Understanding Educational Assessment: Annual Assessment

Annual Programmatic Assessment is a structured evaluation of student work within academic programs to measure and enhance student learning outcomes for academic success and career readiness. 

Otis College demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement through the college wide practice of annual academic assessments. Otis College is committed to student learning outcome achievement, as the primary indicator of success in academic excellence. 

Under the direction of the Associate Provost of Educational Effectiveness and Enrollment Management and the guidance of the Program Chair, Faculty will engage with student work to document and discuss their observations. In this process, academic departments maintain an assessment portfolio to understand and evaluate how effectively students are learning. The academic program identifies learning outcomes specific to individual fields and disciplines. As a result faculty can consider the learnings from these assessments to guide in determining curricular restructuring, revising course content and design, or explore instructional practices.This practice empowers our programs to make informed decisions when making curricular updates, reinforcing skills or subject matter, and gauging students' competency as they progress through their area of study.

A "signature assignment" is that assignment that best displays the knowledge or skills essential to the objectives of a course. Other coursework should build toward the completion of the course ‘signature’ assignment. Think of a signature assignment as a milestone in the student’s progress toward fulfilling the program objectives. Ideally, signature assignments are the types of works that students and professors would most like to present to others as evidence of accomplishment (i.e., work they would like to sign and have signed).

The creation of signature assignments is an opportunity for faculty to focus intentionally on learning experiences that are specifically intended to address Learning Outcomes. When creating such assignments, faculty are asked to think carefully and creatively about the assignment’s intended outcomes and the best way to prompt students’ application of the outcome to knowledge appropriate to the course.

After the first year, Signature assignments should always move beyond content knowledge to asking students to do something with what they have learned. Thus they will use verbs like “synthesize,” “demonstrate,” “integrate,” and “apply.”

Additional Articles:
Integrating Signature Assignments into the Curriculum and Inspiring Design (PDF)
Slideshare Presentation (WSCUC Resource Fair)

Annual Program Report on Assessment - Form

Assessment Inventory form (pc)

Assessment Inventory form (mac)

Due annually on September 1.

LAS Annual Program Assessment Form 2017-2017 (due June 19 along with Inventory)