The U.S. Department of Education is calling on us to “embrace a culture of continuous innovation and improvement.” But how do we measure success for our departments?
Audra McQuarie, Registrar, and Joe Tate, Director of Program/Policy Implementation, at the University of Phoenix, gave us a few hints during their Monday session at the Annual Meeting.
We learned that there are two components of a comprehensive assessment plan: process objectives and student learning outcomes.
Some best practices for achieving process objectives include internal quality audits, trend and root cause analyses, external quality audits, and statistical process control.
How do we help students learn? We develop learning outcomes by focusing on:
- Aligning the departmental mission and objectives with learner-centric mission of the institution;
- Identifying student learning outcome opportunities by identifying service interactions with students;
- Writing student learning outcomes that are specific, focused, and clear; and
- Connecting student learning outcomes to institutional learning goals.
Audra and Joe ended their suggestion by suggesting we start with some quick wins to build momentum, invoke multiple measures, and establish meaningful success criteria.
Download handouts from the session here.