Bloom's Sixth

Two vastly different views of assessment whipsawed many of us over the past few days. The first, a positive and hopeful view, pulsed through a half-day of sessions at KU’s annual Student Learning Symposium on Friday. The message there was that assessment provides an opportunity to understand student learning. Through curiosity and discovery, it yields valuable information and helps improve classes and curricula. The second view came in the form of what a colleague accurately described as a “screed” in The New York Times. It argued that assessment turns hapless faculty members into tools of…

By Doug Ward Here’s a secret about creating a top-notch assessment plan: Make sure that it involves cooperation among faculty members, that it integrates assignments into a broader framework of learning, and that it creates avenues for evaluating results and using them to make changes to courses and curricula. Lorie Vanchena, Nina Vyatkina and Ari Linden of the department of Germanic languages and literatures accepted the Degree-Level Assessment Award from Stuart Day, interim vice provost for academic affairs. Actually, that’s not really a secret – really, it’s just good assessment…

Education changes people. Those of us who teach know that well. We see students transform during their degrees, and sometimes during a semester. Their skills improve. Their thinking deepens. Their confidence blossoms. As it changes minds, though, education also changes the relationships students have with family and friends, adding stress to students’ lives from an unexpected source. Students generally learn to cope with those changes, but they often aren’t sure how to broach the subject with family and friends. They don’t want to anger others, or make them feel diminished. But they also…

Asked to describe the things that help them learn, students provide a remarkably consistent list: Engagement Interaction Clarity Openness Accessibility A sense of belonging That’s hardly a complete list, but those ideas came up again and again during a focus group at KU’s recent Student Learning Symposium. Not surprisingly, those same components come up again and again in research on learning. Holly Storkel accepted the university’s Degree-Level Assessment award on behalf of the Speech-Language Pathology program. She was joined at the Student Learning Symposium by Sara Rosen,…