Following a competitive application process, the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) awarded Wayne State a day-long visit from national assessment expert Errin Heyman.
The university’s General Education Oversight Committee (GEOC) is leading the development of an assessment plan for the recently approved revised General Education program, and Heyman brought specialized expertise and experience to a series of interactive workshops based on the topic. Heyman, who, among other accomplishments, has served as director of the Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Assessment at West Coast University and dean of Educational Effectiveness at the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, visited campus on Aug. 27.
In the workshops, WSU faculty and staff focused on adapting national rubrics for three areas of General Education: diversity, equity and inclusion; quantitative experience; and social inquiry. The workshops concentrated on customizing national rubrics to fit WSU’s learning outcome goals, keeping Wayne State’s overall mission and vision in mind, as well as individual course and student outcome goals.
Kelly Young, a faculty member on the GEOC assessment subcommittee, says these workshops will help lay the groundwork for piloting assessment methods on a larger scale and evaluating the feasibility of applying them across the other General Education focus areas.
“Assessment is a process for ensuring that students are learning what the university has promised. Developing a meaningful, efficient and sustainable assessment process for General Education can only happen when faculty and staff expertise guides the conversation. Assessment plays a crucial role in overall student success,” said WSU Director of Assessment Cathy Barrette. “It’s part of our role as educators to continually foster improvements to student learning.”
Heyman noted that Wayne State fits into a larger national assessment trend in its decision to focus on General Education learning outcomes separately from department-level program goals.
“The visibility and attention to these learning outcomes is increasing each year,” Heyman said. “That positive increase really speaks to an overall commitment to student experience and, ultimately, student success.”
The workshops also provided professional development opportunities to participating staff and faculty from multiple schools and colleges and a broad sample of co-curricular programs.
“Working on program-level assessment for General Education helps me think about my individual Gen Ed courses as part of broader program goals. I appreciate that people who teach the courses were actively involved in shaping how they would be assessed,” said Jennifer Hart, associate professor of history. “I hope that faculty will continue to participate in order to ensure that the General Education program is robust and meaningful for students. Participating in the exercise also helped me think through the process of program assessment, generally, which will be helpful for me as we continue to work on assessment and curriculum in our own department.”
To learn more about program assessment at Wayne State, visit wayne.edu/assessment.