Program Assessment 1

Program Assessment: It’s a Big Picture

Katherine Soto

Houston Christian University

LTDE 5308 Dr. Burris

May 1, 2023
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For this assignment, Program Assessment I interviewed three staff members

from Houston Christian University. I had the honor to interview Dr. Alaniz, Dr. White and

Dr. Burris. Dr. Alaniz is the person that evaluates the LTDE program as well as the stu-

dent learning outcomes for each course. Dr. Burris works at two universities. He is re-

sponsible for multiple things but one in particular is the report that focuses on learning

outcomes and expectations. Dr. White had a different role and did not focus much on

program assessment.

Prior to this assignment I really did not know how it all came together. What I

mean by this is that to have a course it takes a lot of people to build it and create some-

thing that can be used for instructional purposes. One person can be the instructional

designer and another one can be the professor teaching the course or a person can be

both the designer and the instructor. Another interesting part was that everyone is in-

volved in program assessment. This was interesting because not everyone in the de-

partment might be an instructor but, they are expected to carefully look at the program

assessment measures.

In the interview both Dr. Alaniz and Dr. Burris mentioned that the instructions to

every assignment need to be aligned with every student's learning outcomes. Dr. Burris

stated that feedback and reflection helps evaluate how instructors are meeting the

goals. Instructors evaluate why something is working or not working. They also look at if

the students are making progress. Instructors look at the small pieces to make the big

picture. Dr. Alaniz stated that the most important part is the why. Why are we teaching

this and reflecting is one of the most important parts of assessment. Data is not useful
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unless you analyze it and see what is working and how it needs to be changed to see

better outcomes.

Dr. Alaniz added that in the LTDE department, everyone in the faculty and lead-

ers are involved in program assessment. This allows for everyone to collaborate and it

is a great way to do it because everyone knows what to expect and makes a lighter

load. Something that causes me to feel overwhelmed when considering the role of pro-

gram assessment is that since this is done collectively, instructors often interpret data

that is not their own data. I can see how this can be overwhelming as one might have to

analyze data that does not know the cause of, or even the reason why the data looks

the way it does. These reasons can only be known if someone taught the course.

Dr. White expressed that this is very challenging because they have to follow all

course assessment pieces and they are not able to modify anything. Instructors are on-

line able to add resources but not remove anything that was embedded when they cre-

ated the course. Additionally, Dr Burris stated that a time consuming part of program

assessment is finding the flaws of the program and sometimes the department cannot

meet the needs. Dr. Burris also added that the university's policies are also time con-

suming because they cannot change day by day, it takes time. The policies go through

a process due to this the changes are not timely.

Ultimately, we know how impactful the role of an instructional designer is. The

role of an instructional designer is to create. They create the student learning outcomes

and build the course. The designer also uses the backward design to create courses

that are aligned with the outcomes. The designer also creates the assignments and the

rubrics, grading guidelines to assess the learning.

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In this course, we focused on assessment and how important it is to have learn-

ing outcomes. Learning outcomes improves learning by having clear goals for the

course. Program assessment should be measured in multiple ways.It can be as easy as

implementing discussion board forums, group projects, creating presentations etc.

When moving from face-to-face to online the program assessment method changes and

it needs to be done in a way that maximizes learning experiences. Online learning is dif-

ferent compared to traditional learning. This is why transformational learning experi-

ences implement eLearning philosophies. Through this course, I was able to experience

how program assessment is embedded into all parts of the learning outcomes.
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References

Alaniz, K. (2023, April 13). Program Assessment. personal.

White. (2023, April 15). Program Assessment. personal.

Burris, J. (2023, April 17). Program Assessment. personal.