Assessment Clear and Simple by
The first edition of Assessment Clear and Simple quickly became the essential go-to guide for anyone who participates in the assessment process in higher education. With the increased pressure to perform assessment to demonstrate accountability, Assessment Clear and Simple is needed more than ever. This second edition of the classic resource offers a concise, step-by-step guide that helps make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to an institution. It contains effective strategies for meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others, while emphasizing and showing how to move from data to actions that improve student learning. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes many new or expanded features, including: Illustrative examples drawn from the author's experience consulting with more than 350 institutions A basic, no-frills assessment plan for departments and for general education Tips on how to integrate portfolios and e-portfolios into the assessment process Suggestions for using rubrics and alternatives to rubrics, including doing assessment for multidisciplinary work Clear instructions on how to construct a coherent institution-wide assessment system and explain it to accreditors Ideas for assigning responsibility for general education assessment Strategies for gathering information about departmental assessment while keeping the departmental workload manageable Information on how to manage assessment in times of budgetary cutbacks Praise for the Second Edition of Assessment Clear and Simple "Walvoord's approach to assessment is wonderfully straightforward; it is also effective in facilitating faculty engagement in assessment. We've applied a number of her methods to our campus assessment efforts with success. This book makes assessment both manageable and useful in improving and enhancing student learning."--Martha L. A. Stassen, director of assessment, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and president, New England Educational Assessment Network (NEEAN) "Walvoord's work clearly presents the basics for getting started in assessment of student learning while honestly addressing the complexities of assessment when driven by faculty passion for student learning. This book is a valuable resource for the novice as well as the developing experts who are leading their institutions in academic assessment."--Bobbi Allen, faculty assessment director, Delta College
Trends in Assessment by
Trends in Assessmentprovides readers with a survey of the state-of-the-art of the enduring assessment concepts and approaches developed over the past twenty-five years, and includes chapters by acknowledged experts who describe how emerging assessment trends and ideas apply to their programs and pedagogies, covering: Community Engagement ePortfolios Faculty Development Global Learning Graduate and Professional Education High-Impact Practices Learning Improvement and Innovation Assessment Trends from NILOA STEM Student Affairs Programs and Services The concluding chapters point to a future of assessment and identify several meta-trends in assessment. The book was conceived by organizers and contributors of the Assessment Institute in Indianapolis, the nation's oldest and largest higher education assessment event, and includes contributions by the following partners of the Institute: Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE); Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL); Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS); Association for Institutional Research (AIR); Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); Center for Postsecondary Research (CPR)/National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE); and Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS). Trends in Assessmentserves as a vital resource for faculty, student affairs professionals, administrators, anyone involved in accreditation, and scholars in the field.
Learning to Learn by
Learning to Learn provides a much needed overview and international guide to the field of learning to learn from a multidisciplinary lifelong and lifewide perspective. A wealth of research has been flourishing on this key educational goal in recent years. Internationally, it is considered to be one of the key competencies needed to compete in the global economy, but also a crucial factor for individual and social well-being. This book draws on leading international contributors to provide a cutting-edge overview of current thinking on learning to learn research, policy, and implementation in both formal and informal learning environments. But what learning to learn is exactly, and what its constituting elements are, are much debated issues. These seem to be the crucial questions if assessment and development of this 'malleable side of intelligence' are to be accomplished. The approach of this volume is to consider a broad conception of learning to learn, not confined to only study strategies or metacognition, yet acknowledging the importance of such elements. The book sets out to answer five main questions: What is learning to learn? What are its functions and how do we assess it? What does it promise to the individual and society at large? How is it conceived in national curricula internationally? How can it be developed in a variety of contexts? The text is organized into two parts: the first addresses the core question of the nature of learning to learn from a theoretical and policy viewpoint, and the second presents recent research carried out in several educational systems, with special attention to assessment and curriculum. It gives an account of pedagogical practices of learning to learn and its role in individual empowerment from childhood to adulthood. Contributors also highlight the potential use of learning to learn as an organizing concept for lifelong learning, school improvement, and teacher training along with potential conflicts with existing incentive practices and policies. This book is a vital starting point and guide for any advanced student or researcher looking to understand this important area of research.
Courageous Learning by
The true majority of American students are working-age adults. Approximately 80% of those who need to start or finish a degree are over 25 years old, yet most institutions of higher education treat them as an afterthought. Courageous Learning offers a closer look at the needs of adult learners and provides a clear, comprehensive assessment of the adult higher education landscape.
Generation Z Learns by
From elementary to graduate school, classrooms are now filled with Generation Z students, born 1995-2010. And, much like those in the generations who came before, these students are eager to learn. But, their characteristics, interests, styles, and preferred learning environments are in many ways different from their predecessors. How then can educators effectively leverage the capacities and foster the potential of this generational cohort?In Generation Z Learns, Dr. Corey Seemiller and Meghan Grace, explore the nuances of Generation Z and offer recommendations to enhance the educational experience for this generation.Seemiller and Grace are also authors of Generation Z Goes to College, Generation Z Leads, and Generation Z: A Century in the Making. Dr. Seemiller serves on the faculty at Wright State University in the Department of Leadership Studies in Education and Organizations. She has taught at the college level for more than 20 years and has researched and published extensively on issues related to teaching and learning. Grace is an associate with Plaid, LLC. She has taught undergraduate courses as well as served in both campus-based and organizational roles in the areas of leadership development, program and event planning, assessment, and fraternity and sorority programs.
The Learning Sciences in Educational Assessment by
There is mounting hope in the United States that federal legislation in the form of No Child Left Behind will improve educational outcomes. As titanic as the challenge appears to be, however, the solution could be at our fingertips. This volume identifies visual types of cognitive models in reading, science and mathematics for researchers, test developers, school administrators, policy makers and teachers. In the process of identifying these cognitive models, the book also explores methodological or translation issues to consider as decisions are made about how to generate psychologically informative and psychometrically viable large-scale assessments based on the learning sciences. Initiatives to overhaul educational systems in disrepair may begin with national policies, but the success of these policies will hinge on how well stakeholders begin to rethink what is possible with a keystone of the educational system: large-scale assessment.
Advancing Evidence-Based Practice Through Program Evaluation by
Given the current climate of results-driven accountability, school-based professionals have a significant contribution to make in improving the impact of programs and initiatives through the application of program evaluation methods and tools to inform decision making within a multi-tier system of supports framework. And yet there is currently a dearth of practical resources dedicated to developing school psychologists' competencies in program evaluation. Advancing Evidence-Based Practice through Program Evaluation will meet the needs of school psychologists and other school-based professionals seeking to use program evaluation approaches to enhance data-based decision making and accountability at a program and systems-level. This practical guide provides the most cutting-edge evaluation frameworks, methods, and tools available, with particular emphasis on the rapidly-developing areas of implementation research, evidence-based professional learning, and innovative approaches to communicating evaluation findings. The book will support school professionals in daily practice by enhancing and extending their knowledge and skills in measurement, assessment, consultation for systems change and the use of evidence-based interventions for academic and social/behavioral concerns, with a focus on evaluating the implementation and outcomes of school-based programs. The book will also facilitate the professional development of those currently engaged in graduate preparation programs in education, educational leadership, school counseling, and school social work, as well as the university faculty who guide their professional preparation. Finally, school professionals may also use Advancing Evidence-Based Practice through Program Evaluation to develop their professional competencies in implementing new initiatives funded by grants with clear expectations for program evaluation.
Competence Assessment in Education by
This book addresses challenges in the theoretically and empirically adequate assessment of competencies in educational settings. It presents the scientific projects of the priority program "Competence Models for Assessing Individual Learning Outcomes and Evaluating Educational Processes," which focused on competence assessment across disciplines in Germany. The six-year program coordinated 30 research projects involving experts from the fields of psychology, educational science, and subject-specific didactics. The main reference point for all projects is the concept of "competencies," which are defined as "context-specific cognitive dispositions that are acquired and needed to successfully cope with certain situations or tasks in specific domains" (Koeppen et al., 2008, p. 62). The projects investigate different aspects of competence assessment: The primary focus lies on the development of cognitive models of competencies, complemented by the construction of psychometric models based on these theoretical models. In turn, the psychometric models constitute the basis for the construction of instruments for effectively measuring competencies. The assessment of competencies plays a key role in optimizing educational processes and improving the effectiveness of educational systems. This book contributes to this challenging endeavor by meeting the need for more integrative, interdisciplinary research on the structure, levels, and development of competencies.
Teachers' Professional Development by
This volume brings together questions on assessment, training, and learning in the professional development of teachers which have not been fully discussed yet. The identification of these research gaps was the reason for dedicating a series of lectures given at the University of Luxembourg 2012 to the topic of professionalization of teachers in these domains. Therefore, this book contains contributions from outstanding international scholars in different academic disciplines to present ideas about open research questions concerning the domains of assessment, training, and learning in the professional development of teachers.
The Taming of Education: Evaluating Contemporary Approaches to Learning and Teaching by
This book evaluates contemporary approaches to education, with a particular focus on the ways in which assessment shapes the educational experience and influences pupils and students. It adopts a critical approach, arguing that there is a need for students to develop critical thinking skills, be flexible and have the capacity for originality. Education has increasingly come to be seen as a process with qualifications as the output; however, as economies change, attaining advantage increasingly relies on creativity and originality. Unfortunately, in the quest to remove uncertainty from education, creativity and originality are often overlooked; and the result is that education is impoverished. Creasy argues here that there is no single factor that has shaped education and led to this situation; rather, developments within education can be seen as having been shaped by a range of forces such as neoliberalism, New Public Management, standardization and internationalization. This is not to claim any deliberate undermining of education, but the cumulative effect is that education is less and less fit for purpose. Written for anyone involved in education, student, teacher or manager, this book draws upon Educations Studies, Sociology and Social Policy to offer a compelling critique of contemporary education.
Engaging University Students by
This book provides university teachers, leaders and policymakers with evidence on how researchers in several countries are monitoring and improving student engagement--the extent to which students are exposed to and participate in effective educational practices. It captures insights from international implementations of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), developed in the United States. In the last half decade NSSE has been adapted and used in several other countries, producing the largest international collaboration yet involving educationally relevant data on students' engagement in higher education. Leaders of established national collaborations draw on their experiences with hundreds of institutions to contribute their insights. Framed by their cultural and educational contexts, they discuss issues concerning first-year learners, international students, part-time and distance learners, as well as teaching and leadership in support of student learning. Each chapter outlines strategies based on national case studies and presents perspectives supported by concrete examples of how these have played out in diverse settings. The book suggests mechanisms that can be used by institutions, ministries and quality agencies around the world.
Knowledge Spaces by
The book describes up-to-date applications and relevant theoretical results. These applications come from various places, but the most important one, numerically speaking, is the internet based educational system ALEKS. The ALEKS system is bilingual English-Spanish and covers all of mathematics, from third grade to the end of high school, and chemistry. It is also widely used in higher education because US students are often poorly prepared when they reach the university level. The chapter by Taagepera and Arasasingham deals with the application of knowledge spaces, independent of ALEKS, to the teaching of college chemistry. The four chapters by Albert and his collaborators strive to give cognitive interpretations to the combinatoric structures obtained and used by the ALEKS system. The contribution by Eppstein is technical and develops means of searching the knowledge structure efficiently.
The Perfect Test by
Some ten years from today, American schools have tried every possible education fad. Common national standards, year-round schools, takeover of school boards, and even the super-qualified teacher program have failed to improve low U.S. achievement on international assessments. That all changes when Grant and Jennifer Wilson, both Stanford Ph.D. graduates, create what they believe are the perfect tests. The Venus Assessment System, the first national tests in U.S. history, flip American education on its ear, making U.S. students number one in the world in math and science. But then Jennifer Wilson discovers a secret list of names, students who are exceptions to the high-stakes consequences of the test. So secret that some people are willing to kill for it. With a tremendous blending of suspense tied to realistic future events, The Perfect Test will appeal to readers of all types, from educators and parents to simply anyone who loves a great, page-turner.As writer Paul Baker from the University of Wisconsin says, "Like The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code, this story grabs the reader and won't let go.""At a moment of national testing madness, the [Perfect Test] story-line was both fun and gripping. And like all good mystery/science fiction, educational too. I won't give away the ending." Deborah Meier, New York University: teacher, writer, and public activist. Author of In Schools We Trust and Many Children Left Behind"Ron Dietel's The Perfect Test reads like a Stephen King novel. A perfect blend of mystery, action and constant surprises, nicely intertwined in a future world of national high-stakes tests. You won't be able to stop reading it." Jim Kohlmoos, President, Knowledge Alliance: Research to Action in Education"Ready for a break, for a romp? Pick up Ronald Dietel's biting spoof, The Perfect Test. It's a dystopian vision of a world gone crazy, a science fiction portrait of the future that often comes wickedly close to where we are now. John Merrow, President, Learning Matters
Learning with Others by
Most American colleges and universities assimilate students into highly competitive undergraduate experiences. By placing achievement for personal and material gain as the bedrock of a college education, these institutions fail to educate students to become collaborative learners: people who are committed and prepared to join with others in developing promising solutions to problems that they share with others. Drawing on a three-year study of student persistence and learning at Minority-Serving Institutions, Clifton Conrad and Todd Lundberg argue that student success in college should be redefined by focusing on the importance of collaborative learning over individual achievement. Engaging students in shared, real-world problem-solving, Conrad and Lundberg assert, will encourage them to embrace interdependence and to value and draw on diverse perspectives. Learning with Others presents a set of core practices to empower students to enter, nourish, and sustain collaborative learning and outlines how to blend the roles and responsibilities of faculty, staff, and students; how to adopt best practices for receiving and giving feedback on problem-solving; and how to anchor a curriculum in shared problem-solving. Bringing together lessons learned from more than 300 interviews, along with notes from 14 campus visits, 3 national convenings, and examples from across our nation's colleges and universities, Conrad and Lundberg explore ways in which successful antiracist networks of problem-solvers are learning to contribute to the flourishing of their communities on campus and far beyond. Outlining strategies for identifying and dismantling barriers to participation, Learning with Others will pique interest among faculty, students, and administrators in higher education and a wide range of external stakeholders?from families and communities to policymakers and funders.
The Agile College by
Demographic changes promise to reshape the market for higher education in the next 15 years. Colleges are already grappling with the consequences of declining family size due to low birth rates brought on by the Great Recession, as well as the continuing shift toward minority student populations. Each institution faces a distinct market context with unique organizational strengths; no one-size-fits-all answer could suffice. In this essential follow-up to Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Nathan D. Grawe explores how proactive institutions are preparing for the resulting challenges that lie ahead. While it isn't possible to reverse the demographic tide, most institutions, he argues persuasively, can mitigate the effects. Drawing on interviews with higher education leaders, Grawe explores successful avenues of response, including ?recruitment initiatives ?retention programs ?revisions to the academic and cocurricular program ?institutional growth plans ?retrenchment efforts ?collaborative action Throughout, Grawe presents readers with examples taken from a range of institutions?small and large, public and private, two-year and four-year, selective and open-access. While an effective response to demographic change must reflect the individual campus context, the cases Grawe analyzes will prompt conversations about the best paths forward. The Agile College also extends projections for higher education demand. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, the book updates prior work by incorporating new information on college-going after the Great Recession and pushes forecasts into the mid-2030s. What's more, the analysis expands to examine additional aspects of the higher education market, such as dual enrollment, transfer students, and the role of immigration in college demand.
