Tenet Six: Building Talent and Increasing Assessment Knowledge

This chapter explores how to help staff members develop assessment skills and build knowledge needed to build a systemic and sustainable assessment program. It examines a variety of ideas for building assessment attitudes, skills, and knowledge, thus fostering sound professional development across the organization. Developing a common language around assessment is essential to begin the process, and the aforementioned assessment committee can be used to communicate that language division-wide. Typically, a division’s assessment handbook covers five key areas of conducting assessment, including setting goals, analyzing data, analyzing findings, reporting, and using results for improvement, supplemented by specific examples from past assessment projects in that division. An annual report portfolio is a great way to centralize reporting in the division. In this portfolio each department would use the same template for reporting on their progress in meeting their goals for the current year and setting goals for the year ahead.