General Education: Assessing Our Complex Expectations for Student Learning

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General Education Assessing Our Complex
Expectations for Student Learning

• Presented at the University of Delaware
• General Education Institute
• June 9, 2004
• Peggy Maki, Ph.D.
• PeggyMaki_at_aol.com

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Identify the strategies you use to learn. Recall
something you have recently learned

• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.

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The Complexity of Learning

• Learning is a complex process of
  interpretation-not a linear process
• Learners create meaning as opposed to receive
  meaning
• Knowledge is socially constructed (importance of
  peer-to-peer interaction)
• Knowing What Students Know, 2001, National
  Academy Press

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• People learn differentlyprefer certain ways of
  learning (learning inventories personality,
  instructional preference, social preferences,
  visual, global,
• verbal, sequential, for example)
• Deep learning occurs over timetransference
• Meta-cognitive processes are a significant means
  of reinforcing learning (thinking about ones
  thinking)

Knowing What Students Know, 2001, National
Academy Press
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• Learning involves creating relationships between
  short-term and long-term memory
• Transfer of new knowledge into different contexts
  is important to deepen understanding
• Practice in various contexts creates expertise

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Integrated Learning.
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List Several GE Outcomes You Expect Students to
Demonstrate

• ___________________________________
• ___________________________________
• ___________________________________

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Assessment Foci

• Pedagogy
• Curricular design
• Instructional design
• Educational tools

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Assessment Foci

• Educational experiences
• Students learning histories/styles
• Methods to capture learning--assessment

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Collaborative Questions of Curiosity that Prompt
Assessment

• Who Learns
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

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Specific Questions

• What do you expect your students to know and be
  able to do by the end of their education at your
  institution?
• What do the curricula and other educational
  experiences add up to?
• What do you do in your classes or in your
  programs to promote the kinds of learning or
  development that the institution seeks?

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Questions (cond)

• Which learners benefit from various classroom
  teaching strategies or educational experiences?
• What educational processes are responsible for
  the intended student outcomes the institution
  seeks?
• How can you help students make connections
  between classroom learning and experiences
  outside of the classroom?

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Questions, cond

• What pedagogies/educational experiences develop
  knowledge, abilities, habits of mind, ways of
  knowing/problem solving?
• How are curricula and pedagogy designed to
  develop knowledge, abilities, habits of mind,
  ways of knowing?

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• How do you intentionally build upon what each of
  you teaches or fosters to achieve programmatic
  and institutional objectivescontexts for
  learning?
• What methods of assessment capture desired
  student learning--methods that align with
  pedagogy, content, curricular and instructional
  design?

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Collaboratively Designed Methods to Capture
Learning

• Every assessment is also based on a set of
  beliefs about the kinds of tasks or situations
  that will prompt students to say, do, or create
  something that demonstrates important knowledge
  and skills. The tasks to which students are asked
  to respond on an assessment are not arbitrary.
• National Research Council. Knowing what
  students know The science and design of
  educational assessment . Washington, D.C.
  National Academy Press, 2001, p. 47.

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Collaborative Processes

• Consensus about shared learning outcomes
• maps
• inventories of practice

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Approaches to Learning

• Surface Learning
• Deep Learning

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When Do You Seek Evidence?

• Formativealong the way?
• For example, to ascertain progress
• or development
• Summativeat the end?
• For example, to ascertain mastery level
• of achievement

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Collectively.

• Identify shared expectations for student learning
  (learning outcome statements that describe what
  you expect students to demonstrate or represent
  or produce based on your intentions)
• Design or select methods to assess those
  expectations that align with learning and
  assessment practices

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• Develop criteria and standards of judgment to
  assess student work (scoring rubrics)
• Analyze and interpret students demonstration or
  representation of learning
• Modify, change, or design educational practices
  to improve student learning based on analysis and
  interpretations of results.

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Gather Evidence
Interpret Evidence
Mission/Purposes Learning Outcomes
How well do we achieve our learning outcomes?
Enhance teaching/ learning inform institutional
decision- making, planning, budgeting
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Collectively Interpret Results

• Seek patterns
• Build in institutional level and program level
  discourse (formal and informal times)
• Tell the story that explains the
  resultstriangulate
• Determine what you wish to change, revise, or how
  you want to innovate

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• Implement changes
• Assess to determine efficacy of changes
• Focus on collective effortwhat we do and how we
  do it

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What and how students learn depends to a major
extent on how they think they will be assessed.
John Biggs, Teaching for Quality Learning at
University What The Student Does. Society for
Research into Higher Education Open University
Press, 1999, p. 141.
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Works Cited

• Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for Quality
  Learning at University What The Student Does.
  Great Britain Society for Research into Higher
  Education Open University Press.
• Maki, P. (June, 2004). Assessing for
  Learning Building a Sustainable Commitment
  Across the Institution. Sterling, VA Stylus
  Publishing, LLC, and AAHE.
• National Research Council. (2001). Knowing
  What Students Know The Science and Design of
  Educational Assessment. Washington, D.,C.
  National Academy Press.