Assessment Miami Style

An article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education summarizes the college-wide assessment program at Miami Dade College. The article begins like this:

In 2007 the faculty at my institution, Miami Dade College, joined the student body in signing a covenant "to build a foundation for the success of future students." The event capped a two-year effort on the part of the faculty to articulate the foundations of a 21st-century college education and codify them into 10 clear statements.

However, creating a top-10 list of what we want our students to learn was only part of a larger mission — one we began in 2005, in response to a national dialogue on openness and accountability, fostered by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Since then, our journey has been navigated by various faculty committees that not only developed our list of goals, but are also working to develop assessment tools and curriculum-mapping processes.

The next logical step was to measure our success at teaching those essential skills. In a report released this month, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in fact called on community colleges to improve their assessment skills. While "outcomes assessment" is a hateful phrase to many, and while quantifying a college education in concrete terms may seem distasteful, outcome assessments can be accomplished while preserving professors' individuality and freedom in course design. Proving the attainment of set standards often evokes fears of "teaching to the test," but we see assessments as opportunities to design creative, thought-provoking challenges.

And now, for the rest of the story...