3-Hour Workshops

The following will be offered as 3-hour interactive workshops.

     denotes a 10th Anniversary Presenter or Co-Presenter

     denotes an Invited Presenter or Co-Presenter

Proficiency in ABET professional skills (the knowledge, attitudes, and values described in “Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs” outcomes 3f-j) are critical for success in the multidisciplinary, intercultural team interactions that will characterize engineering careers in the 21st century. Washington State University engineering faculty collaborated with assessment specialists to create a discussion-based performance task (with an accompanying rubric) that can be conducted in just one class period to develop and assess ABET professional skills. Students grapple with authentic, unresolved engineering problems and propose an action plan. Workshop participants will rate and discuss student performances using the professional skills rubric and learn how to use this method at both course and departmental levels to improve both student learning outcomes and program curricula. This direct method of developing and assessing professional skills simultaneously can be use in engineering programs to continuously improve the global professional competencies of future engineers.

Learning outcomes: Workshop participants will: 1) Implement a direct method of assessing student performance of ABET professional skills simultaneously. 2) Analyze the quality of the ABET professional skills exhibited in the student performance by rating it with a rubric and through discussion. 3)Critique the current version of the professional skills rubric and process and provide suggestions for improvement. 4)Learn how to embed the direct method (or a version of it) directly into a course. 5) Plan implementation of the direct method of developing and assessing ABET professional skills in strategic courses in the faculty’s program.

Return to the complete program details

The Faculty Course Assessment Report (FCAR) is part of a streamlined methodology that allows those closest to a program’s assessment data to convert it into small packets of useful information while also providing contemporaneous documentation of the continuous improvement process. For each course taught, an FCAR document is submitted by the instructor. Structured as a sequence of standardized reporting categories, the FCAR documents course modifications, collects assessment information, promotes systematic review, provides for reflection, and solicits suggestions for improvements. The document also facilitates program-level assessment through reporting vectors categorizing aggregate student performance. The vectors from submitted reports are organized into tables for each program outcome metric. Heuristics are employed to identify vectors demonstrating under- or over-achieving performance and to classify the metric’s overall performance as either below, meeting, or exceeding expectations. This streamlines the process by allowing evaluators to focus attention on just those metrics not meeting expectations. In such cases, the associated FCAR is used to develop appropriate corrective solutions. This workshop presents the FCAR document format, applications of performance vectors, creating the assessment report, and applying heuristics-based evaluation methods. The workshop will include several exercises simulating typical FCAR-based assessment and evaluation processes.

Learning outcomes: Workshop participants will learn about overall FCAR methodology, use of performance vectors to concisely categorize student performance data, use of heuristics in the program outcome evaluation process, and ways to provide contemporaneous documents of CQI.

Return to the complete program details

In this interactive Workshop, faculty and IT professionals from the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems at Drexel University and UNTRA Corporation will analyze the assessment and improvement process for curricula in light of the engineering design paradigm. Use of this paradigm provides a common frame of reference for engineering faculty, allowing development of a multivariate assessment and feedback methodology which maps performance criteria in such a manner as to allow timely intervention at the level of individual student as well as program. We will review our techniques of decomposing student learning outcomes into performance criteria at a resolution focused on intervention as the primary goal of assessment. Finally, we will demonstrate a Web-based knowledge management system called AEFIS (Academic Evaluation, Feedback and Intervention System) which manages the data in such a way as to maximize the ability to provide continuous quality improvement while minimizing additional faculty labor.

Learning outcomes: Workshop participants will develop the following: 1) ability to apply engineering design to curricular assessment thus focusing on intervention and increasing faculty involvement; 2) understanding of how the focus on intervention helps to determine the correct resolution and mapping of performance criteria; 3) understanding of how information systems and technology can be used to facilitate continuous quality improvement while simultaneously minimizing any additional faculty workload.

Return to the complete program details

This workshop will focus on the use of direct measures in assessing student learning. The process will be explained in a step-by-step manner showing the participants how to develop performance criteria for each program outcome, then identifying the courses in the program that contribute to the specific outcome via performance criteria and also the levels of contribution of the outcomes. The next step will be to design problems for homework, quizzes, and tests that will assess student learning of these outcomes and clearly identify the problems that are linked to the program learning outcomes. The next step will be to design the Outcome Assessment Table, which not only links the outcomes to specific problems in homework, quizzes, or tests, but also lets one decide the relative weight of each problem from homework, quizzes, or tests. The outcome assessment table will only use averages of student performances in specific problems from homework, quizzes, or tests. Participants will be provided with all the tools they need to come up with a model to assess student learning using direct measures.

Learning outcomes: Workshop attendees will learn about (1) use of direct measures to assess student learning, and (2) linking specific problems or questions from homework, quizzes, or tests to program learning outcomes.

Return to the complete program details

One of the challenges in assessment is turning data into useful information. Data needs to be aggregated over many levels and reported in a manner that is clear and easy to use. The purpose of this workshop is to teach how to convert existing rubrics into MS-EXCEL workbooks that can be used to collect the raw data, summarize the data, and then generate graphs of the results at multiple levels of aggregation. In addition, we will look at how to easily build trend graphs from the results of multiple administrations of the rubric. Participants are encouraged to bring a rubric of their own to use during the workshop. Since we are setting up a lab on the fly at the hotel, you will also need a laptop equipped with either EXCEL 2003 or EXCEL 2007. You will leave the workshop with a self-reporting system and the necessary knowledge to convert any of your other rubrics to this format.

Learning outcomes: Workshop attendees will learn how to convert an existing rubric to an EXCEL workbook that automatically generates reports.

Return to the complete program details

This workshop presents a series of assessment instruments developed by a consortium of universities with NSF funding. Outcomes and instruments are suitable for engineers of all disciplines. Assessed outcomes include those for individual student development, team process development, understanding of diverse stakeholder needs, and quality of design products delivered. Separate instruments use peer rating, reflective writing, performance analysis, and students’ descriptions of high performance. Scoring rubrics accompany each student exercise. All assessments are available for use by faculty at other institutions. In this workshop, participants will learn about the learner and solution development model derived from the engineering design literature. Seven assessment instruments and their scoring rubrics will be distributed and discussed. Scored student work will be examined in light of the scoring rubric for one of the assessments. Participants will be required to bring a laptop computer to the workshop so that they may use the web-based assessment tools.

Learning outcomes: After examining the assessment tools and scoring actual student work in the workshop, attendees will be ready to implement these assessments and their associated rubrics in their capstone courses.

Return to the complete program details