Internal Assessment Grant
This grant program began in 2009 in response to faculty requests for more support for assessment work. The 2011 grants will provide funding for a limited number of program assessment activities during the summer of 2011. A PDF of the 2011 Call for Proposals can be downloaded by clicking here.
Summer Assessment Grant 2011 Recipients
Congratulations to all of our Summer Assessment Grant Recipients on their hard work and dedication to improving assessment efforts in their programs. Below you will find summaries of the work completed by the 2011 grant recipients.
Jill Bickett – Department of Educational Leadership, School of Education
In 2010, the Doctoral Program (EdD) in Educational Leadership for Social Justice decided that, in alignment with best practices, doctoral dissertations should be subject to external review by experts in the field. In summer 2011, Jill worked with faculty members Antonia Darder, Franca Dell’Olio, Karen Huchting, Magaly Lavadenz, Brian Leung, Emilio Pack, and Tony Sabatino to draft an assessment rubric for this purpose. Future steps in Jill’s plan include working with her colleagues to survey doctoral faculty about dissertation elements, refining the draft rubric based on the results, pilot testing the rubric internally, identifying external reviewers, and distributing dissertations for review.
Adriana Jaroszewicz – Animation Department, School of Film and Television
Adriana’s project focused on revising the Animation Department’s outcomes to better define the knowledge, skills, and values it deems essential, and on developing measures to assess them. In summer 2011, she presented revised outcomes and rubric drafts to fellow faculty and incorporated their suggestions for improvement. In the 2011-2012 academic year, she plans to coordinate development of two surveys to supplement evidence of learning captured by rubrics – a senior exit survey, and a survey to gauge students’ perceptions of group collaboration.
Holli Levitsky – Jewish Studies Program, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
Holli set out to gather evidence of student learning in the Jewish Studies Program because, even though she had a sense of which aspects were most effective and which were in need of improvement, she knew that it was crucial to validate her assumptions before proposing changes. Holli worked with colleagues Jeffrey Siker and David Greenfield to create an exit survey and conduct interviews with graduating seniors, as well initiate the development of a measure to solicit information from alumni. These activities have empowered the Jewish Studies program to make evidence-informed decisions. Holli’s future plans include developing direct measures of student learning to complement the program’s survey and interview evidence.
Chan Lu – Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts
Chan’s goal was to review and refine assessment materials already in use in the Chinese minor program, consolidate them in an assessment package that could be shared among faculty, and develop assessment rubrics for areas in which adequate materials did not exist. She collected existing materials and developed several new rubrics in summer 2011, and will continue to work with her colleagues to review, pilot, and refine assessment materials throughout the coming year. Additionally, she has designed an exit interview and questionnaire, which she plans to pilot in spring 2012 and administer to the first cohort of students graduating with a Chinese minor.
Elizabeth C. Reilly – Department of Educational Leadership, School of Education
Elizabeth, a professor in the Institute for School Leadership and Administration (ISLA), proposed that a signature assignment in the Business of Education course was needed to close a gap in course and program assessment. She developed the assignment in summer 2011, as well as an assessment rubric to measure achievement of student learning outcomes. Throughout the 2011-2012 academic year, she will work with fellow ISLA faculty to revise and pilot test the assignment and rubric, and will post program-approved versions on LiveText for faculty and student use.