Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/769485
How do we know if our students are learn- ing what we want them to learn? Do grades provide an accurate assessment of learning? In recent years, discourse over the value of grades, and whether they are an accurate measure of student learning, has yielded food for thought on both sides of the discussion. While opponents say that grades are inflated, remove intrinsic motivation and are poor communicators of learning, others claim that when effectively used by skilled teachers, grading can provide useful information about student learning. Regardless of where one stands in this argument, a key takeaway from this ongoing debate is that a precursor for assessing student learning is clearly elucidat- ing our expectations. What do we want our students to get out of an assignment? A course? A program? It all begins with defining our learning outcomes. These are the things we expect students to know, or be able to do, by the time Elaine Willerton, PhD | Assessment Director, SSBS they complete a course or the program. You've probably seen the program learning outcomes (PLOs) listed in the NCU Catalog, and the course learning outcomes (CLOs) in the sylla- bus of each course. NCU has also established Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILO). Each and every ILO, PLO and CLO is vetted and approved by the NCU Assessment sub-commit- tee of the Academic Affairs Committee. These learning outcomes are carefully crafted to clarify what a student should know or be able to do, how well we expect them to be able to do it, and how those things should be measured. How can we measure student achievement of these vast and multitudinous learning outcomes? NCU adopted Bloom's Taxonomy as a way to set expectations for, and measure student engagement of, our learning outcomes. The cognitive domain of learning includes six levels on a continuum ranging from simple to more complex learning. It is thought that one must master the more basic level before they are able to achieve the next, more complex level. The graphic below describes each level, followed by a few verbs that can be used to differentiate performance indicative of each level. ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING