3-Part Audio Online Seminar Series • Tuesday, November 25; Thursday, December 4; and Thursday, December 11, 2008 • Each program will be broadcast live 12:00 - 1:30 PM CST • $449

Join us for a three-part online seminar series on student assessment:

Getting Started With Student Learning Assessment: 2008

Choosing a Published Instrument to Assess Student Learning: 2008

Developing Tools and Strategies to Assess Student Learning: 2008

Someone once offered this definition of student learning assessment: “It’s deciding what we want our students to learn and making sure they learn it.”

What could be simpler? But spend a few hours pondering the subject, and you’re left with a different question: Could this be any more complicated?

When it comes to assessment, there are enough perspectives, enough stakeholders, and enough tools and methodologies to make your head spin.

If you’d like some help making sense of it all, sign up now for a unique, three-part online seminar series led by Linda Suskie of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. She’ll lead you through a careful examination of student assessment and the tools you can use to perform it. Whether you’re a new faculty member looking to incorporate assessment into your classes, or an experienced member of a departmental or institutional assessment team, you’ll gain valuable insight and a better understanding of the sometimes complex means to achieve assessment’s simple, but very worthwhile goals.

Seminar #1:
Getting Started With Student Learning Assessment
November 25, 2008

In this presentation, you’ll gain a solid understanding of the key issues surrounding assessment, including:
• What assessment is.
• The role of assessment in the teaching/learning process.
• How to articulate learning outcomes.
• How to review curricula for alignment with expected outcomes.
• How to identify and implement teaching strategies to help achieve outcomes.
• The audience for assessment results and reporting.

You’ll also get a straightforward examination at the strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of assessment methods, including the:
• Internal standards-based perspective
• External standards-based perspective
• Peer-referenced perspective
• Best-practice perspective
• Value-added perspective
• Longitudinal perspective
• Strengths and weaknesses perspective
• Capability perspective
• Productivity perspective

Seminar #2
Choosing a Published Instrument to Assess Student Learning
December 4, 2008

This seminar will help you decide whether published instruments should be part of your assessment program, and if so, which ones. You’ll learn:
• The difference between a published and standardized test.
• The relative advantages and disadvantages of published and locally-developed assessment tools.
• How to obtain information on published instruments, and how to interpret and critically analyze that information.
• The key questions that must be addressed as you plan the administration of a published instrument.
• The appropriate role of published instruments in your assessment program.

Ms. Suskie will also review in detail a number of well-known (and lesser-known) published instruments, including:
• MAPP
• CAAP
• CBASE
• Praxis 1
• Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)
• The National Survey of Student Engagement
• GRE
• And more

Seminar #3
Developing Tools and Strategies to Assess Student Learning
December 11, 2008

Locally-developed assessment tools provide an alternative – or in some cases, a supplement – to published instruments. In this fast-paced session, you’ll learn about developing your own assessment tools. You’ll gain insight into:
• The role of assessment in the teaching/learning process.
• The four key characteristics of effective assessment tools and strategies.
• The difference between “direct” and “indirect” evidence of student learning.
• The assessment information that may already be available at your institution.
• Which tools return the most information in proportion to the time spent developing and using them.
• How to develop rubrics, in more than one format, to evaluate student work.
• How to create multiple-choice tests that assess more than basic understanding.
• How to use reflective writing to assess the “ineffable” goals: attitudes, values, and the like.
• How to write effective “prompts” for essays and other assignments.

Exceptional value … and a campus-wide training opportunity!
You can attend all three seminars for the low price of just $425. And because that fee is per site, not per person, you can invite others from your campus to attend at no extra charge. Just sign on from a lecture hall or meeting facility, and invite your colleagues to join in!

Who should attend:
• Faculty
• Faculty Development Personnel
• Academic Affairs Personnel
• Academic Administrators
• Department Chairs
• Academic Deans
• Continuing/Extension Education Personnel

Featured Higher Education Presenter:


        Linda Suskie

How does a Magna Online Seminar work?

Can't make the scheduled seminars? Click here and scroll to the bottom of the next page to order the programs in CD or print transcript format.

   1:00 PM -   2:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time)
 12:00 PM -   1:30 PM (Central Standard Time)
 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Mountain Standard Time)
 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM (Pacific Standard Time)

3-Part Audio Online Seminar Series • Tuesday, November 25; Thursday, December 4; and Thursday, December 11, 2008 • Each program will be broadcast live 12:00 - 1:30 PM CST • $449

Date(s): 11/25/08-12/11/08
Time: 12:00 PM Central Standard Time - See other time zones above.
Cost: $449.00
Phone: 800-433-0499
Email: custserv@magnapubs.com