Inclusive Assessment
What is Assessment?
Assessment is an iterative, methodical, and participatory process designed to strengthen teaching and learning practices (Suskie, 2009). Just as doctors deliver treatments in consultation with medical data about patients, educators deliver meaningful learning experiences in consultation with assessment data about students.
Predominantly white institutions have traditionally assessed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through student outcomes, such as enrollment numbers and graduation rates of students of color, instead of assessing faculty outcomes, such as classroom teaching informed by promising practices (Bensimon, 2007). Moreover, student evaluations represent the most prevalent means to assess classroom teaching despite research revealing the biased and unreliable nature of such tools (Uttl, White, & Gonzalez, 2017), with disproportionately negative feedback about women and people of color (Pratt, 2015; Schmidt, 2015). Even when professors receive student evaluations after the course has ended, few structured opportunities exist to adjust pedagogical practices that ensure high-quality, equitable student learning opportunities.
When we harness assessment as an educational tool, there are infinite possibilities for amplifying DEI content in curricula, strengthening inclusive teaching practices in the classroom, and cultivating cultures that support DEI for students, staff, and faculty. Together, we can explore ways to assess DEI possibilities that go beyond numbers and biases so we create robust and equity-oriented learning ecologies.
Why Consider Assessment in DEI?
- Kindles potential transformative learning opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to become agents of change and agents of curiosity (Freire, 2014).
- Continually strengthens pedagogical possibilities for students, staff, and faculty to interact with DEI intellectually, interpersonally, and intrapersonally.
- Creates curricular cohesion for academic units to articulate significant learning outcomes that builds a unified identity of their degreed program.
- Fosters interdisciplinary partnerships for academic units to expand the spectrum of learning experiences through a constellation of touch points across disciplines.
- Supports recruitment, retention, and persistence of all students, staff, and faculty, particularly people from economically and politically vulnerable communities.
- DEI learning outcomes help institutions create culturally engaging campus environments (Museus, Yi, & Saelua, 2016) that shape how professors design and teach curricula; staff design and lead co-curricular initiatives; students know the arc of their academic trajectories; and employers explore the repertoire of knowledge, values, and skills that students developed from their educational experiences (Melguizo & Coates, 2017)
Key Tenets
- Assessment is a process that can help educators optimally and critically transform cultures and pedagogical practices in their classrooms, curricula, departments, units, and institutions.
- Curricula, teaching practices, students, staff, faculty, policies, and unwritten norms shape cultures of teaching and learning (Cole & Engeström, 2007).
- Trust, transparency, and appreciative inquiry are foundational for cultural change (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2003) so that students, staff, and faculty can use their power and voices to transform their realities and the world around them (Freire, 2014).
- Re-imagining and re-creating the world as it could be (Boal, 1995) is possible when we can engage in assessment and critical reflection.
- Institutions can harness the transformative potential of assessment when the onus and support of DEI is distributed across governing bodies, institutional leadership, department chairs, students, staff, and faculty.
Definitions
Assessment
A participatory, iterative, and systematic process for the collection and analysis of evidence about the achievement of outcomes for the purposes of continuous improvement (adapted from the Higher Learning Commission and Case Western Reserve University).
Student learning outcomes (SLOs)
Statements that articulate what students will know, value, and do at strategic time points:
- completion of a course for course-level SLOs, or
- completion of a degree for program-level SLOs, or
- completion of general education courses for institution-level SLOs. Some professional organizations may refer to these with different terms, such as objectives, indicators, abilities, or competencies
(adapted from Case Western Reserve University and NILOA, 2020).
Direct assessment
Measures of learning based on student performance or demonstrations of the learning itself. Scoring performance on exams, papers, portfolios, presentations or the execution of lab skills exemplify direct assessment of learning (adapted from NILOA, 2020).
Indirect assessments
Perceptions or attitudes to make inferences about student learning. Surveys, self-reflections, interviews, and focus groups are all indirect evidence of learning (adapted from Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation).
Formative assessment
A process designed to give ongoing feedback over the course of an intervention. Faculty can use formative assessment to make changes midstream and in situ instead of making final decisions (Allen, 2004).
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Grammar
While grammar traditionally describes the system and structure of using language in varied contexts, we expand grammar to describe the framework––practices, activities, and principles––of using assessment in resonance with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contexts (Paguyo & Nosaka, 2018).
Summative assessment
A comprehensive measure of achievement at the end of an instructional unit or course of study that is used for decision-making purposes (adapted from Case Western Reserve University and NILOA, 2020).
Rubrics
Tools that describe the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. Teams of faculty experts from postsecondary educational institutions across the country have developed VALUE rubrics related to intercultural knowledge and competence and global learning (adapted from AAC&U).
Online Assessment
Online assessment is the iterative and systematic process of collecting and analyzing deliverables from students to reflect upon how faculty are teaching and how students are learning in online environments. In addition to exploring student performance, online assessments consider a multitude of dimensions, such as attitudes toward e-learning platforms and technologies (Hewson & Charlton, 2019); access to sufficient environments and materials for teaching and learning (e.g., solid internet connectivity and updated softwares); and supportive living environments that create sustained emotional, cognitive, physical, and financial stability (Paguyo & Iturbe-LaGrave, 2020). Online assessment helps faculty pivot and adapt their online pedagogies to facilitate robust student learning and engagement.
Recommended Articles
The Impact of Culturally Engaging Campus Environments on Sense of Belonging
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The Value of Assessing Higher Education Student Learning Outcomes
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Teaching Tools
Proposed Syllabus Statement about Assessment
In this class, we will work collaboratively to create space for everybody to learn, regardless of student, teaching apprentice, or professor roles. With its commitment to quality education, the University uses assessment as a tool for professors to design and deliver inclusive learning environments. Some assessments help professors learn how to make teaching pivots in the moment so they can immediately respond to your needs. Other assessments help students learn how to engage more deeply with the course content. Some assessments feel less like completing an assignment or less like taking a test, but seem more like engaging in an activity. Some assessments are graded, other assessments are not graded, but all assessments — whether they come in the form of minute papers or exams or responses to a discussion prompt — are designed for robust learning.
Assessment Guidelines
(adapted from Thomas, Iturbe-LaGrave, Paguyo, & Swanson, 2020; Ekowo and Palmer, 2016; and Weston, 2017)
- Develop shared understanding of purpose and outcomes of assessment at multiple strata of an institution: course, program, department, collegiate, and institution.
- Create transparent guidelines about how data will be collected, when data will be collected, who has access to the data, and how quality analysis will be conducted to inform assessment and continuous improvement.
- Raise awareness about the potentially harmful effects of suboptimal assessment processes, particularly when biases inform inappropriate assessment practices and interpretations regarding people from economically and politically vulnerable communities.
- Develop a supportive infrastructure that makes explicit how assessment will guide organizational change.
- Never use assessment to inform teaching evaluations, conduct public shaming, or monitor people through big brother-type approaches.
- Always use assessment as a tool and a process for continually strengthening how to create classes, programs, departments, colleges, and institutions to enact DEI.
Supportive Resources
Websites
- Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment
- Resources for Institutions Working On Developing Authentic Assessments
- Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE)
- National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
- Equity Toolkit: Inclusive Teaching and Learning
- 2020 Assessment & Inclusion Research Grants