Academic Program Review (APR)

CTL Support for Undergraduate Learning Outcomes Assessment

As part of the staff support team for Academic Program Review (APR), CTL provides an optional project-based service for departments to gather evidence of student learning to include in their APR self-study. This learning assessment framework specifically focuses on course-based learning that occurs in curriculum at the undergraduate level. As such, only departments that offer undergraduate major and/or minor programs are eligible for this service.

Why Assess Program-level Learning?

CTL aims to provide meaningful and relevant evidence of student learning at the program level to foster data-driven continuous improvement of the curriculum. Leveraging staff expertise in pedagogical best practices, CTL helps departments develop action plans to further enhance student learning experiences based on the findings of this focused inquiry process.

As described in the APR Guide, a partnership with CTL in learning outcomes assessment addresses several fundamental questions that guide departmental conversations on teaching and learning, such as:

What are the core learning goals (e.g. skills, concepts, proficiencies) for students in our undergraduate programs?
What educational activities enable students to meet those goals?
Do all students demonstrate program-level learning outcomes?
How will we adjust the curriculum to improve student outcomes as needed?

Evidence and reflection in line with these questions also satisfies the Undergraduate Program-focused prompts provided in the Education section of your self-study.

New to APR in Fall 2024

CTL is collaborating with other teams in the division of Research, Teaching, and Learning (RTL) to integrate learning outcomes assessment with bCourses (Canvas). Partnering departments will use Canvas Outcomes and rubrics tools native to bCourses to assess student achievement of the identified program-level learning outcomes. This process will enable faculty in departments to generate and reflect on rich and timely student learning data while courses are currently being taught.

To facilitate this process, CTL will provide a modest sum of $3,000 to each participating department to partially offset the costs of an assigned reader in the identified course(s). The employed reader can support evaluation of student work against a provided rubric that aligns with core learning goals of interest to the department. Note that based on current rates set for ASE, this amount translates to roughly 120 reader work hours that can be distributed based on the needs of the assessment project.

The Learning Assessment Process in APR

diagram of the assessment cycle noting particular steps where data is sourced from rubrics implemented within Canvas (bCourses)

Drawing on scholarship from assessment professionals like Jankowski and Marshall, CTL engages departments in an assessment cycle that consists of the following major components:

Identify Outcomes - Departments surface what their discipline values in terms of the skills, knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors of learners in their programs.
Align Measure - Departments explicitly name their expectations for student learning, including describing what it looks like to achieve the stated learning at different stages of their programs.
Gather Data - Departments gather direct measures of student learning as demonstrated through coursework like papers, lab reports, problem sets, essays, creative works, and more.
Analyze Data - Departments engage with data on student learning to understand trends, patterns, but also exceptions in terms of where students meet the stated expectations for learning and where they do not.
Plan to Improve - Departments recognize that program-level learning is an amalgamation of their course experiences (as well as out-of-class opportunities) and consider broad curricular/course changes to improve student learning outcomes for all.

The full process as described takes at least one academic year but an extended timeline (roughly 1.5 years or three semesters) can allow for data collection from courses in both academic semesters (fall and spring) instead of just one term.

Have questions about learning assessment? Please contact us!

If you are preparing for APR and would like to discuss possible support available for you, please email us at teaching@berkeley.edu.

If you are not currently preparing for APR and would like to discuss assessment planning, please schedule a consultation with CTL staff.