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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The Miami Plan Enabling Document rightly placed responsibility
for assessment in the hands of the faculty and departments
within the university and not the administration or
Office of Liberal Education. Among other guidelines,
this document states that, “Assessment plans would
be determined jointly by the Liberal Education Council
and a faculty group, program, department or division”
(p. 12). Importantly, the document stresses the importance
of assessment plans that focus on “student learning
outcomes and faculty development” and recognizes
that, to be credible, assessment must have “valid
and important benefits for the continuing professional
development of faculty, and results in improved student
learning” (p.12). Thus, the Enabling Document
recognizes that assessment should facilitate and enhance
both the teaching of Miami Plan courses and the learning
that takes place in these classes.
In actual practice, no formal assessments of Miami
Plan courses were submitted to the Liberal Education
Council until around 1997. With cautious support from
the Liberal Education Council (e.g. a handout outlining
attributes of effective assessments), departments struggled
to know what constitutes a good assessment. As a result,
the Council was often disappointed – with some
notable exceptions – with the quality of assessments
it received. Typically, these assessments often asserted
that the Miami Plan courses were meeting intended goals
but failed to provide substantiating evidence that this
was the case. Departments often viewed the assessment
process as an administrative task that resulted in a
report, rather than as a process that could be used
to improve the quality of student learning at Miami.
In 2000 the Council appointed a subcommittee to study
the assessment process and to recommend what an effective
assessment process would entail. The subcommittee recommended
that a faculty member be appointed as Associate Director
of the Office of Liberal Education to “be solely
responsible for supporting assessment efforts on this
campus….” and to assist faculty members,
departments and other programs in devising effective
assessment plans. As the result of this recommendation,
as well as additional structural changes, the Office
of Liberal Education now has both a Director of Liberal
Education and Assessment and a Coordinator of Assessment.
The Coordinator’s position is the only new appointment
in the Office of Liberal Education since its inception.
Related Links
*Miami
Plan Assessment (Program Review) Main Page*
Assessment Guidelines
Report Details
Sample Assessment Plans and Reports
Sample
Rubrics
Sample
Student Learning Outcomes
Sample Questionnaires
Frequently Asked
Questions
Historical Perspective
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