This book offers colleges and universities a framework and tools to design an effective and collaborative assessment process appropriate for their culture and institution. It encapsulates the approach that Peggy Maki has refined through hundreds of successful workshops.

She presents extensive examples of processes, strategies and campus practices, as well as key resources, guides, worksheets, and exercises -- to assist all stakeholders in the institution to develop and sustain assessment of student learning as an integral and systematic core institutional process.

This book sets the assessment of learning within the twin contexts of: (1) the level of a program, department, division, or school within an institution; and (2) the level of an institution, based on its mission statement, educational philosophy, and educational objectives. Each chapter explores ways to position assessment within program- and institutional-level processes, decisions, structures, practices, and channels of communication.

Here is a process that any campus can adapt and use to engage all its constituencies -- institutional leaders, faculty, staff, administrators, students and those in governance -- constructively to forge a vision and commitment to action.

is a higher education consultant who specializes in assisting undergraduate and graduate colleges and universities, higher education boards, higher education organizations, and disciplinary organizations integrate assessment of student learning into educational practices, processes and structures. Her work also focuses on assessment within the context of accreditors' expectations for institutional effectiveness. She has served as member of the Board of Contributors of About Campus as well as its Department Editor for Assessment for. She has been a national board member of AAC&U’s VALUE Project (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) and serves annually as a faculty member in AAC& U's national Institutes on General Education and Assessment and Assessment in Engaged Departments; has served as a faculty member in the Carnegie Foundation's Integrated Learning Project; and teaches graduate-level seminars focused on assessment. Currently, she also serves as sole consultant to the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education.

"The book would be a rich resource for assessment committees or university officers charged with assessment duties."--NACADA Journal

"Maki's book offers a systematic approach to assessment that is meant to address the general questions, "How well do we achieve our educational intentions?" and "How well do our students learn?"…I consider this book to be an extremely valuable source for anyone involved in education. Its primary contribution is how it forces us to conceptualize 'assessment' as an integral part of the university system. Learning assessment is meant to be a core institutional process linked to all aspects of university life."--Effective Teaching

Table of Contents

Introduction:

Chapter 1: Developing a Collective Institutional Commitment
A Culture of Inquiry
Dialogue about Teaching and Learning across the Institution
Anatomy of the Collaborative Process
A Shared Commitment: Roles and Responsibilities
A Collaborative Beginning: Principles of Commitment

Anchors for Developing Institutional Principles of Commitment
Meaningful Beginnings
Higher Education’s Ownership

Chapter 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 Verifying Expectations
Maps and Inventories
The Design of Our Work

Appendix A: Meta-sites for Active Learning and Teaching and Learning Inventories

Chapter 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
Situating Students to Take Responsibility

Appendix: Example of Leveled Outcome Statements

Chapter 4: 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
Positions of Inquiry
Issues of Alignment
Properties of a Method: Validity and Reliability
An Inventory of Direct and Indirect Assessment Methods

Appendix: Strategies for Reviewing and Selecting Standardized Instruments

Chapter 5: 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

Chapter 6: Designing a Cycle of Inquiry
A Design for Institutional Learning
Methods of Sampling
Times and Contexts for Collecting Evidence
Scoring
Analysis and Presentation of Results
Collective Interpretation of Analyzed Results
A Narrated Cycle
Beyond a Cycle

Chapter 7: Building a Core Institutional Process of Inquiry over Time
A View of the Whole
Some Representative Structures, Processes, Decisions, and Channels and Forms of Communication
Resources and Support: Human, Financial, Technological
Campus Practices that Manifest an Institutional Commitment
Signs of Maturation