Cardinal Points

Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Katie Khouri Associate Dean of Education, Health and Human Services Michael Morgan and Librarian Carla Hendrix listen on during a Periodic Review Report committee meeting in the Alumni Conference Meeting room on April 5.

The Periodic Review Report (PRR) committee and faculty met last week to discuss the current Middle States Commission on Higher Education Report - a report that looks at the institution's strengths and weaknesses in order to address them.

The report shows strengths and improvements in the strategic planning process, enrollment management and supportive administration.

"We should celebrate what we do well and improve the things that need improvement," Associate Dean of Education, Health and Human Services and PRR committee member Michael Morgan said.

The primary weakness is use of assessment results to improve student learning and advance the institution.

"It's very interesting to take a snap-shot of yourself," Dean of Education, Health and Human Services David Hill said. "Any professional does this in order to make sure they are making progress."

Hill said he thinks the assessment process is political - it used to be that a teacher's professional judgment was enough.

Morgan said every institution has to address the issues surrounding assessment.

"Assessment is an emotionally- charged word," he said. "We have to demonstrate that we're doing what we can."

The report aims to shed light on this issue and the related challenges of creating valid and reliable methods of assessment at all levels, clearer links between results and improvements in programs, embedded assessments in course work and ensuring all adjuncts understand their roles in assessment.

Hill said students should be given real problems in class and teachers should have a rationale for their assessments.

"I can't think of a time, when you're out of college, when you're going to take a multiple- choice test," he said. "You can't assess what you've learned with a multiple-choice test."

Multiple-choice tests are quick, easy and cheap and that's why people use them, Hill said. They lead to memorization, not retention.

Continued...

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