The assessment of student learning is a process of inquiry through which faculty examine what students are learning in their program, how they are learning it, and how their learning can be improved or better supported. When viewed in this way, assessment is similar to research - it involves articulating a research question, designing methodology to answer that question, and collecting and analyzing information.

Below are some examples of questions that faculty can examine through student learning assessment.

Assessing Outcomes

1. Have students near the end of their program mastered a particular learning outcome?
2. After students have completed lower-level courses in the major, are they prepared to succeed in advanced courses in the program?
3. Did adding a prerequisite to a course improve student learning in that course?
4. At which point in the curriculum do students in a program master a particular learning outcome?
5. Did students in a particular course or set of courses learn as much in a remote setting as they did in face-to-face courses?
6. What impact does a particular course requirement have on student learning later on in the program?
7. Do students who take a particular course learn more if they take the course earlier or later on in their program?
8. Are there any disparities in student learning?

Examples Methods for Measuring Learning:

• Use a set of criteria aligned with the program learning outcomes to evaluate a sample of student work in a particular course or at particular points in the program (e.g. in the first year, in key courses, in capstone courses).
• Implement short assignments or self-assessments in the first week of a key course in the program to measure prior learning.
• Survey students or conduct focus groups with them about their perceptions of their learning.

Assessing Inputs

1. Are there sufficient learning opportunities in the program to support student mastery of a particular learning outcome?
2. Are the course materials aligned with the program student learning outcomes?
3. Do the projects and assignments that students work on in their courses allow them to demonstrate what they have learned?

Methodology Ideas:

• Examine the course descriptions and syllabi of required courses in the program and identify the courses in which material related to a program learning outcome is first introduced, is developed further, and is mastered.

Assessment of student learning is the iterative process through which faculty members and administrators reflect on the degree to which students are achieving established learning outcomes. These outcomes are established for every program as part of the accreditation process, and every course within a program should be designed to lead students through a scaffolded progression of learning toward those outcomes. Upon completion of the program degree, or certificate, students will have produced work that demonstrates achievement or mastery of the program’s learning outcomes.

In order to align student expectations with what is being taught and to promote a positive student learning experience, it is important that we utilize learning outcomes next to the work students produce to ensure that coursework is building proficiency and skill. Our challenge is to engage in assessment in ways that teach us more of what we want to know as educators–that is, to strategically use assessment as a pedagogical tool.

We are committed to excellence in teaching and learning, based on academic best practices, and to continual exploration of our classrooms. Assessment enables faculty to carry out this process, leading towards student learning and growth. To this end, we believe that:

• Program and course assessments are faculty-directed reflections of the work in which they already engage.
• Assessment is not intended and will not be used to evaluate individual students or faculty members.
• Program assessment is intended to illustrate the entirety of the student learning experience, including in program curricula and in co-curricular activities.
• Assessment should include a balance of approaches, including some activities designed according to the specific needs of individual programs and circumstances and some that are consistent across the university, creating opportunities for cross-program comparisons.
• Assessment should be performed as a routine aspect of teaching and learning.
• Students should be considered as partners in the assessment process, acknowledging their lived experiences as part of culturally relevant teaching and learning practices.

Academic Programs

Degree-granting programs at The New School evaluate students' achievement of program learning outcomes in accordance with published Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and New York State Education Department (NYSED) standards. The Curriculum, Learning, and Academic Affairs (CLAA) team in the Provost’s Office collaborates with faculty and administrators to manage the assessment process, utilizing its findings to inform strategic planning and other academic initiatives.

Undertaken in an iterative cycle, program faculty are encouraged to consider several approaches in their review including but not limited to the examination of student work (e.g. papers, projects, portfolios) or the surveying of students and/or alumni on their perceived achievement of program learning outcomes. We recommend program leadership work closely with faculty and college deans to create a multi-year assessment plan to ensure that program assessment is informed by information from a variety of sources (e.g. direct assessment of student work, student surveys, faculty surveys). Whenever possible, students should be included in the development and execution of assessment initiatives as a matter of equity and transparency.

Through the assessment process, faculty members should consider the following:

• What do we want our students to learn?
• What methods or approaches will best determine whether students are learning what we expect them to?
• Where would we look for evidence that students are learning what we said they should be?
• How do we measure success? What criteria will we use to rank, level, or evaluate across samples of students' work?
• What do the results of assessment tell us about how or where we can improve our courses, programs, and the institution to better aid our students in reaching their learning goals?

Why Does Assessing a Program Matter?

• It gives faculty and administrators an ongoing opportunity to reflect on program priorities.
• It provides information to the faculty about program strengths and weaknesses.
• It provides information to the students about the program, including their responsibilities for meeting program expectations as well as what they can expect to learn in the program.
• It allows the university to demonstrate its effectiveness in meeting its educational goals; and
• It is a critical part of the re-accreditation process.

Shared Capacities

Shared Capacities underlie The New School’s distinctive approach to general education. Shared Capacities are the competencies or skills that undergraduates develop over the course of their education. The university community has identified 11 Shared Capacities, which range from basic skills, such as writing and oral communication and quantitative and scientific literacy, to competencies that are particularly emblematic of The New School. Each of these capacities has its own learning outcomes. For more information, visit TNS's Shared Capacities Initiative website.

Assessment Cycle

The Shared Capacities Assessment Cycle outlines which Shared Capacities and associated learning outcomes will be assessed each academic year. For more information, please contact the Assistant Provost of Curriculum and Learning at willsond@newschool.edu.

At The New School, we believe that the assessment of student learning should be equitable, inclusive, and respect the entirety of a student's experiences. To facilitate this level of careful evaluation, the Curriculum and Learning team in the Provost's Office is proud to provide the following best practices below, with links to relevant resources located at the bottom of this card.

Best Practices for Equitable and Inclusive Assessment

• Incorporate the student voice into program assessment and take action based on their input. This can be done through asking students to reflect on their learning through a reflective assignment, portfolio, survey, focus group, or some combination of these approaches. Ensure that many student voices are included in the assessment.
• Incorporate varied assignments that allow students to demonstrate what they have learned in multiple ways.
• Provide students with feedback and opportunities to incorporate that feedback into their work.
• Provide clear criteria to students about how their work will be evaluated.
• Disaggregate assessment data to examine inequities in student learning and progression through the program.
• Examine whether diverse perspectives are represented in course materials.

Further Reading
What are inclusive assessment practices? - Tufts Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
Socially Just Assessment Podcast Series - Campus Labs

All academic degree programs at The New School are expected to have an assessment plan in place that describes how and when the program will use evidence to determine if students are meeting faculty expectations for achievement of the program learning outcomes.

Programs are encouraged to incorporate multiple sources of evidence into a multi-year assessment plan (e.g. rubric scores on student capstone work, surveys of graduating students and faculty, meeting notes from faculty meetings), but at least once every four years, faculty should collate and directly evaluate culminating student work to determine the extent to which a learning outcome is being met by students who have completed most of the coursework in the program. All program's learning outcomes will be assessed twice over a eight year cycle.

We recommend identifying a culminating experience or course that aligns with all or most of the program learning outcomes, such as a capstone project at the undergraduate level, a qualifying exam or thesis at the Master's level, or a dissertation at the PhD level. If such a course or capstone work is unavailable, faculty might instead review the work produced by graduating majors in upper-level courses in the program.

Direct Evidence

• Capstone experiences, papers, projects, or performances scored using a rubric or checklist
• Qualifying papers or dissertations scored using a rubric or checklist
• Scores on qualifying examinations or comprehensive examinations when scored using a rubric or test blueprint aligned with the program learning outcomes
• Portfolios of student work
• Employer or internship supervisor ratings of students' skills that are aligned with the program learning outcomes articulated by faculty

Indirect Evidence

• Assignment grades if a rubric was not used to score the assignment
• Graduating student ratings and reflections on the knowledge and/or skills gained from the program
• Alumni outcomes such as satisfaction, employment rates, and enrollment in graduate programs
• Course evaluation results from questions that ask about the course, not the instructor.

Why don't grades count as direct assessment?

One of the most common questions from faculty members is why assessment is necessary given that students receive grades. Doesn't a grade already demonstrate that a student has met the course learning goals?

Although a grade is a global indicator as to how one student has performed in a course, it does not directly indicate which learning goals the student has and has not met. A grade of "B" or a "C" may indicate that a student met most goals but not all. Even an "A" grade does not necessarily mean that a student achieved all the program's learning goals, since course assignments and tests may not be directly related to underlying learning goals. Also, grades are often partly based on behavior like course attendance and participation, which are not usually learning goals.

Similarly, overall grade point averages in a program do not indicate whether specific program goals are being achieved. If students in a program have a cumulative GPA of 3.5, what does that tell us about the overall strengths and weaknesses of learning in that program? Program learning is cumulative, but students' performances in individual classes does not necessarily indicate that they are achieving the broader program goals. To evaluate student learning at the program level, it is necessary to examine specific areas of learning separately.

Although grades cannot be used demonstrate which specific program learning goals students have met, grades can on occasion be used to identify courses and topics that are particularly challenging for students.

References: Walvoord, Barbara E (2010). Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education, Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-BassMaki, P.L. (2010) Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution. Sterling, VA: Stylus PublishingSuskie, L. (2018). Assessing Student Learning, Third Edition. Boston, MA: Anker Publishing Company

Learning outcomes refer to the most important goals that the program or course has for its students. Programs and courses may have a large number of goals; learning outcomes reflect the most important of these goals.

A well-written learning outcome relates specifically to a program or course and to how the faculty envisions student learning. For example: "Students will write effectively" could apply to many courses or academic programs. In contrast, Kansas State University's English department states that students should be able to "research and write focused, convincing analytical essays in clear, grammatical prose" and "tailor writing for various audiences and purposes." This indicates what that department sees as essential writing skills. Other programs, even other English departments, may focus on different aspects of writing.

One advantage of well-written learning outcomes is that they help guide the choice of assessment methods. It is easy to imagine how the learning outcome stated above might be assessed: An English student could write a paper presenting original interpretations of literary works.Guidelines for Developing Learning Outcomes

Helpful Links

Learning Taxonomies

Creating Student Learning Outcomes

Choosing Verbs for Learning Outcomes

Rubrics: A Direct Measure of Student Learning

One commonly used method for getting a direct measure of student learning is to select an assignment, project, performance, or other student work that aligns with some (or all) of the critical program or course learning outcomes and grading it using a rubric.

A rubric is simply a list or chart that outlines the criteria or standards to be used to evaluate student work. Rubrics vary from simple checklists and numerical rating scales to the so-called "full rubric" used to describe a student's performance at each of several levels. Rubrics are useful for grading individual assignments, and many faculty may already be using them for this purpose. However, when rubrics for individual students are gathered and the information is collated, they can provide powerful evidence for student learning in a program.

The key to developing a good direct measure is alignment. You want to ensure that the learning outcomes, student work, and rubric have clear connections to each other.

The AAC&U VALUE Rubrics

The American Association of Colleges and Universities completed a major project as part of its Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative. The Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project brought together more than 100 faculty members, assessment specialists, and other academic professionals to develop consistent rubrics for evaluating the "essential learning outcomes" of undergraduate liberal education as defined in the LEAP initiative. These rubrics, which are easily adapted to suit the needs of particular programs or institutions, include critical thinking, creative thinking, written communication, oral communication, civic engagement, teamwork, and other topics. For more information, go to www.aacu.org/value/.

In thinking about your approach to how to assess student learning in Program Learning Outcomes, please consider a process and approach that will produce results that you are interested to know and will be sustainable over time. While programs are not required to assess all of their outcomes at once in an assessment project, programs are also invited to conduct a larger assessment if it best meets the intent of what faculty want to learn about their students. The Provost’s Office stands ready to assist. Below you will find:

• Overview of recommended steps
• Survey questions through which assessment activities and findings will be reported
• Detailed instructions and recommended steps
  

Survey Questions to Report Program Learning Outcome Assessment

Programs will report their program learning outcomes assessment process and findings by submitting data through a Qualtrics form managed in the Provost's Office. When submitting an assessment, please complete one form for each Program Learning Outcome evaluated.

Program leadership (or other individuals) completing the assessment of one program learning outcomes are asked to report their activities and findings by completing the survey/submission form for their program. The questions to which they will be expected to respond are included below.

As you plan which outcome to assess, which courses and/or student work you will use to complete the assessment, revise or create evaluation rubrics, and decide who will undertake the assessment, please keep in mind the following questions so you will be prepared to report the assessment activities and findings in ways that will be consistent across The New School’s academic programs. We recommend that faculty consider creating a document that contains these questions and the responses to these questions while performing the assessment.

There is no maximum character limit to the open-ended questions.

To effectively identify where learning outcomes are taught throughout a program's curriculum, each program at The New School keeps and maintains a curriculum map. A critical component of this effort is identifying when and to what level learning is taking place in a program’s curriculum; to support this activity, Curriculum Maps will be used as a tool to identify when and to what level student learning is taking place.

Individual curriculum maps are provided by the Provost’s Office to both support this effort and serve as a foundation for further thinking and refinement of learning outcomes. Forms were also pre-filled out with relevant information to minimize additional work.

Steps to Complete A Curriculum Map:

1. Review the Program Learning Outcomes and Program Curriculum sections in your program's existing map
2. For each course in the Program Curriculum section, determine the following:
1. If a Program Learning Outcome (PLO) is taught within that course
2. If yes, indicate the level to which that learning outcome is addressed by putting a ‘I’ (Introduced), ‘D’ (Developed), or ‘A’ (Advanced) within the corresponding box for that course.
3. If no, please write ‘N/A’
3. While no action is required, you may wish to review the Shared Capacities associated with individual courses by clicking the ‘Shared Capacities Map’ tab at the bottom of the document. Do not change or add information in this tab
4. Once complete, please notify your College Assessment Representative.

Recognizing and Celebrating Your Work

In addition to filling out Curriculum Maps and completing a learning outcomes assessment, the Provost's Office appreciates opportunities to highlight, recognize, and celebrate diverse types of evaluations faculty perform at The New School. We’re interested in seeing the assessments that you already do to improve the student experience.

Faculty are encouraged to submit their own examples of assessments they’ve conducted that:

• Show where they assessed student learning within their courses or programs;
• How they used what they learned to change or improve a course or other activity; or
• The ways in which the above were discussed with others to identify and develop best practices and other opportunities

Some examples of this may include:

• Revised syllabi that responded to student feedback and/or student performance
• Curriculum Reviews
• The creation of new courses, or strategically retiring existing ones
• Research performed to create a new minor, major, or concentration within an existing program
• Approaching delivery of subject matter differently in response to the results of test or projects or other student work
• Collaborations that led to a change in non-academic units (Advising, Financial Aid, Enrollment, etc.)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) for Assessment Evidence Submissions