Program Assessment & Review
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HideHow do you know whether your geoscience program is working, or even which parts are working best and which could be more effective? With so many demands on your time and energy, you want to be sure that the time and energy you put into your program is achieving your departmental goals. Learn how to assess your program elements, so that you can maximize the return on your investments.
How to Design an Effective Program Assessment
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Measuring the Impact of Our Programs on Students
Just as we need to assess our teaching to know what our students are learning, we need to assess our programs to know whether our programs are achieving our goals. This presentation, by Cathy Manduca and Ellen Iverson, was given at the January 2007 workshop on the Role of Departments in Preparing Future Geoscience Professionals.
Assessment Resources: Program Evaluation
The University of Texas at Austin has a website of Instructional Assessment Resources, including a comprehensive set of pages on evaluating programs. From planning your evaluation through collecting and reporting your data, this site offers step-by-step suggestions, worksheets, and examples.
Program Metrics
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Criteria for Success
This list of indicators of successful programs and assessment strategies was developed at the 2005 workshop on Developing Pathways to Strong Departments for the Future.
Questionnaire to measure indicators for recruitment/retention in geoscience careers
The American Institutes for Research has developed an assessment instrument designed to measure changes in attitudes and behaviors related to enhanced likelihood of students remaining in the geosciences career pipeline. It can be used to measure the effectiveness of an individual workshop, course, career fair, or other activity intended to enhance geoscience career choice.
Accreditation
- Accreditation is a complicated issue with many pros and cons. We invite you to participate in a community discussion of this topic and read the results of a 2008 survey.
References and additional readings
- AMS, 1999, Bachelors Degree in Atmospheric Science . Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v80, p475-480.
This statement describes the minimum curricular composition, faculty size, and facility availability recommended by the American Meteorological Society for an undergraduate degree program in atmospheric science/meteorology. - Drummond, 2001 , Ten Principles of Geoscience Departments, Part 1, Journal of Geoscience Education v49 n2 p108.
This column by the editor is the first of a two-part exploration of ten common principles among geoscience departments. It is intended as a conceptual framework that departments can use to think strategically about the strength of their academic and administrative positioning on their campus. This first part deals with five academic issues. - Drummond, 2001 , Ten Principles of Geoscience Departments, Part 2, Journal of Geoscience Education v49 n3 p224.
This column by the editor is the second of a two-part exploration of ten common principles among geoscience departments. It is intended as a conceptual framework that departments can use to think strategically about the strength of their academic and administrative positioning on their campus. This installment deals with five administrative issues. - Glassick, Huber and Maeroff, 1997 , Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA
This book examines how the nature of scholarship has changed in today's colleges and universities. The authors proposed new standards for assessing scholarship and evaluating faculty based on methods for documenting effective scholarship. - Williams, Warner, and Warner, 2004, Subject-Area Knowledge Measured by Scores on the National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG) Fundamentals Examination and the Implications for Academic Preparation, Journal of Geoscience Education, 52(4), 374-378.
