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Using Assessment to Inform Decision-making in AY 2020-21 UCORE Capstone [CAPS] Courses

As part of AY 2020-21 [CAPS] Assessment Reporting for UCORE, instructors were asked if they planned to make any changes in future semesters based on assessments from the current semester. Overall, 51% of instructors indicated that they planned to make a change to their course based on assessment.

Most commonly the changes were to assignments or course content. Below are some examples:

Use of Assessment to Make Changes: AY 2020-21 UCORE [CAPS] Report Summary Results

TypeQuotations - Selected Sample
Assignments
  • "I am planning on going back to assigning a research paper rather than an oral presentation as the final project"
  • "I plan to add an annotated bibliography for the final essay"
  • "I plan to improve the assignment instructions for students"
  • "I am switching from one long research paper to two smaller reports"
Course content
  • "I am going to increase the focus on quantitative decision-making"
  • "I plan to include more integrative learning"
  • "More time with students identifying databases and other sources of secondary information"
Teaching or instruction
  • "Provide more demo lectures"
  • "I'm going to work on more tutorial-based lessons"
Course resources
  • "I am incorporating a new textbook"
  • "My course materials will be modified to alleviate student misconceptions"
Other changes
  • "What comes to mind right away is ZOOM -- I will make more use of it, especially regarding office hours"
  • "Some changes to the rubric are needed to more clearly sort out students' abilities to meet the learning goals"
No planned changes / Unsure
  • "No changes planned at this time"
  • "I feel like it was such an odd semester that I'm not sure"

Note: For fall 2020 and spring 2021, undergraduate courses at WSU were delivered at a distance and completed remotely, with extremely limited exceptions for in-person instruction, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Roughly 73% of fall 2020 and spring 2021 CAPS instructors indicated that there were substantial impacts to course assignments, learning activities, instruction, and/or grading as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessment results inform continual reflection and discussion of teaching and learning; they contribute to decision making to ensure effective teaching and learning. Decisions can include choosing to make changes, continue current effective practices, or build on strengths.

For additional information about how student learning evidence contributes to decision making intended to support student learning and quality undergraduate education, see Use of Student Learning Evidence. See Key Assessments for additional information about [CAPS] Assessment for UCORE.