Monday, October 29, 2007
University Senate is looking into whether students should have to participate in an assessment of how they have developed during their time at the University of Kansas.
Bill Crowe, special assistant to the dean of library and president of the University Senate Executive Committee, said that tomorrow the Senate Executive Committee would finalize a task force to look into a possible learner outcome program for KU undergraduates.
Learner outcome programs are used in educational institutions and workplaces to assess the development of skills at that institution or workplace. It often involves an outgoing student or worker participating in an interview or test that analyzes knowledge or skills developed.
In the case of the University, Crowe said, it would allow administration to assess how much students learn during their time at the University.
“How do we know that you’re going to be a successful, thinking adult?” Crowe said.
The task force, Crowe said, will begin this spring by researching different ways to make learner outcome assessments. He said that they would continue through the summer and fall of 2008 by speaking with different departments and schools throughout the University before delivering a recommendation to the University Senate in December 2008.
Possibilities for a learner outcome system are a standardized test that undergraduate students are required to take, a portfolio of work that a student continually adds to throughout his or her undergraduate career or an interview. Crowe said that several schools and departments currently held some exit interviews with outgoing students, but it was not required or standardized throughout the University. Crowe said that the task force would include KU students, faculty and staff.
“Everyone has a stake in this,” Crowe said.
Tom Cox, Shawnee senior and student senator, sits on the Executive Committee of University Senate. He said that an actual implementation of the learner system is years off, and he is skeptical that a standardized test could work across the entire University. He said a fine arts major and a history major taking the same test upon graduation would be unfeasible.
“I’m curious about it. I definitely have an open mind and will listen to the task force,” Cox said. “It’s essentially the same theory as No Child Left Behind.”
Crowe said that assessing students as they graduate is an issue at universities across the country and that the University was ahead of the nation by looking at the issue before the Board of Regents requires it of all universities.
“In part, this is coming as a natural progression of assessment and, in part, is coming out of the Board of Regents,” Crowe said.
Crowe said that the chair of the task force would be Dan Bernstein, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and professor in applied behavioral science. He said he expected about seven others to be named to the task force. Those people will be determined tomorrow when the Senate Executive Committee meets at 3 p.m. in the Regents Room.
— Edited by Kaitlyn Syring
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