Synopses & Reviews
Assessment Clear and Simple is "Assessment 101" in a booka concise, step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others. Assessment Clear and Simple explores a variety of topics and shows how to
- Build on assessment already in place
- Use classroom work and grading process
- Get faculty and department on board
- Assess hard-to-define goals such as moral and civic development
- Develop workable learning goals
- Tailor assessment to its purposes
- Select sensible assessment measures
- Make criteria explicit
- Use assessment to improve learning
- Establish effective oversight without an assessment bureaucracy
- Write an assessment report
- Interpret the institutions culture to external audiences
Assessment Clear and Simple can help your institution employ assessment as a powerful instrument for improvement and provide a basis for wiser planning, budgeting, and change in curriculum, pedagogy, staffing, programming, and student support.
Review
"Assessment Clear and Simple fulfills its title without trivializing the work assessment entails." (Authors Journal Compilation, Winter 2007)
Synopsis
Assessment Clear and Simpleis "Assessment 101" in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others.
Assessment Clear and Simpleexplores a variety of topics and shows how to:
- Build on assessment already in place
- Use classroom work and grading process
- Get faculty and department on board
- Assess hard to define goals such as moral and civic development
- Development workable learning goals
- Tailor assessment to its purposes
- Select sensible assessment measures
- Make criteria explicit
- Use assessment to improve learning
- Establish effective oversight without an assessment bureaucracy
- Write an assessment report
- Interpret the institution's culture to external audiences
About the Author
Barbara E. Walvoord is a fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives and concurrent professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. She has been coordinator of Notre Dame’s regional accreditation self-study, founding director of four faculty development programs, consultant to more than 250 institutions, and the author of Effective Grading from Jossey-Bass.
Table of Contents
FOREWORD.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER 1: For Everyone: The Basics of Assessment.
CHAPTER 2: For Institution-Wide Planners.
CHAPTER 3: For Departments and Programs.
CHAPTER 4: For General Education.
APPENDICES.
A. Sample Rubrics for Evaluating Student Classroom Work.
B. Guidelines for Program Review of Departments, Incorporating Assessment.
C. Guidelines for the Evaluation of Teaching, Incorporating Assessment of Learning.
D. Sample Analysis of Audiences and Purposes for Assessment.
E. Institution-Wide Data to Assess Institution-Wide Goals.
F. Departmental Assessment Reports.
G. Matrix for Analyzing Professional Accreditation.
H. Matrix for Analyzing Institution-Wide Departmental Assessment Information.
I. Analysis of Assessment in Institution, Departments, and General Education.
J. Departmental Learning Goals.
K. Identifying Classroom Assessment in the Department.
L. Sample General Education Assessment Matrix.
RESOURCES: A SHORT LIST.
REFERENCES.
INDEX.