Lessons Learned
•Don’t just gather data: use it!
•Focus on long-term goals
•Don’t fear negative results
•Build (and use) social capital
| 1. Gathering data: |
|
| --need to report it
in meaningful ways to the right people |
|
| 2. Focus on long
term goals |
|
| --one minute
assessments tell us about specific classes, activities, even teaching styles |
|
| --but they can also
lead to giving up too soon |
|
| --repeat
assessments; get a cumulative sense of what they are telling you about what
students know and do and learn |
|
| 3. Negative results: |
|
| --can show how much
work needs to be done and in what areas; makes the conversation more specific |
|
| --can be used for
benchmarking for future improvement |
|
| --can be used to
provide feedback to students: example of English 2010 student
self-assessment; told story of repeat web citations from previous assessment;
said he didn’t want to do that, so he had to learn about more than
Google |
|
| --shame factor alone
can spur action |
|
| 4. Social capital: |
|
| --be an assessment
partner in outcomes environment |
|
| --take advantage of
social capital by asking for something in return: |
|
| --future involvement in
assessment |
|
| --money for assessment |
|
| --English department: asked, does
2010 need to do more? What can we do to help? |
|