ALIGNING COURSE ASSESSMENT METHODS TO PROGRAM ASSESSMENT STRATEGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Author(s):  
P. Pestovs ◽  
Sandra Zariņa ◽  
Jelena Badjanova ◽  
Dzintra Iliško ◽  
Lyubomira Popova
Author(s):  
Robert Elliott

We know that a nationwide shortage of highly qualified teachers exists, and not enough people are becoming teachers. We also know there are increasing demands for institutions to demonstrate a system of accountability through program assessment. As stated by the State Higher Education Executive Officers (2005), “The National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education believes improved accountability for better results is imperative, but how to improve accountability in higher education is not so obvious” (p. 4). Also, many teacher preparation programs are not accredited, and of the 1,300 teacher preparation programs that existed in 1999, only 38 percent were accredited through the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) (The CEO Forum on Education & Technology, 2000, p. 3). While examining the effectiveness of the Teacher Education program assessment at the case institution, three convergent themes emerged.


Author(s):  
Arif Bhatti ◽  
Irfan Ahmed

Academic programs seek accreditation to raise their profile. Establishment of program assessment and continuous improvements processes is required to gain and maintain accreditation. Assessment processes are about defining course learning outcomes, student outcomes, and program educational objectives; collect course assessment data, perform statistical evaluations and derive meaningful conclusions to improve the program. Web-based technologies can be used to improve communication, collaboration, coordination and flow control among different entities involved in the processes. This paper presents a web-based system that was designed to assist in assessment and continuous improvement processes with objective to meet the requirements of two accreditation bodies in a program that has academically diverse faculty.


Author(s):  
Abatihun Alehegn Sewagegn ◽  
Boitumelo Molebogeng Diale

Authentic assessment plays a great role in enhancing students' learning and makes them competent in their study area. Studies indicate that assessment is authentic when the tasks have real-life value and students perform real-world tasks. Therefore, this chapter shows how lecturers practice authentic assessment to enhance students' learning in a higher education institution. To achieve this, the authors used a phenomenological qualitative research design. An interview was used to collect data. The result indicated that lecturers are highly dependent upon traditional assessment methods, which have no significant contribution to the competency of students. The practice of authentic assessment methods as a tool to enhance students' learning is limited. Therefore, the authors can conclude that enhancing students' learning using authentic assessment in their study areas is untenable if the lecturers continue to utilize their current assessment practices.


Author(s):  
Shanzhong Shawn Duan ◽  
Kurt Bassett

The assessment of program outcomes for ABET accreditation has become a challenge for engineering programs nationwide. Various methods and approaches have been investigated to develop good practices for program assessment. At South Dakota State University (SDSU), an approach called Faculty Course Assessment Reports (FCAR) has been explored for mechanical engineering (ME) program assessment. FCAR provides an assessment tool to correlate the ME program outcomes with the outcomes of the core ME courses, and to evaluate student performance at the course level based on ABET outcome criterion. This process begins with the development of course objectives and outcomes. Then these course objectives and outcomes are directly mapped with the ME program objectives and outcomes respectively. Further the quantitative and qualitative details generated in the FCAR are lined up directly to ABET program outcome a to k criterion through FCAR rubrics. By use of the FCAR process, all ME program outcomes are evaluated at the course level based on the ABET program outcomes. The assessment results are being used for improvement of the ME curriculum. The process was developed to provide an effective tool for the ME program outcome assessment at the course level with reasonable effort.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Callies ◽  
Ekaterina Zaytseva ◽  
Rebecca L. Present-Thomas

The importance of appropriate assessment methods for academic writing skills in higher education has received increasing attention in SLA research in recent years. Despite this, there is still relatively little understanding of how academic writing skills develop at the most advanced levels of proficiency. Use of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is one way to ensure the comparability of findings across research efforts and continue to move the field forward. This paper presents some key concepts and definitions from the fields of SLA and advancedness research, language assessment and corpus linguistics and introduces several papers that address writing assessment within the context of higher education.


Author(s):  
Susana Vaz Oliveira ◽  
Maria Alves ◽  
António Costa

We analyse the importance of meaningful learning and the use of a formative assessment strategy, promoted by peer learning methods centred on the students, in a curricular unit (CU) pertaining to a degree in Exact Sciences, in a Higher Education Institution. Five students from the CU were questioned, through a focus group; the teacher was interviewed. Data of 12 hours of lessons was analysed and categorised using webQDA. We conclude that emphasising the students’ engagement in teaching, learning, and evaluation, has the power to drive the methodological teaching options to incline towards active methods that involve students in activities that foster meaningful learning. And the use of systematic formative assessments, integrated in the teaching-learning process, by using effective feedback, is most likely to make students and teachers responsible for an overall improvement in learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 01015
Author(s):  
Nadezhda Mamatkulovna Glushkova ◽  
Karine Henrickovna Apresyan ◽  
Daria Aleksandrovna Mironova ◽  
Tatiana Nikolaevna Lyubimova ◽  
Natalya Vladimirovna Chernyishkova

The article is devoted to the study of differences in assessment methods of face-to face and online learning of a foreign language in higher education, in particular, the issue of the effectiveness of the assessment techniques used in different formats. Numerous questions that accompanied foreign language online learning in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 academic years, as well as contradictory reviews about the assessment methods of students’ knowledge were the prerequisites of the study. The experience demonstrated that online learning differs significantly from face-to-face learning in a number of requirements for teachers and students. The aim of the study is to modify traditional methods of students’ knowledge evaluation and assessment in the form of credits or examinations towards greater independence and objectivity and achieve the autonomy of the assessment process. We carried a survey of students’ opinions on the effectiveness of the forms of assessment adopted at the higher education. Based on the survey results, recommendations are made for improving methods of students’ knowledge assessment system with respect to the educational format. The conclusions made on the basis of data analysis provide a number of changes in the methods of online assessment both in the educational process at higher education and in staff training programs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 134-144
Author(s):  
Michael Strawser ◽  
Lindsay Neuberger

Learning outcome assessment is a fairly recent trend in higher education that began in the 1980s (Lubinescu et al., 2001). Today, many faculty perceive assessment reporting to be tedious, time-consuming, and irrelevant busywork (Wang & Hurley, 2012). Unfortunately, this systematic process created to use empirical evidence to measure, document, and improve student learning has in many cases lost sight of this central goal. As a result, faculty may be justified in their opinions about it. This essay proposes a framework for addressing this thorny issue via WISER. WISER is an acronym for five content pillars of the communication discipline faculty can use to ensure their assessment efforts achieve the goal of not only documenting but also improving student learning. WISER stands for writing, immersive experiences, speaking, ethical communication, and research as programmatic assessment categories. These WISER categories extend the National Communication Association (NCA)-endorsed domains of communication learning in ways that make them functional for assessment.


2022 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Jeff D. Borden

Education 3.0 is the confluence of known, effective throughputs in teaching and learning due to changed inputs and desired changes to output across higher education. From increasingly diverse student populations to the need for critical thinking by all, education has fundamentally changed. Practitioners must leverage technologies to scale learning and meet demands by families for more flexible, lifelong learning options. Gone are the days when student bodies had more on-campus, residential, homogeneity, as well as small cohorts from selective admissions. Such changes now require architects of learning to consider the efficacy of various teaching and assessment methods in promoting actual learning versus short-term memorization, as well as how to use technology to do all of this at scale. From neuroscience to learning psychology to education technology, there is an impressive body of research around authentic learning, yet most faculty are largely unaware of this scholarship, seeing instruction dominated by tradition rather than effectiveness.


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