18 Overview: Assessment across modalities
Assessments across modalities
The strategies that are laid out at Century to improve teaching and learning through academic program assessment and the use of data for continuous improvement are multifaceted. The following notes are narrations on the workflows or inputs that can strengthen the already existing assessment activities at Century.
- Assessment of Student Learning (AofSL)
Chaired by two co-leads, the AoSL taskforce plans and implements the assessment of student learning for institutional-level learning outcomes. AofSL results are also disaggregated by modality.
In addressing the two forked purposes of assessment, i.e., 1. improvement and 2. accountability, the transparency framework approach from the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) can set the tone. Kuhn et al., (2015) cited in the book “Trends in Assessment”1 indicates that the Transparency Framework2 serves to guide the institutions’ examination of “whether evidence of student accomplishment is readily accessible and potentially useful to intended audiences”. The following are the components of the framework:
- Student learning outcomes statements
- Assessment plans
- Assessment resources
- Current assessment activities
- Evidence of student learning
- Use of student learning evidence
Century has placed all the groundwork for meeting the transparency framework. The assessment resources include the identified student learning outcomes through AASC in the curriculum, assessment coordination using the assessment of student learning taskforce with Divisional Assessment Leads (DALs), the reporting site (planning Alignment tool), and the adoption of D2L Brightspace for artifact and evidence generation are some of great foundational work for academic assessment. The online Teaching & Learning mentor’s instructional guidance combined with the institutional effectiveness reports on data aggregations and the Center for professional development & Collaboration (CPDC)’s initiatives on the Data Wise approach and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) strengthens and compliments the specific academic assessment strategies for accreditation reviews to promote program effectiveness and quality endeavors.
1. Improvement using Intentional Assessment
Intentional assessment helps to describe options for using assessment data to demonstrate learning across different modalities. As Faris, K., (2019) recommends, it is a best practice in assessment that “the evaluation should analyze the results of students overall and then differentiate results by modality”. The findings and recommendations for each modality are to be used by Faculty to plan, implement, and evaluate the (equivalence) changes at the course content, engagement (teaching) and curriculum levels.
It is the program’s obligation to assess the effectiveness of each modality across the courses it offers. The approach is first to assess student learning overall and then divide the da