Step 2: Prepare your Assessment
The Assessment
Now that you have an SLO, you need to think about how the students will accomplish it. In other words, how will your assessment tool —i.e. the paper, essay, exam, project or presentation—allow students to demonstrate mastery of the SLO? Design your assessment with this question in mind.
If your assessment tool is a paper, essay, exam with substantial writing, project or presentation, you might need to develop a rubric for evaluating how students will master the SLO.
If your assessment tool is an objective exam (multiple-choice, for example), you might need to revise or identify groups of questions that, when answered correctly, demonstrate student ability to achieve the SLO.
Write a Rubric for eLumen
View general information about rubrics.
When writing a rubric to enter into eLumen, you will need to follow a specific format. The details of the rubric, of course, are up to you; you just need to put your work into the eLumen format so the software can track your students' achievement.
If you choose (or chose) to write your rubric in the standard, non-eLumen format, that's OK; you can still enter your rubric, or parts of it, into eLumen. Learn how to enter a standard rubric into eLumen.
- Click Edit next to the SLO you just created. A screen titled Edit Student Learning Outcome will appear and asks you to do 5 things:
- To create a new rubric for your SLO, click New to the right of Rubric. The Add Rubric screen appears.
- Select Magnitude. You will be setting the appropriate "size" of the intended achievement. For one discrete student activity, choose Assignment. For an assessment across the first half of the course, choose Mid-Term Project or Exam. For an assessment across the entire course or for a major course-ending activity, choose Final Project or Exam. There are two Student Services choices that you can ignore: Length of Program and Academic Year.
- Select the Achievement Area (also known as the core competency) to which you believe this SLO should belong. If you do not take this action, this SLO will temporarily be assigned to one named "Unassigned -- SLO – Reserved." Your SLO must be associated with one of the core competencies.
View instructions if you want to use a generic rubric already inputted into eLumen.
View instructions if you want to copy another course's rubric.
- On the Add Rubric screen for adding a new rubric, enter a Name that you will later recognize.
- Adding text in Description is optional.
- Status is defaulted to Active.
- Owner is defaulted to your department.
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Build the levels of the rubric from the bottom up (i.e., level 4 is the best and level 0 is the worst). Click Add New Scale Level and for each, insert the appropriate text for that level. A level 0 is given automatically. Enter as many rubric levels as you wish, each with its own text. When all levels have been entered, click Save. This rubric is now associated with the SLO.
Here's an example rubric for an English paper:
- Select the appropriate Standard of Evidence level. Enter the number 5 and then click on View Std of Evidence Levels to see whether that is the right choice. If not, select the number for the correct description.
- Status is automatically set to Active.
Click Save to save all of this information. You will be returned to the Course Details page, the line will be filled with your information, and the last column will state Ready for Assessment.
View a digital movie of creating a rubric.
- Under Assessments, click Add New. On the New Assessment Package page, enter the overall name for the assessment. For example: Class Assignment. When you click Save, you will be returned to the previous screen.
- Click Details for the new "assessment package" you just added, then click Add New on the Assessment Package Details page. Here, you will begin the crucial steps of naming an activity that students will do and then linking this to your SLO.
- On the Add Assessment page, enter the activity that students will do under Name. This should be the same assessment package name you listed in number 2 above, with the academic year added. For example: Class Assignment 2007-08. Click Save. This will return you to the Assessment Package Details page.
- To link this activity to your SLO, click Link. Two columns will appear: Available for Linking and Linked. Your SLO will be visible in the left column. Click Link to select it for the right column. Click Back to return to the previous screen.
View a digital movie of adding an assessment.