Closing the Loop

1. Closing the Loop What do you do when your assessment data are in? Using Assessment Data to Improve Teaching and Learning

2. Step 8: Revise the Assessment Plan and Continue the Loop Step 1: Identify Program Goals Step 7: Close the Loop Cycle of Assessment Step 2: Specify Intended Learning Outcomes (Objectives) Step 6: Report Findings Step 3: Select Assessment Methods Step 5: Analyze the Data: Step 4: Implement: Data Collection

3. Assessment Methods Used in the Fogelman College • Examination of student work • Capstone projects • Essays, papers, oral presentations • Scholarly presentations or publications • Locally developed examinations • Major field tests (undergraduate) • Measures of professional activity • Performance at internship, placement, sites • Supervisor evaluations • Miscellaneous Indirect Measures • Satisfaction/evaluation questionnaires .

4. Analysis Reported in Charts on the Web Site .

5. Sample Committee Actions • Objective met, no action needed • Revise a goal and/or objective • A minor or major curriculum change needed • Increase admission requirements, remediation avenues for students, adding prerequisites, increasing or changing specific assignments in existing courses • Provide support structures such as tutoring or student help sessions • Recommend how to implement the action .

6. Document Your Work! • “If you didn’t document it, it never happened…” • Document your thought process for all actions. The clinician’s mantra

7. Standards and Results:Two Basic Relationships • Two broad relationships are possible: • A standard was established that students met • A standard was established that students did not meet • Document reasoning for reaching a decision about the relationship chosen from the two alternatives shown above.

8. Closing the Loop: The Key Step • To be meaningful, assessment results must be studied, interpreted, and used • Using the results is called “closing the loop” • Conduct outcomes assessment because the findings can be used to improve our programs

9. Closing the Loop • Where assessment and evaluation come together… • Assessment: • Gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about student learning • Evaluation • Using assessment findings to improve institutions, divisions, and department .

10. Why Close the Loop? • To Inform Educational Program Review Committees • To Inform Planning and Budgeting in order to set priorities • To Improve Teaching and Learning • To Promote Continuous Improvement • To Meet accreditation requirements .

11. Steps in Closing the Assessment Loop • Briefly report methodology for each outcome • Document where the students are meeting the intended outcome • Document where they are not meeting the outcome • Document decisions made to improve the program and assessment plan • Refine assessment method and repeat process after proper time for implementation .

12. A Cautionary Tale • Beware the Lake Woebegone Effect • …where all the students are above average…

13. Closing the Loop: Future Good News Story! • Many degree programs in the Fogelman College used their assessment results to perform evaluations to make program improvements and refine their assessment procedures and educational program -- Thanks to input from the “Closing the Loop” committees. .

14. Oh, and by the way…Document Your Work!

15. Concluding Q & A:A One-Minute paper • What remains most unclear or confusing to you about closing the loop at this point? • To provide comments or ask questions, contact Lloyd Brooks: lbrooks@memphis.edu