Making Assessment Meaningful

Last fall, a group of faculty from the three departments and the Office of General Education presented at the annual conference of the Association for General and Liberal Studies in St. Louis.  

The presentation - titled Supporting Gen Ed Assessment Reflection, Course Revision, and Continuous Program Improvement: Leveraging Faculty Mini Grants - shared how faculty can use assessment for their own professional development. 

The Pathways mini-grants program was launched in 2021, and since then, almost sixty adjunct instructors, graduate assistants, non-tenure track, and tenured professors have taken advantage of the program. The grants offer funds, professional development credits, and provide instructors with the data to progress on their teaching and course design.

Among the presenters at the conference was Lynn Resler, a professor in the Department of Geography. Resler, whose research focuses on the dynamics of high-elevation biological communities, teaches the Pathways course, Polar Environments (GEOG 3274), which received Pathways mini-grants in 2021 and 2022.

For the spring newsletter, the Office of Undergraduate Education asked Resler how the Pathways assessment process has influenced her teaching. 

Q: What made you decide to apply for a Pathways mini-grant?

Resler: Two years ago, I put in a proposal to make my course, Polar Environments, part of the Pathways General Education curriculum. I thought it was a good time to move on from “simply grading” and get serious about assessment. The grants provided the structure I needed when I was unsure about the process. 

I also wanted to see the bigger picture. I felt like I was in a rut and the assessment mini-grants provided an opportunity to think about how I could improve and reflect on my teaching. And hopefully develop a community that could provide some feedback on my work. 

Q: How did you use assessment to change what you were doing in the classroom?

Resler: Essentially, I used assessment to improve the alignment of learning objectives, student outcomes, and my approach to teaching. And I did that a few different ways. 

One way was to assign practice activities to get my students ready to do longer, graded assignments. And then I looked at how they were doing with respect to the learning objectives for those assignments. I was able to provide feedback, which was helpful for my students, but it also helped clarify what I needed to explain better. 

For example, in preparation for a graded assignment on communicating science to a non-expert, I developed a short, in-class assignment that gave students practice ‘translating’ the key points of a scientific journal article for a specified purpose and non-expert audience. Each student received feedback before the graded assignment. 

It helped me make sure everyone was on the same page and I was then able to follow up later in the semester with a graded assignment with the same objective. 

Q: Assessment can be unpopular with some faculty. Was there anything that changed your mind about assessment?

Resler: I think the turning point for me was when I realized it was helping both me and my students. It helped me to articulate and evaluate my teaching goals and to make sure I was critically questioning what I was asking of my students. I have also received more positive feedback from the students since making my class part of the Pathways curriculum.

For me, I also like knowing that what I’m teaching, as part of the Pathways General Education curriculum, is broadly applicable. Having students in my class from several different majors enhances my class through the sharing of different perspectives and ideas. As a result of this experience, I’d like to turn all my classes into Pathways courses, which I think I’ll do at the end of this semester even if it means a little more work.

Q: Do you have any advice for faculty that are new to the process?

Resler: Go into assessment with an open mind and consider that there’s a lot more to the process than just administrative documentation. You can strengthen your classes and strengthen your ability to actually teach students by spending time thinking carefully about assessment and what it means. 

Reach out to the Pathways office, there are wonderful resources to help faculty. Jenni Gallagher, Coordinator for General Education, was so helpful. If you try to think about assessment’s higher purpose, then I think some faculty might have a change of heart.