CTAAR Newsletter
April 16 - Online Rating Surveys Begin
The online Student Instructional Rating Surveys will begin at 12:01 A.M. on Thursday, April 16 for the majority of courses that are using the online system (some courses made previous arrangements to run their surveys over a different period). Students will receive an email message notifying them that the survey is available with a link directly to their survey. They may also see all their course surveys at once by logging in to Sakai https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal and clicking "All Surveys". The survey period ends on May 4 at 11:59 PM.
Currently about 75% of the university courses are still using the paper system. Students who do not see their surveys listed in Sakai will take the survey on paper during class.
Any department that wants to move their surveys into the online system should contact us at 932-7466. Moving to the online survey provides quicker access to the survey results and less work for your department in distributing survey forms and results to faculty.
March 3 - Workshop by Richard Keeling
Richard Keeling, of Keeling and Associates, gave a presentation in New Brunswick last November on learning outcome assessment that was very well attended and very well received. Many attendees asked that we arrange for a day long workshop with Dr. Keeling and his team, and we have done so.
When: March 3, 2009, from 8:30 am to 5 pm.
Where: College Avenue Student Center Multipurpose Room
Format: The workshop will be conducted in a team format. Teams will be accepted from schools, academic departments, or professional staff offices. The optimal team size is four members, but larger teams are acceptable.
Registration Deadline: February 23, 2009.
Below is an outline of the workshop, as prepared by Dr. Keeling:
- Review current knowledge from multiple disciplines about the nature, characteristics, and processes of learning -- especially, transformative learning -- and how to link the science of learning to the assessment of student learning.
- Explore the intellectual foundations of the assessment of learning.
- Explain the role of assessment in improving both teaching and learning.
- Clarify differences between operational, or process, effectiveness and mission-centered, or outcome, effectiveness -- and between operational indicators and student learning outcomes.
- Differentiate levels of student learning outcomes -- institutional, divisional, departmental, and program/activity.
- Prepare participants to create meaningful student learning outcomes and basic assessment and evaluation plans, including methods, metrics, and processes with which to evaluate the effectiveness of learning experiences inside or outside the classroom.
- Describe the uses of assessment in program improvement.
The deadline for teams to sign up for the conference is February 23, 2009. You can sign up by sending an email to Monica Devanas at devanas@brokenmail.rutgers.edu please replace "brokenmail" with ctaar.rutgers.edu. Please list your team members names and email addresses in your email. There is a limit on the number of attendees, so please don't delay.
Dec 3 - Best Practices in Assessment (slides)
The slides for Gary Gigliotti's December 3rd presentation on "Best Practices in Assessment" are now available.