Assessment Roundtable: Assessing Your Teaching Initiatives

March 4, 2009, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

In this facilitated, focused discussion, you will work with assessment experts and educational researchers to develop a strategy for assessing your new teaching idea, curriculum linking plan, student research program, or other initiative.

Contents of this page

Motivation

Why Assessment?

Systematic assessment can provide evidence about whether your efforts create the change in learning, motivation, or behavior you are trying to cultivate – and help you (and funders) make evidence-based decisions for allocating scarce resources (i.e., money and time!).

Two integrated components throughout the day:

Opportunities to identify and work with peers who share your assessment goals.
High-level overview of the main elements of assessment, from clear articulation of expected outcomes to data analysis; expert and peer support for developing a workable assessment strategy.

Roundtable Schedule

Part I: Developing Assessment Affinity Groups

Each participant will be expected to bring an educational problem, intervention, or challenge they would like to assess and, if available, a research plan or instrument for assessing it. We will break into groups around assessment questions and share expertise from within the group and from assessment/research experts.

Examples of assessment issues include (but are not limited to!):

"ABET wants us to define our courses in terms of learning outcomes. What makes for a good learning outcome?"
"I plan to implement collaborative learning in my course. How will I know whether students learn more or are more likely to stay in the major?"
"When we assess communication, should we do it in a separate course (e.g., an English or Public Speaking course) or should we do it in a CS class? What are the trade-offs?"
"How do we make sure that the learning objectives across our curriculum are linked?"
"How can I address the different experience levels in my CS1 course? We don’t have resources for CS0."

Examples of assessment instruments you could bring:

Final exam for a given course
Survey for students leaving or entering the major
Survey used in a research study
Research or evaluation (assessment) plan (your own or other’s)
Student journaling assignment
Student peer-evaluation questionnaire

Part II: Do-It-Yourself Assessment, Instrument Analysis, and Identifying Peer Expertise

High-level overview of the basics for do-it-yourself evaluation or for understanding the approaches used by consultants. The overview will summarize techniques and provide participants with several resources for planning educational research and assessment in computer science.
Groups critique assessment instruments.
Large-group discussion to identify pockets of expertise, share information.

Who Should Attend this Roundtable?

Practitioners who know little about assessment and who are looking for new/novel/better ways of assessing their teaching practices.

Researchers and Assessment Experts

Dr. Lecia Barker, Research Associate Professor in the School of Information, University of Texas-Austin and Senior Research Scientist for the National Center for Women & IT will lead the roundtable. Barker collaborates with faculty, scientists, and K-12 educators assessing and researching educational innovations, digital libraries, and technical curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She will be supported by Ph.D. students whose research focuses on CS education and assessment.

Registration

Registration is $95. You may register for this roundtable on-line at the same time you register for the symposium. Registration options are explained on the SIGCSE 2009 registration site.

A continental breakfast, hot lunch, and morning and afternoon break foods/beverages will be provided.

Questions? Please contact:

Lecia Barker

lecia@ischool.utexas.edu