Student Learning Assessment Goals

The following goals have been established for the 2007-2008 academic year:

1) Recommend summer/intersession assessment formats.

Rationale: Currently, summer/intersession courses are not evaluated (with the exception of on-line courses). In addition, no mechanism exists that consistently collects student evaluations of internships.

2) Continue assessment of basic skills of general education.

Rationale: The assessment of basic skills of general education is necessary for three reasons: (1) to improve students’ learning, (2) to adhere to institutional accreditation requirements, and (3) to provide data to the Maryland Higher Education Commission on students’ achievement of basic core competencies.

3) Continue work with the Student Learning Assessment Advisory Group (SLAAG).

Rationale: The SLAAG serves as the “faculty voice” for student learning assessment and will guide the “next phase” of University assessment initiatives.

4) Develop assessment approaches for Undergraduate Institutional Learning Goals.

Rationale: This multi-year process has as its goal the development of a clear process of assessing to what depth FSU graduates have attained “skills and dispositions identified by the University as essential to education.”

5) Refine/revise academic program review process to increase its relevancy to overall student learning assessment efforts.

Rationale: The University’s student learning assessment plan was designed to follow the already-established cycle of academic program review. This goal focuses on the creation of clear alignments to increase further the value of program review as it relates to assessment of student learning.

6) Provide support to departments in development of learning goals and assessment strategies.

Rationale: Because the success of student learning assessment ultimately is vested within the faculty, focused resources for departments/programs must be readily available.

7) Identify strategies to use NSSE data more constructively.

Rationale: The University is an active participant in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) for several years
( http://www.nsse.iub.edu/index.cfm ).
The NSEE is an annual survey of over one million first-year and senior students at over 600 different institutions. The information received about our students’ opinions about multiple aspects of campus life—from activities and personal engagement to the academic program and interaction with faculty—can provide valuable data to support continuous program improvement.

8) Create Identity and Difference assessment criteria and methods.

Rationale: As the result of the recommendations of the Undergraduate Education Initiative, the University’s general education program was modified to include the requirement that every student complete a course in identity and difference. Existing courses were submitted for review against a specific set of criteria. An assessment method must now be developed to periodically assure that each course continues to meet those criteria.

9) Develop collaborative recommendations to integrate institutional assessment and student learning assessment into planning and budgeting.

Rationale: In its reaccreditation report (April 2006), the Middle States Commission on Higher Education http://www.msche.org/ recommended that “Frostburg should fully review and revise its planning and resource allocation processes to more fully engage the broader campus community and to provide for transparency within the process, including the provision of explanations for establishing priorities and analyses of how budget decisions impact each division” (p. 12). Because student learning assessment can offer valuable information related to resource decisions, the Student Learning Assessment Advisory Group will be crafting a set of recommendations to supplement institution-wide efforts in the area of planning and budgeting.

10) Develop operational framework for actual implementation of assessment efforts throughout all Colleges and into a central office for review, analysis, publication.

Rationale: The implementation of a comprehensive, campus-wide assessment program has very real resource implications. The Student Learning Assessment Advisory Group will be discussing these issues from the faculty perspective and will be developing a slate of recommendations for consideration.