Bell the Cat

Dear Colleagues,

Do you remember your bright college years in
these terms below?—fostered and assessed: your
numerous essential learning outcomes?

Were you aware of your increasingly complex
and sophisticated learning developments as you
moved thru your curricular and co-curricular
educational pathways?

Multiple assessment, sure: maybe you recall
that, depending on the school you attended,
some more assessmental (Assess This!) than
others in collecting data of your broad range
of learning outcomes while being guided in
learning and building self-assessment
capabilities.

You, personally: your experienc. I'm asking.

Toward Frontiers Yet Unknown.

Yrs in Liberal Art




As part of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise
(LEAP) initiative, the VALUE project seeks to contribute to the
national dialogue on assessment of college student learning. It
builds on a philosophy of learning assessment that privileges
multiple expert judgments of the quality of student work
over reliance on standardized tests administered to
samples of students outside of their required
courses.

VALUE assumes that:

* to achieve a high-quality education for all students, valid
assessment data are needed to guide planning, teaching, and
improvement;

* colleges and universities seek to foster and assess
numerous essential learning outcomes beyond those
addressed by currently available standardized tests;

* learning develops over time and should become more
complex and sophisticated as students move through their
curricular and co-curricular educational pathways toward
a degree;

* good practice in assessment requires multiple assessments,
over time; well-planned electronic portfolios provide
opportunities to collect data from multiple assessments
across a broad range of learning outcomes while guiding
student learning and building self-assessment capabilities;

*e-portfolios and assessment of work in them can inform
programs and institutions on progress in achieving
expected goals.



Will anyone here help me “bell” the cat?
Can we?
It may be impossible, I acknowledge that.

xxxooo, Sam