1. PRODUCTS / REFLECTIONS / …
NW Biology instructors Conference 2017
Agents of Assessment in Action
University of Alaska Anchorage
Sarah Gerken, Rachael Hannah, and Cindy Trussell
VISION – Achieve PULSE Exemplar rating for the Department of Biological Sciences.
MAIN GOAL– Entire assessment committee, Department, and Administrators are “on board” with incorporating Vision and Change Rubrics into our assessment cycle and moving toward artifact based evaluation of student learning outcomes. 
Photos should be at least 300dpi, but not more than 5-12 mgs each. Your poster is set to be enlarged 200% so do not change the page size to fit another poster size. Posters (3’ x 4’) will be printed at WWU using the same purchase order at the same time. Please your poster as a PPT file to by Joann Otto at WWU by Friday, April 21, 2017, by 5 pm. Please contact Joann Otto with questions about poster printing. Also please put your institution “logo” on your poster.
Please note that this template is provided to simplify your effort to prepare a poster for the NW Biology meeting. You can change the font size, colors, column widths, add photos, institutional logos, graphics, etc. This template can also be used as a starting point and you can be as creative as you want in your poster. However, we would like to have all of the posters the same size and we will be printed at the same time, at the same print shop in order to easily pay for printing with one purchase order.
ACTIONS
BARRIERS & CHALLENGES
PRODUCTS / REFLECTIONS / …
Evaluated previous assessment reports
Identified path forward building on previous strengths
Used the understanding of system structure to identify possible leverage actions
Alignment of UAA SLOs and V&C
Building assessment template that interplays V&C rubrics with SLO’s will take time.
Long term Assessment Chair is retiring and need to wait for this to occur.
“Time keeps on ticking into the future”
Create and Align Rubrics with V&C and SLOs
Building student artifact collection
New Assessment Plan 2016
New Curriculum 2015
STRENGTHS & LEVERAGE
RESOURCES & ALLIES
SUSTAINABILITY
Members on Assessment Team are invested in Vision and Change.
UAA has adopted ePortfolio with Assessment package.
Artifact collection underway in Principles and Methods in Biology (BIOL A108).
Upper level courses student artifact collection launches Fall 2017.
NW PULSE is always “there” for us by providing information and prompts to help keep us on track.
SABER listserve responded to ePortfolio rubrics and provided great resources.
Vision and Change Rubrics as a template for our departmental assessment.
Faculty in Biological Sciences at UAA
Department Assessment Committee meets regularly and produces an annual report
Each Fall the assessment report is presented to faculty for yearly improvement and reflection
A site visit from a NW-PULSE fellow to describe the V&C Recognition Program
FUTURE GOALS
Rotation of target courses to be evaluated on a schedule that allows for V&C core competencies representation across the undergraduate experience in our department.
Departmental faculty engaged in assessment by rotation for artifact assessment and in the committee.
This work was supported in part by an NSF RCN UBE award #