Collaborative Assessment: A Strategy to Relate, Reflect, and React

1. 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

2. Session Outcomes What do you hope to learn today? • 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.

3. 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?

4. A Culture of Evidence Defining a Evidence Institutional Commitment Stakeholder Involvement Culture of Evidence Focus on Student Success Continuous Process Cumulative & Collaborative “Closing the Loop”

5. A Culture of Evidence Characteristics of Good Evidence • Relevant • Verifiable • Representative • Cumulative • Actionable • Collaborative!

6. 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.

7. A Culture of Evidence Student Learning Interconnectedness of Student Learning Learning Reconsidered, 2004 INTEGRATED OUTCOMES Construction of knowledge Construction of meaning Construction of self in society Social Context Academic Context Institutional Context STUDENT Behavior Meaning Making Cognition/Emotion

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. A Culture of Evidence Defining a Evidence Institutional Commitment Stakeholder Involvement Culture of Evidence Focus on Student Success Continuous Process Cumulative & Collaborative “Closing the Loop”

11. 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

12. 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

13. Foundational Structure Enrollment 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

14. 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

15. Departmental Assessment Programs • Campus Life • Health Promotions/Prevention Services • Residential Life/Learning Communities

16. A cycle of assessment Adapted from The Center for Assessment and Research Studies at James Madison University.

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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!

20. 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.

21. Questions/Comments Leah Barrett, lbarrett@brockport.edu Matt Barone, mbarone@brockport.edu Josh Fegley, jfegley@brockport.edu Sara Kelly, skelly@brockport.edu

22. 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