Knowledge Surveys and Department SALGs: Promoting and Assessing Learning Beyond the Course Level

Track Number: 
2
Name(s): 
David Cleveland, Professor Emeritus Sociology, Honolulu Community College; Steven Lefevre, Associate Vice President Academic Programs and Planning, and Edward Nuhfer, Director of Faculty Development, California State University Channel Islands; Stephen Carroll, Director of Core Writing, Santa Clara University

One way to find out what students are learning is to ask them. The knowledge survey is an instrument that draws information from both affective and cognitive domains and provides unique quantitative assessment data that can be immediately useful for improving courses, curricula, and even institutions. Their use also promotes students' metacognitive self-assessment abilities. The Department SALG (Student Assessment of Learning Gains) allows individual instructors to collect and analyze data about what students learn in their courses and how. It also allows administrators to collect and analyze department-wide data about student learning while preserving faculty members' privacy and ability to adapt the instruments to their own classes. Centralized management tools make the SALG easy to use, and robust reporting capabilities support detailed, sophisticated analyses for multiple purposes.

Date: 
Apr 17 2009 - 4:30pm