The coronavirus pandemic contributed to significant life changes, which likely diminished student engagement in coursework. With this challenge in mind, a graduate course was redesigned using edutainment as a model to enhance student engagement and learning in an online environment and delivered during the pandemic. The course redesign…

The rapid shift to an online instructional mode necessitated by COVID-19 has been a formidable challenge for most institutions but particularly for those in which online learning was not widely implemented before the pandemic. Assessment has been an additional challenge, coupled with the accreditation requirements that higher educational…

High Impact Practices (HIPs) encompass a variety of educational opportunities proven to increase student engagement and persistence in their collegiate studies, but do they also lead to increased self-efficacy? By combining the literature of HIPs with Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) this research presents a combined assessment methodology tested in…

For more than 30 years, James Madison University (JMU) has used Assessment Days to collect longitudinal data on student learning outcomes. Our model ensures that all incoming students are tested twice: once in August before beginning classes and again in February after accumulating 45-70 credit hours (Pastor, Foelber, Jacovidis, Fulcher &…

COVID-19 presents assessment professionals with an opportunity to reexamine preexisting inequities for vulnerable student groups that may be more susceptible to the pandemic's economic impacts. We propose that assessment professionals incorporate student interviews more intentionally in their work so they and their stakeholders can develop more…

In the Spring of 2020, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) physics faculty used the rapid response and change of teaching modality to the pandemic to holistically re-imagine the course assessments. They developed and implemented a course architecture that focused on more smaller-stakes assessments to better engage students with the…

When instruction shifted online as a result of COVID-19 in March 2020, Educational Effectiveness staff considered how best to serve our institution with available resources, skills, and services, while maintaining ongoing assessment. Administration of program-level assessment activities, such as overseeing the completion of program reviews,…

The academic disruption initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic created a need for faculty to examine students' continuity of learning. As current assessment professionals and former faculty members, we recognize this as an opportunity to utilize curriculum maps as tools to identify and address possible learning gaps that may have occurred. The…

Prior to the pandemic, Bellarmine University, a mid-sized liberal arts institution had few online courses offerings. Due to COVID-19, panicked faculty began learning, many for the first time, how to use a learning management system. Members of the Academic Affairs team worked day and night to leverage as many resources for displaced students and…

Along with many other institutions of higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Northeastern University to move courses online for the second half of the spring semester and beyond. As this crisis unfolded, faculty turned to the Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research (CATLR) for support on how to conduct their courses…

Leaders of higher education need practical solutions to engaging in program improvement, providing student supports, and fortifying partnerships with collaborators. Compounding these needs are the heightened demands thrust upon faculty to advise students online, reconfigure in-person courses to hybrid and online models, and attend to their…

The RARE Model (Clucas Leaderman & Polychronopoulos, 2019) is a framework for nurturing collaborative relationships in assessment practice. The four components (R- relate, A- acknowledge, R- reflect, E- Empower), which are based in humanistic and postmodern counseling theories, outline interpersonal strategies to support and strengthen…

Amidst unprecedented challenges in the era of COVID-19, using assessment to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education institutions is more important than ever. Striking the delicate balance between compassionately understanding colleagues' capacity to fulfill their duties during a crisis and maintaining high expectations…

I have been working as an Assessment Officer in a private university in Puerto Rico, for about two years now. It took a year to learn the job--what was assessment for, what was my function, how broad was the scope of my job, what influence did I have over institutional changes? Just as I thought I knew the job, the context changed, especially the…

Well developed and designed operational policies may help maintain assessment even amid major changes to deal with health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.