Resources

• Dialogue Series
  Western’s Dialogue series was designed to stimulate conversation, provide information, and foster university-wide collaboration to improve teaching, learning, and assessment at Western Washington University.
• Program Assessment Handbook: Tools and Techniques for Program Improvement
  Western’s guide for faculty and staff on writing program assessment plans.
• Course Assessment Handbook: Tools and Techniques for Course Improvement
  Western’s guide for faculty and staff on writing course assessment plans.
• Center for Instructional Innovation & Assessment
  The Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment provides another explanation of outcome assessment to some of the web’s most frequently used assessment examples and explanations.
• Visible Knowledge Project
  The Visible Knowledge Project (VKP) is a five-year project aimed at improving the quality of college and university teaching through a focus on both student learning and faculty development in technology-enhanced environments. The Project involves over 70 faculty from 21 campuses nationwide.
• Policy Center on the First Year of College
  This interesting listserv is designed to help gather and share information on best practices and procedures for assessing the first college year; the website also features invited remarks by several experienced researchers.
• The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group
  The TLT Group mission is to provide materials and services that motivate and enable institutions to improve teaching and learning with technology, while helping them cope with continual change.
• Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
  “Bloom’s taxonomy,” developed nearly fifty years ago, is still a useful guide for thinking about teaching and learning. This site, and others linked to it, includes lists of suggested verbs for describing practically any learning objectives.
• 9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning
  The nine principles form the basis for distinguishing good assessment practices from the not-so-good.
• “What Do We Know About Students’ Learning and How Do We Know It?” by Patricia Cross
  If we are to take learning seriously, we need to know what to look for (through research), to observe ourselves in the act of lifelong learning (self-reflection), and to be much more sensitively aware of the learning of the students that we see before us everyday.
• “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever”
  A discussion of the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education in the context of communication and information technologies, by Steve Ehrmann and Arthur Chickering.

Additional Resources

• The Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes at Western Washington University: Plan, Progress, Organizational Developments, and Future Activities April, 2000
• Center for Instructional Innovation & Assessment – WWU Models