What are the Obstacles to Workable Assessment?
What are the obstacles to developing workable assessment plans?
- We don't really quite understand what assessment is or what its uses are.
- We don't have the tools or experience necessary to formulate realistic, streamlined assessment plans that will work;
- We don't have the time to devote to it in the press of our daily work load; it falls through the cracks because of other more pressing duties (grading that set of tests, completing that search)
- The information doesn't go anywhere. We collect it and it sits. It doesn't do anything productive for us.
It stands to reason that the way to overcome these obstacles is
- to try to learn more about workable assessment, to explore best practices;
- to learn some new tools, beginning with very simple measurements that take little time to complete and which yield usable results;
- to start small and build by assessing one goal at a time;
- make assessment part of the work we are already doing rather than something added on;
- collect information that is useful and then use it.
This workbook offers some advice on how to create a feasible assessment plan that will provide useful feedback with the minimum amount of extra work. Its intended audience is faculty, administration, and staff who are charged with the task of developing and implementing an assessment plan.
For a couple of useful (short and readable; don't you love the titles?) discussions of assessment see
Susan R. Hatfield, "Black Holes and Gaseous Processes: Really Big Assessment Mistakes."
Wabash College: Center of Inquiry Blog
My Favorite all-time assessment program is The Harvard Assessment Seminars