Assessment of Student Learning

The assessment of student learning is an ongoing, faculty-led process of inquiry that leverages evidence to improve our courses, degree programs, and general education curriculum.

The Center for Teaching Excellence works to support, enable, and promote meaningful assessment within courses, degree programs, and the general education curriculum, the KU Core. Primarily, we work with departments through direct consultation, workshops, and stipend-supported programs that enlist faculty in long-term collaborations with our support staff.

If you are here for resources about course-level assessment, consider visiting our Teaching Resources or Portfolio Gallery, where you can view many “home grown” examples from your colleagues right here at KU.

If you are looking for information about KU’s new general education assessment process, visit the KU Core website. To read more about how assessment relates to KU’s accreditation and your department’s role in this important process, visit the provost office’s website.

For more information and resources about degree level assessment and the upcoming February 2023 deadline for annual reporting at the undergraduate and graduate levels, please keep reading. We’ve built this page as a one-stop shop for faculty working on degree-level assessment.  

At any point, please feel free to email Joshua Potter, Associate Director of Student Learning and Analytics, with your questions or requests for consultation.

Want to Get More Involved?

  • The Center for Teaching Excellence has a number of faculty programs that offer financial support or allow for our assistance and expertise. Two programs will be renewed during AY 2022-2023.

Assessment Resources

Assessment resources that focus on degree-level assessment, prompts for faculty to consider during assessment initiatives, and information on gathering and analyzing student learning.

Assessment Resouces

Professor Caroline Bennett working with a student.

Assessment Workshops for AY 2022-2023

  • Learning Outcomes 101 Graduate

    This session will cover several key aspects of reporting your program's learning outcomes, including where to look for ideas about outcomes, how to write outcomes that are measurable, how to define levels of learning within those outcomes, and where to align them with KU's institution-level learning goals.

  • Undergrad Curriculum Mapping

    This session will introduce the concept of a curriculum map, offer several examples from KU and elsewhere, and then explain how to use a map as a diagnostic and planning tool. Specifically, we will discuss how a curriculum map can help select appropriate targets of assessment (assignment, project, portfolio, etc.). We recommend that participants in this workshop have either previously attended the learning outcomes workshop or have some prior familiarity with learning outcomes and levels of learning.

  • Building an Undergrad Assessment Plan

    With a curriculum map in hand, how do you and your colleagues design a sustainable and useful set of assessment activities? This session will explore the assessment planning process with an eye toward KU's annual reporting cycle. We will focus, in particular, on the selection of assignments and assessment methods that will align with your program's outcomes, and will generate sound, actionable evidence that your program can leverage to improve its curriculum.

  • Submitting Your Undergraduate Report

    This session will be a nuts-and-bolts walk-through of how to submit your program's annual reports, with a specific focus on the undergraduate reporting requirements. We'd recommend having at least a start on writing your curriculum map and assessment plan before attending the session.

  • Submitting Your Graduate Report

    This session will be a nuts-and-bolts walk-through of how to submit your program's annual reports, with a specific focus on the graduate reporting requirements. We'd recommend having at least a start on writing your learning outcomes and levels of learning.

  • Assessing to Safeguard for Grad and Undergrad

    The assessment of student learning leads to a number of direct benefits: improved outcomes, equitable distributions of student success, and stronger course-to-course connections throughout our curricula. But assessment also generates indirect benefits, as well. This session will elucidate many of these indirect benefits and draw connections between assessment and strategic planning, student recruitment, and course staffing.