Students in the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures (DFLC) enter the program with a wide range of previous language studies and abilities, creating the need for a reliable, efficient, and consistent method to measure students’ knowledge and abilities for placement as they begin their studies in the department. Traditionally, DFLC faculty members have made […]
Effective program-level assessment provides data which faculty can use to collaboratively develop, maintain and improve an effective curriculum that promotes student learning through a program of study. Access to appropriate assessment tools and measures are critical to this process. At WSU, faculty are responsible for selecting assessment measures that align with student learning outcomes in […]
Assessment activities offer ways for faculty to think about student learning in the curriculum and how to support it most effectively in their own classes and the program. Many assessment activities can increase shared faculty understanding of the curriculum. For example, the design and approval of measures by faculty helps ensure that measures are meaningful […]
Assessment data collected by a degree program are valuable tools in making decisions about teaching and learning. As such, it is important to both protect data and provide appropriate access to data and results from data analysis (i.e. information derived from data). A well-established infrastructure makes evidence of student learning readily available for faculty and […]
How are students doing on WSU’s Undergraduate Learning Goals? Are UCORE Capstone (CAPS) courses providing students an opportunity to integrate and apply what they have learned throughout the curriculum, bringing closure to their undergraduate experience? To answer these and other questions, UCORE CAPS Instructors completed UCORE CAPS Course Assessment Reports to gauge student learning at […]
WSU defines science literacy as a “basic understanding of major scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision-making, participation in civic affairs, economic productivity and global stewardship.” Citizen-level science literacy involves being able to use scientific reasoning, assess the quality of sources of scientific information, understand the nature of scientific evidence and processes, and recognize […]
Each spring, WSU’s Landscape Architecture seniors get the chance to experience a landscape outside of the classroom and to interact with the people who live in, work in, and care about that landscape. Their senior capstone course is a service-learning studio that challenges them to generate designs in response to the needs of a particular […]
Room 118 in Carpenter Hall in the School of Design and Construction contains tables stacked with syllabi and assignment prompts. Every wall is covered with design presentation boards and other student work. The room holds course materials from every required course in the Interior Design curriculum along with samples of student products from all courses […]
In effective systems of student learning assessment, programs regularly complete the assessment cycle by using what was learned from assessment to inform or influence program decisions. Faculty and instructors play critical roles in evaluating student work and then interpreting and discussing results, so that program-level assessment can contribute to decisions about curriculum, instruction, professional development, […]
Should more producers utilize bovine growth hormone to meet the 100% expected increase in global food needs by 2064? This is the sort of question tackled by students in Agricultural and Food Systems (AFS). In the AFS senior capstone course, students are provided with the opportunity to apply scientific inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving […]