Assessment Certificate Program: The Requirements for ACP, The Objectives of the Workshops, The difference between Grades and Assessment (Essay Sample)

Name:
Instructor:
Course:
Date:
Assessment Certificate Program (ACP)
There are many things I have gotten to know about the ACP during the workshops I attended for the collaboration between Loyola and DePaul, Student Affairs and Academic affairs. First of all is the flexibility of the program, you do not have to sign up for it, if for instance you are interested in the workshops. The assessment cycle is based on core content. Are you interested in the ACP but want to first get an inkling of what it is about? You can choose to participate in the workshops first and fully decide if you are ready to sign up for the Assessment Certificate Program.
The Requirements for ACP
First things first, one is required to attend six ACP workshops one of which is the introduction to assessment which will not be necessary till later. You get to choose at least four workshops which will have to be at Loyola or DePaul.
There will be a workshop for the home campus which will be the last and final one. Having understood the ACP and how the workshops go about, one is required to choose a project they are best versed in and complete it.
Applying or rather signing up for the ACP is easy as all the detailed information is available at the DePaul website. The most interesting thing I learnt is that the workshops are so diversified in that there is something for everyone. The workshops were a great avenue to broaden my knowledge in projects I could not think of doing.
As part of signing up one was required to sign up entirely for ACP, Sign up for individual workshops, suggest future workshops topics and volunteer to co-present or better yet present. The Depaul website also provides more information on how one can go about a culminating project and how to propose one.
The Objectives of the Workshops
The main objective of the ACP workshops is to ensure that every participant understands the basics of the assessments, the definition, which kind of assessments and the levels. This was great as it gave an intuitive perspective to understanding fully why the workshops are important.
Another objective was understanding the guidelines and structure at Depaul, questions such as how program-level assessment is done and the sources used were answered. The institution lets you in on the assessment process used to the learning students.
Workshop Outline
Introduction to Assessment
The faculty did not explain Assessment as an evaluation by the institution to justify ones existence rather as a collection of systematic information of student’s knowledge, time used, learning and resources available to make informed decisions about the learning student.
The difference between Grades and Assessment
The goal of the grades is to make a single judgment of students’ performance in the entire course, whilst in Assessment the goal is to determine the students’ prowess throughout the program and how well they are mastering it.
A student’s performance Grades is a gathered outcome of the non-learning and learning objectives put together. With Assessment I learnt that it is a case of continued improvement, how? Assessment as opposed to grades is an explicit focus one a defined program and how well a student is taking it, then working on how to improve on it.
The Levels of Assessment
Course/Activity Level
Program Level
Department Level
College Division Level
Institutional Level
The types of Assessment
Summative (Single judgment in regards to performance).
Formative (Feedback given for more improvement).
Developmental (determination of student’s ability to certain competencies and skills).
Why is an assessment done? This is one of the questions that lingered in my mind until it was answered. First of all is because the institution cares and secondly for accreditation purposes.
Benefits of Assessments
To sum up the benefits, I learnt that the institution is driven by an ambition to provide reliable courses and qualities, in that student not only come to learn but also leave with intense knowledge.
Learning is a process and hence the need to provide students with quality data for decision making.
Assessment helps in understanding learning as it occurs across course, students’ experiences and activities.
Professional development of students, faculty and staff is one of its goals.
The Accreditation of students is National, Regional, State and Professional. The accreditation body is the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association (HLC).This accreditation is vital as it lets students receive federal financial funds for research. Another great understanding I derived from the program is that with this accreditation I can transfer to a reputable institution of choice with this credits.
Assessment at DePaul
DePaul conducts and provides evidence for assessment loop. For HLC requirements vary for other accreditation licensing agencies and certification. There is an annual process for assessment reports and projects. For a report to be generated I learnt that the program conducts an assessment on All Academic Programs, All Student Affairs Departments and other co-curricular programs.
Institutional Assessment
The Alignment Project is a project that allows Depaul to use program level assessment projects and reports to assess institutional learning goals and outcomes.The alignment projects created by the program are in made in a way that area of knowledge is covered.It felt fulfilling to be part of a program that touched on intellectual and social aspects.
The Learning goals and outcomes
Every person on a mission has goals and the goal of this program is to leave one nourished in terms of intellect. Here is a list of goals created by the program that impacted greatly on my knowledge and built on my expertise.
Mastery of Content
Intellectual and Creative Skills
Personal and Social Responsibility
Intercultural and Global Understanding
Integration of Learning
Preparation for Career and Beyond
University Learning Outcomes Alignment
The University has a structured program level assessment that monitors how well students are undertaking and achieving the learning goals and outcomes. This was quite a great gesture as many institutions tend to overlook how well/bad the students are coping with the many goals and outcomes to be achieved.
The university creates an avenue for students to discover where and when will an opportunity to achieve the goals come through. Opportunities for integration, cooperation and collaboration were created for students making it easier to cope with both curricular and co-curricular.
Assessment in Online Learning
Online learning has been embraced over the years but still faces some challenges for both teacher and students. Is it workable are there some strategies or assessment techniques that can make it achievable? Yes, all that is needed is learning good practice, blended sessions and workable examples to make assessment in online learning.
With simple introductions, context, inspirations from games, movies and tv, LMS tools, Activity, Rubrics and Q&A it can happen.
Non Traditional Assessment Models
Workshop Outline
Students will learn the outcomes of the workshop and learn why Non-Traditional Assessment is important. There were three Assessment models in this case and they are: Emergent Assessment, Developmental Assessment and Authentic Assessment.
At the end of the workshop I was able to define non-traditional assessment tools, something that at first, made no sense to me until I understood it. I can now simply identify and describe other alternatives to traditional assessment models and apply them to their own assessment work.
Emergent Assessment
The institution used reflection papers to gather our deductions from our learning experiences. The staff was rather interested in the students learning experiences, this was great as such creates a thriving environment for studying and being open. This is a quality way of assessment when the intention is finding out the unintended. Example methodologies for instants were writing samples requiring reflection, focus groups and interviews with students and ecological observation of students. The advantage of Emergent Assessment is that it tends to consider the needs of a student more directly as opposed to other traditional methods.
It is a great way of Assessment too because it does not allow a narrow focus as it pertains to defined learning outcomes. I relied to the positives of Emergent Assessment as it focused more on the program dos rather than the intentions of the program.
Developmental Assessment
Students who choose to go for the programs will develop skill, values and abilities to execute anything. This kind of Assessment to me was fantastic as its not aimed at offering any evaluation of performance, it was aimed at evaluating the extent to which a student has developed. We are different and the way we understand things is very different, this kind of assessment will not come as judgmental for it will in no case focus on the results or final product. It focuses more on having no expectation of what to have achieved at the end of the program.
The advantages that I got from Developmental Assessment are that my final product wasn’t put into considerations that much compared to my developing skills in the program. This taught me that it is not about how many great results I put forward but rather the progress and impact I put out there. My uniqueness and strengths were only visible through this type of assessment.
Authentic Assessment
It’s all about the real world, everything I went through in the program and in my studies is to prepare me for my career. Authentic Assessment is a unique way of assessing students an...