School of Education Assessment Design Exemplar

Contributed by Sunny Duerr

The School of Education (SOE) provides an exemplar in the arena of assessment with a successful design system. This design is able to respond to both regular and irregular data demands by providing evidence of student and program performance. The key characteristics of the SOE assessment design include:

• Program Learning Outcomes: Creating common constructs, informed by national standards, across disciplines to make up overall program learning outcomes while allowing programs to define those constructs within their own discipline.
• Curriculum and Assessment Mapping: Mapping program learning outcomes with key courses as well as the ways program learning outcomes are assessed. In-house rubrics and the NYSED certification exam are used.
• Multiple Assessments: Capturing data for program learning outcomes in numerous assessments—for example in-house assessments and NYSED certification exams.
• A Cycle of Assessments: Conducting yearly program reviews of assessment data to set SMART goals. Data is first reviewed in the fall, then in the spring, and again the next fall to determine if the goal should be continued into the next year.
• Garbage In, Garbage Out: Reviewing and modifying or eliminating assessments broadly viewed as useless.
• Communication Regarding Purpose: Viewing assessments as a critical tool for program decision-making.

This assessment system allows for an efficient response to requests for information about program effectiveness.