of learning; and (3) designing the learning experience.
Assignment Design (By Request)
Assignments are powerful teaching tools; this workshop will bring faculty together for collegial exchange and knowledge building. Faculty are asked to bring an assignment with them to the workshop. The assignment might be a draft assignment they are currently working on, one that has worked well but may be in need of a refresh, or one that has not worked as well as they had hoped. Finally, the assignment should be one in which the student is asked to demonstrate either critical thinking, quantitative literacy, written communication, or integrative learning. At the end of the workshop faculty will leave with a revised assignment that aligns to one of the outcomes above and the corresponding VALUE Rubric.
Building Rubrics
If you love chocolate and learning, this workshop is for you. Building rubrics will provide participants with the basic elements of an academic rubric, while brainstorming the essential components of the world’s best chocolate chip cookie!
Creating Assessment Plans
Creating assessment plans provides a quick overview of the essential parts needed to complete your program’s plan: mission statement, student learning outcomes, curriculum map, and direct and indirect methods. At the end of the workshop faculty will leave with an assessment plan that can be uploaded into Taskstream.
Creating an ‘exceeds expectations’ SLAR (coming this Spring)
When entering your SLAR in the taskstream, you want to give the reader an understanding of how you completed the program assessment, why you chose the methods that you used, what the data/results mean, and the ways in which you plan to use the data to improve your program. It should be short enough to be read in one-setting, but comprehensive enough to give the reader all the necessary information. If your program is interested in exceeding expectations on the next SLAR, we encourage you to attend this workshop.
Creating a Quality Program Impact Report
The Program Impact Report (PIR) is a new requirement for all degree programs and stand-alone certificates. Although the PIR is only submitted every few years, the initial submission is due November 15, 2019. This session will walk participants through the PIR and take into consideration Suskie’s five dimensions of quality. Please bring copies the programs past three years of student learning assessment reports (2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19).
Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum mapping is a visual depiction of your SLOs mapped to your curriculum. It provides clarity on exactly where the outcomes are being addressed in the curriculum. It also allows you to consider where the logical assessment points are throughout the curriculum. Curriculum mapping is often viewed as a heinous task by faculty, however creating a curriculum map is not only necessary to program assessment, it can also promote unity and collaboration in the program. Participants will be introduced to mapping concepts and the purpose and use of maps so they can immediately begin drafting their program’s curriculum map. A friendly tip – before creating a curriculum map be sure to have a list of all required courses and student learning outcomes from your program.
Developing Student Learning Outcomes
A student learning outcome is a type of program outcome that describes the intended learning outcomes that students must meet on the way to attaining a particular degree, certificate, or diploma. Participants will be introduced to writing effective Specific Measurable Attainable but aggressive Results-oriented Time-bound (SMART) outcomes and using Bloom’s taxonomy.
Foundation and Fundamentals of Student Learning Assessment
Foundation and Fundamentals of Student Learning Assessment provides beginner level material needed to jump-start your institutions commitment to continuous improvement. Participants will be introduced to the assessment process, blooms taxonomy, curriculum mapping, direct and indirect methods, and rubrics.
Integrative Learning Core Work Sessions
The Integrative Learning Core Planning Sessions are for faculty currently teaching a general education course that plan to submit their course as an ILC course in the Fall 2019/Spring 2020 academic year. This session will walk faculty through the ILC submission process, including the review of materials to support the transition, as well as highlighting frequently asked questions. Computers will be available for participants to navigate the proposal form or to navigate through the ILC website. Faculty are encouraged to come prepared before attending this session. For those ready to submit your proposal, it is recommended that all documents be available via your email, this way you can cut/paste or attach documents as needed to the proposal form. For faculty not quite ready to submit but are still interested in learning more about the process, we will walk through the proposal form live in Qualtrics.
Rubric Development for Assessment
The Rubric Development workshop focuses on the process of developing appropriate rubrics for scoring student artifacts. Rubrics are valuable tools in assessing student learning as they help make grading consistent and fair, clarify expectations for both students and faculty, and help identify areas of improvement for the program. Participants will learn to construct holistic and analytic rubrics.
Student Learning Assessment Planning
Assessment planning provides a quick overview of the essential parts needed to complete your program’s plan: mission statement, student learning (SMART) outcomes, curriculum map, and direct and indirect methods. At the end of the workshop faculty will leave with an assessment plan that can be uploaded into Taskstream.
Taskstream 101
The Taskstream 101 training will follow an open-ended format and will focus on addressing participants’ questions related to strategic planning and student learning assessment reporting. Participants are thus invited to ask questions relating to any challenges encountered using the software. Computers will be available for participants to navigate the system.
Using evidence to improve learning (coming this Spring)
Does the evidence you are collecting address student learning issues appropriate to the program/unit? Does the evidence you are collecting tell you something about how well the program/unit is accomplishing its mission and outcomes? The questions you have about student learning should guide the decision of evidence collected and identify gaps where a new type of evidence might be needed. The using evidence to improve learning workshop will provide an opportunity for attendees to discuss the appropriateness of evidence collected, how using multiple measures and integrating student learning data with institutional data can help tell your program/unit story, and discuss common barriers often found when collecting evidence for student learning assessment purposes.
Activities Focusing on Good Assessment Practices
- Creating a program level assessment plan
- Designing assignments to match learning outcomes
- Designing rubrics for program-level assessment
- Designing rubrics, tests, or other assessment tools for course-level assessment
- Developing course-level and/or program–level learning outcomes
- Mapping course-level activities/assignments to the course’s learning outcomes
- Mapping course-level outcomes to program-level outcomes
- Using results to improve teaching and learning in the course and the program
Additional Student Learning Assessment Resources
Assessment Commons
Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE)
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA)
Curriculum Mapping