Training and Support

Consulting

Consulting appointments are available if you wish to meet one-on-one with either Eileen Soto or Elizabeth Waschak. To book your appointment, simply click on the appropriate calendar link below.

Eileen Soto's Calendar Elizabeth Waschak's Calendar

Areas for consulting:

Writing and revising program or course learning outcomes
Designing and revising rubrics
Curriculum mapping
Assessment planning
Annual assessment reporting
ePortfolios
Regional and specialized accreditation matters
Writing surveys, analyzing survey data
Facilitating focus groups
Learning outcomes data analysis

Need help with something not listed here? Let us know, and we will do what we can to help or provide resources!

Programs

ePortfolio Collaborative

The purpose of the ePortfolio Collaborative is to give faculty members the opportunity to develop meaningful interactions with ePortfolios in an academic program with implications for student learning outcomes assessment, reflective practices and career preparation. Faculty participants in this program will serve as leaders for an ePortfolio initiative within their respective schools/departments.

The two-year collaborative is made up of representatives from each School. In year one, collaborative participants focus on the purpose and foundation for the use of ePortfolios in their area. Readings and discussions focus on ePortfolio benefits for students and faculty, particularly in the areas of reflective and integrative learning, career preparation and professional identity, and/or learning outcomes assessment practice. Collaborative participants will learn from peers within Biola who have already executed ePortfolios in their programs. Potential challenges are also discussed, and participants have the opportunity to strategize and idea share on how to address those potential barriers to success. By the end of the first year, participants are expected to create a purpose statement and detailed implementation plan represented in the form of an ePortfolio. During the second year participants are responsible to execute his or her implementation plan and have important conversations and education sessions with their department faculty and students in order to successfully implement ePortfolios in their programs.

*Note: ePortfolio Collaborative is currently on hold. Please contact Eileen Soto at eileen.soto@biola.edu with any questions.

Faculty Assessment Fellows

The Faculty Assessment Fellows program gives faculty members the opportunity to develop a meaningful and efficient process within an academic program for program learning outcomes (PLO) assessment. Faculty participants in this program will serve as leaders for PLO assessment within their respective major/program departments.

Goals

Promote collaboration among the department internally and externally across Biola.
Enhance and develop authentic PLO assessment and reporting
Develop an appreciation for assessment as a helpful, meaningful and necessary tool for continuous improvement.
Determine how to apply the training to contribute long-term to their program and/or school.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to:

Develop a culture of collaboration within their department and shared ownership of program assessment.
Articulate the importance and value of program level assessment of student learning.
Distinguish between cursory and authentic assessment.
Gather and interpret meaningful data on student learning (i.e. selecting appropriate artifacts, developing rubrics and benchmarks, analyzing results).
Recommend curricular changes that are directly related to the results of assessment.
Develop an assessment cycle that allows time for data collection, curriculum revisions, and assessment of the effectiveness of the changes made.

Guiding Principles

The assessment of student learning begins with what we value about education.
Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as complex and occurring over time.
Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes and learning outcomes.
Assessment requires attention to outcomes and to the experiences that lead to those outcomes.
Assessment works best when it is ongoing, not episodic.
Assessment is most effective when all program faculty, and others from the educational community, are collaboratively engaged in the assessment process.
Assessment makes a difference when it addresses issues and questions that people really care about.
Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when there are concrete plans of action and is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change.
Through assessment, educators promote equity and meet responsibilities to students and to the public.

Adapted from AAHE Principles of Good Practice: Aging Nicely

Workshops and Events

Below are some of the assessment workshops we host to assist faculty in the academic assessment process. See the calendar below for workshop offerings and details. To attend, click on the sign-up button, complete the form and submit.

Re-introducing Assessment: Connecting the "Why" with the "What"
- What is program-level assessment all about? Why do we talk about continuous improvement and what does that look like? In this workshop, we will clarify how the Office of Educational Effectiveness partners with various academic departments (what we provide to and expect from departments), set reasonable expectations about what constitutes "meaningful improvement" (trends and tweaks) and explain the updated Annual PLO Assessment Report template.
exPLOring Student Learning: Writing and Revising Program Learning Outcomes
- When students complete your program, what do you want them to have learned? Writing and revising Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) allows your department to have shared language for describing and measuring student learning. In this workshop, we will explain what goes into a well-crafted PLO and suggest ways to collaboratively write and revise.
Putting your Expectations on Paper: Writing Rubrics that Communicate Clearly
- You know what you're looking for in student work, but do your students know? In this workshop, we will identify different types of rubrics, discuss how different rubrics serve different purposes and provide real-time feedback to help you make your implicit knowledge of student learning explicit.