ON DEMAND: Assessing Assessments: Delving into the Inaugural Pilot Review Process of Academic Annual Assessments

Abstract

In an effort to model promising assessment practices and provide formative feedback to academic programs, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning (OIEP) in collaboration with the Mason Academic Assessment Council (MAAC) implemented a holistic review process of the academic program submission to Mason’s Annual Assessment. Each council member engaged in a small group and peer-driven process. Each group was assigned academic programs to review utilizing a co-developed rubric that included each component of a program’s submission to the Mason Annual Assessment: an organizational mission, curriculum map(s), student learning outcomes, measures, results, and improvements. Recognizing the disciplinary expertise of faculty, the reviews focused not on disciplinary content but on the assessment process itself and members engaged with the spirit of providing positive formative feedback. As a pilot and iterative process, we learned both about how best to engage in these discussions and about how we can evolve this process to support program improvement and student learning. OIEP hosted sessions in January to frame the feedback, clarify the role of the reviewer, and share themes from the feedback.

Our video presentation will illustrate the connection between course level teaching and learning with annual program assessment. We will share findings from a meta-analysis of 200 academic program submissions at George Mason University and highlight institutional steps towards building a sustainable culture of assessment.