IDEAL is a professional development opportunity that thoroughly equips you to lead your faculty in the development and implementation of a program assessment plan. Over four days of expert guidance and interactive group exercises, you work with colleagues to develop the skills and knowledge to make you an effective assessment leader.
What You Will Learn
IDEAL focuses on the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective assessment leader and to manage the change process in your program or college.
During this four-day program, you are challenged to think about the assessment of student learning from the program-level or college-level perspective and learn to integrate the basic principles of assessment, change management, and facilitation tools. The activities in the Institute take you from the basic principles of program assessment to an understanding of how those principles can be applied in the context of your program/college.
Although the primary focus of IDEAL is on developing sound assessment practices, you also learn how to lead your faculty in the process effectively by applying facilitation tools and basic change management principles.
Topics Covered at IDEAL
Assessment principles
You will learn about best practices in assessing, evaluating and documenting continuous improvement of student learning. Topics covered will include:
- Evaluating Program Educational Objectives
- Developing measurable outcomes
- Developing scoring rubrics
- Calibrating scoring rubrics for multiple faculty raters
- Choosing appropriate assessment methods
- Maximizing the use of curriculum mapping
- Defining efficient and effective assessment processes
- Creating and implementing useful surveys
- Documenting and reporting results
Leadership
Having a good understanding of the program assessment process is necessary but not sufficient to create a sustainable culture of assessment. Throughout the Institute, you will explore the basic principles of leadership and be challenged to discern their applicability to your own college/program culture. Topics will include:
- Understanding faculty resistance
- Practical tips for managing change
- Effective communication
- Working for sustainability
Facilitation skills
How to manage groups plays an important part in engaging other faculty in the assessment process. Whether you are leading a team of faculty from multiple departments or working with faculty within a single department, using facilitation tools will enable you to move efficiently through the process by harnessing faculty energy in meaningful directions. In addition to tips on how to facilitate a meeting, some of the things you will learn will include:
- Working with groups
- Planning meetings for action
- Maximizing the use of effective facilitation tools