The full post is available over at the Carney Sandoe blog, The Puzzle.

1.  Why are you assessing  learning outcomes?

In any endeavor, it’s important to begin with the end in mind.  No plan to improve your school’s Learning Outcomes Assessment (LOA) can be successful without first establishing strong clarity of purpose in assessing your school’s learning.

We do so to be accountable to our boards, parents, and accrediting associations; we do so in order share data with prospective parents in our marketing and admissions materials and for our prospective donors in our campaign communications and grant applications.learning outcome assessment

Most of all, we do so because we are committed to improving learning for our students, a purpose all the more important as the information revolution sweeps over us.   As Paul Arcario, the Dean of LaGuardia Community College, states,

“whether or not we’re comfortable with it, assessment is about revolution. 

Through assessment we challenge ourselves to rethink our ways of teaching, structuring the curriculum, working together, even knowing itself.  It provides a mean for self-correction action and for the continual expansion of our thinking about the idea and purpose of education.”

2. How well does your community understand the meaning and purpose of LOA?

It is not enough for the leadership to know why it is conducting outcomes assessment; strengthening the culture of assessment in our schools demands that everyone understands the meaning and purpose of LOA.

READ THE FULL POST BY CLICKING HERE