Executive Summary – Lessons Learned & Next Steps

Building Learner-Centered Institutions: Developing Institutional Strategies for Assessing and Improving Student Learning

East-West IMIN Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, March 24-26, 2004

This workshop, sponsored by WASC and AAHE, brought together some 150 learning communities and assessment leaders from the western region in order to help campus teams draft plans to develop campus-wide collaboration focused on student learning and development, to build a sustainable commitment to student-centeredness both inside and outside of the classroom, and to seek and rely on evidence to guide institutional decision making.

Pepperdine University sent a team of twelve faculty members to this event, led by Don Thompson. Team members represented all five schools and focused on four constituent subgroups:  the University Faculty Assessment Council, and three academic divisions from Seaver College – Communication, Humanities, and Religion.  

The best evidence of return on investment for the university is mirrored in the feedback from event participants, responding to two questions:  

What was the most valuable aspect of going on this trip?

•	Having the opportunity to collaborate and build community with colleagues on program planning, review, and capstone projects.

•	Receiving valuable materials for our division program review timeline and process.

•	Attending presentations made by Dr. Mary Allen that provided structure and focus for our own upcoming program review assessment activities, especially her presentations on rubrics, learning objectives, and program objectives alignment matrices, and how to sequence the process of turning learning goals into measurable objectives.  

•	Obtaining Dr. Allen’s ideas on rubrics for my own courses as well as applying them to the RTP process.

•	Realizing that the most valuable resources at our disposal are our own, that is, the outstanding colleagues that we have within Pepperdine. However, we would not have drawn on those resources nearly as well without the kinds of context and stimuli provided by the conference

•	Understanding that outcomes assessment is only part of a bigger goal of shifting faculty to a learner-centered teaching approach.

•	Seeing anew that the shift from teacher to learner centeredness derives from a postmodern view of higher education.  (Don Thompson)

•	Focusing on learner goals and learning outcomes happens best in an educational environment where there is acceptance of learner-centered approaches and where there is a culture of assessment.

•	Thinking on a much deeper level about the relationship between teaching and learning.

•	Understanding how our process of program review might result in "embedded" processes that are not seen as intrusive (that may be difficult) or rushed.  

•	Confirming the notion of simplicity/focus, that is, not trying to say everything about everything but picking out some particular areas for both evaluation and recommendation.  Aspiring to smaller, rather than more comprehensive, steps may do more good. 

•	Understanding the fundamental explanations of the ways assessment can work, be measured, and especially be structured and maintained.  I saw some powerful ways to make tables to summarize assessment data. 

•	Discovering as many ideas for teaching as for assessment, especially about the management of groups.  

•	Envisioning the idea of planning our next university faculty retreat around the theme of assessment, and inviting one or more of our speakers from the Hawaii panel to speak with us. 

•	Developing an assessment vocabulary was also helpful.  The concept of breaking the program review process into steps (rather than trying to do it all in one step) resonated with me.

What recommendations do you have for next steps with respect to 
assessment activities at Pepperdine University?

•	Commit university resources (time and people) to the task - and not overwhelm faculty by simply pushing more of this type of work downward (as we have done with the prioritization) on top of their already full workload. 

•	Empower faculty to achieve embedded assessment tools in already existing workload allocations should be a priority. 

•	Devote the Seaver  (August) or Pepperdine (October) faculty retreat to a broader workshop on both the Student Learning Objectives and assessment coordination should be high on the University agenda.  Hold mini-versions of the same on our campus or in retreat settings.  Have Mary Allen provide some structure and ideas, and then have various break-out groups charged with the specific task of designing assessment procedures geared to their own programs (or some other "capstone project" if they are at a different phase of their respective assessment cycles).  In other words, hold an assessment summit that brings together assessment activities that are currently at work in the 5 schools. Use the philosophy of  "starting small" philosophy that we heard so much about is obviously crucial, but it seems to me that small but significant strides forward are realistic in a series of mini-retreats. 

•	Document what we already have in place that meets the WASC criteria. Have each school document assessment procedures are already in place.  Time should then be allotted at faculty meetings at each school, to allow faculty to reach some consensus of what outcomes they deem most important for students in our programs.  We should then discuss how well our existing assessment procedures tap these desired outcomes.  Where gaps are identified, we (and where necessary we can draw in outside help) can discuss ways of adjusting our assessment procedures.  For certain schools (mine being a good example) if we want faculty to be involved and enthusiastic about assessment, it is VERY important that the design of the assessment process be faculty driven rather than a general assessment scheme imposed from the outside.

•	There is a rumor that what is needed from a program review is a  no-more-than 20 page document (including executive summary) with appendices.  If that is true, I would hope that not even appendices would greatly expand the volume.  That's not merely a comment about workload; if these are to be useful documents, I don't think they can be lengthy ones based on what I've seen in past assessment/accreditation/strategic planning efforts.

•	Get faculty to buy into the process.  Using embedded approaches will be helpful in this regard.  I also like the idea of inviting Mary Allen to campus.  She could provide some good information regarding general principles of assessment.  I would also suggest, however, identifying a few "green light people" in different programs to share with other faculty specific examples of how they "do" assessment.  I think that providing specific examples of faculty work will be more effective than providing them only with general principles of assessment.  The ideal then would be to have Mary come for a faculty conference to provide information on general assessment issues via plenary sessions coupled with break-out sessions that include faculty work in assessment.

•	Keep the assessment process faculty driven.  Faculty members should identify their assessment goals/objectives/plans and present them to the administration/UFAC rather than the other way around.  I think the assessment process will be more valuable to faculty (and more acceptable) the less the process is viewed as a mandate "from above."

•	Establish the assessment process as an activity that is ongoing and that will provide tangible benefits for faculty.  If faculty perceive the process as merely an exercise to satisfy WASC then they will not become invested in the process.  I hope the UFAC can be a committee that evaluates and re-evaluates program assessment on an ongoing basis.

•	Discuss (at UPC?) the role of assessment in the broader context of university strategic planning and budgeting.  

•	Require each division to have an ongoing, coherent program assessment procedure/plan with a schedule for implementation and regular reporting.  The plan needs to be linked to the review and accreditation processes and linked to future prioritization.  To assess a program, it seems that required or at least core courses must have assessment plans.  The existence and maintenance of assessment of courses should also be linked to RTP teaching evaluations.  To facilitate, try some of the following:  Identify existing model assessment activities on campus and online, especially those with embedded methods; identify campus assessment mentors; provide release time ; provide summer workshops and/or stipends.

•	Start building an assessment program at each school of the university. We need to start small. I was going to suggest that we pick a specific area of our existing programs (for the professional schools), and set up an assessment pilot project. I was going to recommend the first year legal writing course at the law school, but I have to speak with my colleagues who teach in that program first. Also, having a quarterly committee meeting o talk through issues do debriefing, and discussing challenges might be a good thing as well.

•	From here we need to enlist/excite more of our colleagues to become part of the assessment process.  I like the suggestion of working in small groups in mini-workshops over a period of time.  A similar model might be the Sears Asian Studies program from several years ago (done more inexpensively).  We as faculty have grown farther apart.  We need to get to know one another better to establish the trust necessary for a valid assessment program. 

Future Directions:  Don Thompson is meeting with all of the workshop participants over the next month to determine how best to proceed to capture the significant momentum gained from this assessment activity and make connections with the larger university community.  The group unanimously desires to bring Dr. Mary Allen to our campus for assessment workshops in the near future.