Curriculum and Assessment Bernard Rowan, Assistant Provost (773) 995-2439/ trowanii@csu.edu November 2014 Volume 2014-2015, Issue 1

ACTIVATE ASSESSMENT

FALL 2014 WORKSHOPS

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At the most recent University Assessment Committee Meeting, colleagues shared information about several area associations related to assessment. James Kowalski, Faculty Development Specialist, CTRE, introduced the Chicago Area Assessment Group (CAAG), which gathers college and university assessment personnel for bi-monthly meetings. The website is

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http://www.chicagoassessment.org/ The International Association for Educational Assessment provides an opportunity to discuss and learn about assessment in higher education on an international scale. For details about its 2015 Annual Meeting, go to http://www.iaea2015.org Finally, Dr. Nancy Grim, Assistant Dean, College of

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Pharmacy, shared information about the Assessment Institute In Indianapolis (http://www.assessmentinstitute.iupui.edu/index.shtml). This annual gathering of assessment experts provides an excellent means for professional development and networking. Consider joining in the activities of these and other assessment organizations.

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The Fall 2014 university assessment workshops took place on October 27 and 28 in the Library Auditorium. Thank you for attending. Assessment coordinators heard updates on general education and program assessment from Drs. Mark Sudeith and Elizabeth Arnott-Hill, university assessment coordinators.

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Steve Damarjian, LiveText Administrator, provided attendees with information on how to utilize LiveText for assessment reporting and review. The inception of the senior thesis/capstone requirement next term (Spring 2015) provides an opportunity to update and invigorate assessment plans utilizing this

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summative learning experience. Coordinators were shown several examples of rubrics used for assessing this summative learning experience. This term is the time to update assessment plans and implement annual assessment activities.

Dates Of Special Interest AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT TOOLBOX Sponsored by CTRE Tuesday, November 18 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Library 301

Contents

Activate Assessment 1

Fall 2014 Workshops 1

General Education Assessment Workshop 2 2014-2016 Catalogs

Published 2

GENERAL EDUCATION ASSESSMENT WORKSHOP

2014-2016 CATALOGS PUBLISHED

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After many months of preparation, and with the patient assistance of dozens of departmental and college faculty, staff, and administrators, this August saw the publication of the 2014-2016 undergraduate and graduate catalogs, as well as the companion catalog of university courses. Dr. Rowan noted that the Office of Curriculum and Assessment intends to publish an addendum to these catalogs at the end of the current academic year. This will capture program and course changes not included at publication or delayed due to timing and the curriculum approval process.

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For the first time, the university course catalog was executed by script from Banner. While this resulted in a separate “catalog” for the courses, drawing the information directly from Banner stands as a precedent for publishing what actually is the course system at CSU. The updating of the undergraduate and graduate catalogs saw the publication of a wide variety of program changes, new certificate programs, and other departmental offerings across the colleges. Additionally, the catalogs all have the feature of indexed searching, using the features of Adobe

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Acrobat publication and clickable movement within the document. The graduate assistants in Academic Affairs, Ms. Shanelle Wright and Mr. Harold Cornwell, provided much assistance in communicating and gathering text for these publications. Special and grateful appreciation goes to Ms. Toyin Osunkoya, Applications Development Specialist, Information Technology, for her work to make the publication of our catalogs a success!

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On Tuesday, October 14, Dr. Ranfen Li, Assessment Director, University of Illinois-Chicago, presented a workshop on general education assessment. For those who attended, she discussed how our sister institution uses course-based assessment to measure the effectiveness of their curriculum.

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A special note of thanks goes to Mike Sukowski, Director, CTRE, for co-hosting this important meeting. We learned that general education assessment at CSU has a lot to be proud of. We also learned of ways to continue improving it in the months to come.

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This timely workshop is of particular interest to coordinators as they plan for the new general education curriculum that currently is in formation. Similar to CSU, UIC utilizes assessment at the course level. They have experimented with direct assessments of learning. Dr. Li was most interested in CSU’s approach.

Assessment at CSU is a

process of continuing to

build a culture of

improvement for student

learning.