The Trinity College's Office of Assessment offers numerous presentations and workshops each academic term. These includes Duke University's "Assessment Roundtable", a series of conversational presentations designed to explore and inform assessment practices across Duke. Additionally, the Office of Assessment routinely hosts several informational presentations through the year. Resources for each presentation are included on our website to serve as a resource for members of the Duke and assessment community.
The Office of Assessment hosts regular workshops, information session, and discussion sessions for the Duke and A&S communities. We frequently partner with Duke Learning Innovation for co-hosted sessions. Unless otherwise indicated, all members of the learning community are invited to join. To be added to our announcement listserv, please email us at assessment@duke.edu.
Jump to: Fall 2021 | Spring 2021 | Fall 2020 | Spring 2020 | Fall 2019 | Spring 2019 | Fall 2018 | Spring 2018 | Fall 2017
Fall 2021
Orientation to the New Course Evaluation Platform
Thursday, October 14, 2021, 9:00-10:00am
Zoom meeting
Resources: Recorded Presentation - Presentation slides
Assessment Liaison Meeting
Monday, September 13, 2021, 10:00-11:00am
Zoom meeting
Resources: Recorded Presentation - Presentation slides
Spring 2021
Anti-racism in Assessment Practice
Friday, February 26, 2021, 12:00-1:30PM
Zoom meeting
- In this discussion we'll hear from Emily Hadley, (T'15) of RTI International, about how racism permeates studies of higher education and from Dr. Jennifer Hill, Director of the Office of Assessment, and Dr. Alessandra Dinin, also of the Office of Assessment, about ongoing anti-racism work. As a group, we'll work through case studies and discuss what we can do to be anti-racist in our own assessment work, ultimately improving student learning outcomes of all students, but especially BIPOC students, at Duke.
Speaker Bio:
Emily Hadley is a Data Scientist with the RTI International Center for Data Science. Her work spans several practice areas including health, education, social policy, and criminal justice with an active interest in and commitment to recognizing and addressing bias in data and algorithms. Emily holds a Bachelor of Science in Statistics with a second major in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and a Master of Science in Analytics from NC State University.
Resources: Presentation slides
Fall 2020
Introducing More Authentic Assessment in the Classroom
Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - 8:30-10:00AM
Zoom meeting
- Based on Spring and Summer undergraduate student survey results, students seek more authentic assessment opportunities to make sense of their learning. What does this mean? What do these opportunities look like in a remote/online learning environment and/or in-person course delivery?
Resources: Recorded Presentation - Presentation slides
Spring 2020
Transformative Learning in Higher Education
Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 12:00-1:00PM
Rubenstein Library 249
- Professor Cori Crane, Language Program Director in German Studies, will facilitate a conversation on transformative learning in higher education. Her recent work in this area focuses on perspective-shifting and reflection in language learning, which has relevance for a wide diversity of disciplines. With colleagues Professors Deb Reisinger and Joan Clifford, Professor Crane recently received a University Community Planning Grant to convene a new Intellectual Community to explore transformative learning at Duke. Chips and sandwiches will be provided, but please bring a water bottle or other beverage. RSVPs encouraged.
Open Discussion of Key Learning Areas - Assessing Undergraduate Writing
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 - 12:30-1:30PM
Griffith Board Room
- Many faculty want to see and learn from examples of successful practice from their colleagues in other disciplines, so we offer this opportunity to brainstorm, discuss, and talk through the challenges of assessing these competencies. All sessions meet in the Griffith Board room, which is located on the main floor of the Bryan Center, close to the Information Desk. Chips and sandwiches will be provided, but please bring a water bottle or other beverage.
Open Discussion of Key Learning Areas - Assessing Critical Thinking
Monday, March 2, 2020 - 12:30-1:30PM
Griffith Board Room
- Many faculty want to see and learn from examples of successful practice from their colleagues in other disciplines, so we offer this opportunity to brainstorm, discuss, and talk through the challenges of assessing these competencies. All sessions meet in the Griffith Board room, which is located on the main floor of the Bryan Center, close to the Information Desk. Chips and sandwiches will be provided, but please bring a water bottle or other beverage.
Open Discussion of Key Learning Areas - Assessing Undergraduate Research, Inquiry, and Analysis
Monday, March 17, 2020 - 12:30-1:30PM
Griffith Board Room
- Many faculty want to see and learn from examples of successful practice from their colleagues in other disciplines, so we offer this opportunity to brainstorm, discuss, and talk through the challenges of assessing these competencies. All sessions meet in the Griffith Board room, which is located on the main floor of the Bryan Center, close to the Information Desk. Chips and sandwiches will be provided, but please bring a water bottle or other beverage.
Clouds Brewing Social
Thursday, April 16, 2020 - 5:00-7:00PM
Clouds Brewing at Brightleaf Square
- We are hosting our second open invitation social at Clouds Brewing in Brightleaf Square for all faculty and staff involved with or interested in assessment at Duke University. This is an opportunity to become more familiar with, in a less formal setting, the assessment work being conducted by colleagues around campus. Additionally, this is a chance to share some of your own insights and challenges around the assessment of student learning outcomes with campus partners who may be in similar situations. Drinks and light refreshments will be provided.
Fall 2019
Clouds Brewing Social
Thursday, October 10, 2019 - 5:00-7:00PM
Clouds Brewing at Brightleaf Square
- We are hosting an open invitation social at Clouds Brewing in Brightleaf Square for all faculty and staff involved with or interested in assessment at Duke University. This is an opportunity to become more familiar with, in a less formal setting, the assessment work being conducted by colleagues around campus. Additionally, this is a chance to share some of your own insights and challenges around the assessment of student learning outcomes with campus partners who may be in similar situations. Drinks and light refreshments will be provided.
Engaging Faculty Colleagues in Assessment
Thursday, October 31, 2019 - 12:30-1:30PM
Griffith Board Room - Bryon Center
- Faculty liaisons often report to us the difficulty they have engaging their departmental colleagues in meaningful discussions about assessment practice and findings. This lunchtime conversation on faculty engagement will focus on the challenges you face getting buy-in and support from your colleagues. Related topics will include managing role transitions and creating a workable schedule for assessment activities throughout the year. (Lunch is provided.)
Griffith Board room is located on the main floor of the Bryan Center, close to the Information Desk.
Resources: Available upon request
Assessment and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 12:00-1:00PM
Rubenstein 349
- Assessment can and should contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning! Join us for a lunchtime panel session on translating assessment into published scholarship. Topics will include preparing for informed consent and institutional review, accessing and using Trinity College data, and aligning your research methodologies with the assessment priorities of the program. Alex Martinez, Associate Director of the Campus IRB, will be present to answer questions. And thanks to Professors Bridgette Hard (Psy. and Neur.), Marcia Rego (Thompson Writing Program), and Julie Reynolds (Biology) for sharing their time and insights. (Lunch is provided.)
Resources: Available upon request
Spring 2019
Setting up mid-semester course evaluations
Tuesday, January 22, 2019 - 2:00pm
Bevan Building - Room 1001
- A growing number of programs and instructors desire midterm course evaluations. Seeking feedback from students mid-way through the semester can reveal important insights about the learning experience, and do so in time to make useful adaptations to the course. This session explores practices are most likely to provide helpful information while the course is in progress.
Resources: PowerPoint Slides - Online Resources
Launching a new student learning portfolio
Thursday, January 31, 2019 - 1:00pm
Bevan Building - Room 1001
- A number of programs across the University are interested in launching portfolios to support and understand student learning better. This session will briefly re-introduce portfolios and their benefits for student learning and assessment. The majority of our time will be spent exploring easy ways of launching a portfolio, including accessing and using pre-made templates prepared by the Office of Assessment. Elise Mueller from Learning Innovations will be present as well, to respond to questions and provide help. It may be helpful to bring a laptop or tablet to follow along in PebblePad. The formal presentation and discussion will end at 2:00, but we will be available through 3:00 for continued workshopping and support.
Resources: PowerPoint Slides - Online Resources - Handout 1 - Handout 2
Understanding successes in and challenges to Advising in the Major
Wednesday, February 20, 2019 - 2:00pm
Rubenstein Library 349
- Focus groups, interviews, and surveys all can be effective ways of understanding students’ learning experiences. The Academic Advising Center (AAC) has long collected useful information about undergraduate pre-major advising in Trinity College. This session asks, how can individual academic departments develop their own surveys to understand advising and mentorship within the major? The Office of Assessment also will present a new Qualtrics survey bank of advising questions, from which program officers can efficiently construct their own questionnaires. (Detailed instructions will be provided.) It may be helpful to bring a laptop or tablet to follow along in Qualtrics.
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
Curriculum mapping: Why and how
Thursday, March 28, 2019 - 9:00am
Perkins 218
- New faculty liaisons often report that they don’t know how to get started in assessment. And it’s common for both new and established liaisons to report some confusion about what the program actually should be assessing. This can threaten liaisons’ confidence and self-efficacy, even though the actual work of assessment generally is quite straightforward. Enter the curriculum map! This session explains curriculum maps as a graphical illustration of student learning across experiences. Both an organizational schema and a communications device, the curriculum map clarifies what happens within a program of study. It can reveal redundancies of instruction, opportunities for new courses and programming, and important moments for the assessment of learning. In a nutshell, it can help a program get organized and get started. The session will include specific instructions for various approaches to curriculum mapping.
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
Fall 2018
Classroom teaching observations: A how-to
Thursday, September 20, 2018 - 1:00pm
Rubenstein Library 249
- Many faculty indicate that they would benefit from peer-led observations of their classroom teaching. Program officers often share that evaluations from in-class observations would supplement course evaluation reports. This session shares best practices for organizing, for oneself or for faculty colleagues, rigorous classroom-based teaching observations and feedback.
Questions discussed in this session include:
- How might an individual instructor solicit observations from a faculty peer?
- What types of feedback can or should the observed instructor expect?
- How might a program use observational information in conjunction with mid-term or end-of-term course evaluations?
- Can such observations contribute to a program's annual or multi-year assessment efforts?
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
An introduction to the teaching and assessment of undergraduate writing
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - 11:30am
Rubenstein Library 249
- Facilitated by Professor Cary Moskovitz, Director of Writing in the Disciplines
- Many of our academic programs have identified written communication as one of their primary student learning outcomes. Across our academic curricula and co-curricula, there's a broad commitment to teaching writing as a tool for reflection, analysis, and communication. This session introduces key concepts for teaching writing in the disciplines: articulating objectives, constructing appropriate writing tasks, giving effective feedback, developing sounds evaluative methods, aligning writing skills development across courses in a program, realistic considerations of faculty labor, and others.
Resources: Contact with inquiries
Natural and Quantitative Sciences lunch
Wednesday, October 31, 2018 - 12:00pm
Griffith Board Room
- Join guests Dick MacPhail (Chemistry) and Len White (Neuroscience) to discuss current assessment work in the Natural and Quantitative Sciences. Department representatives from other academic divisions are welcome to attend.
Humanities breakfast
Thursday, November 1, 2018 - 8:30am
Griffith Board Room
- Join guests Cori Crane (German) and Barbara Dickinson, Tyler Walters, and Keval Khalsa (Dance) to discuss current assessment work in the Humanities. Department representatives from other academic divisions are welcome to attend.
Social Sciences breakfast
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 8:30am
Griffith Board Room
- Join guests Laura Bey and Dennis Clements (Global Health) to discuss current assessment work in the Social Sciences. Department representatives from other academic divisions are welcome to attend.
Certificate programs breakfast
Friday, November 9, 2018 - 9:00am
Griffith Board Room
Join guests Deb Reisinger (Markets and Management Studies) and Misha Angrist (Science and Society) to discuss current assessment work in the certificate programs. Department representatives from other academic divisions are welcome to attend.
Excellence in teaching: Supporting graduate student instructors
Monday, November 12, 2018 - 12:00pm
Rubenstein Library 249
- Facilitated by Dr. Cisco Ramos and Dr. Hugh Crumley, both of the Graduate School
- Trinity College and the Graduate School are deeply committed to the professional development of graduate students as instructors. Our academic departments share this commitment, and often they request additional guidance to (a) structure graduate student skills development and (b) to assess the degree to which graduate students are developing as effective teachers. This introductory session explores such questions as:
- What are your learning outcomes for graduate student instructors?
- What are some useful training models for new graduate student instructors?
- How might a graduate student instructor self-assess his or her teaching?
- What are the most effective ways of delivering feedback to graduate students so that they can use it to improve their practice?
Resources: Contact with inquiries
Spring 2018
Assessing intercultural learning
Wednesday, January 10, 2018 - 2:00pm
Rubenstein Library 249
- Guest speaker Darla Deardorff will share and discuss with us new thinking in intercultural/global education.
- Special emphasis on ways of understanding and assessing how students are learning in intercultural contexts.
Resources: Contact with inquiries
Assessing courses at mid-semester
Monday, January 22, 2018 - 2:00pm
Bevan 1001 (Parking passes provided)
- What practices are most likely to provide helpful information while the course is in progress?
- What options are there for administering mid-term course evaluations?
- Are there other ways of collecting feedback from students, besides formal evaluations?
Resources: PowerPoint slides
Developing learning outcomes for student employees
Monday, January 29, 2018 - 1:00pm
Bevan 1001 (Parking passes provided)
- How can we characterize our expectations of student employees as Student Learning Outcomes?
- Can these learning outcomes inform the training and evaluation of student workers?
- To what degree might our expectations for student employees align with the objectives of undergraduate education at Duke?
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
Types of evidence
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 - 1:30pm
Rubenstein Library 349
- How can we leverage the research traditions of our discipline for use in assessment of learning?
- How do we know which type of evidence is most likely to tell the story of learning in our program?
- Do we have to use numbers to explain student learning?
- Why are you asking us to prioritize “direct” evidence over “indirect” evidence?
- How should we judge our findings? Against whose standards?
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
Using the information you already have access to
Monday, March 5, 2018 - 8:30am
Rubenstein Library 349
Event intended for Trinity College assessment liaisons. This is a follow-up to the October 2017 session. It will address:
- What questions can we ask of available course evaluation reports?
- What questions are asked on the enrolled student and senior surveys?
- What can we do with grade data, and what should we avoid?
- How do we triangulate sources of evidence?
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
Discussions of critical thinking
Monday, March 19, 2018 - 2:00pm
Rubenstein Library 349
- Can we make the notion of “critical thinking” more concrete? What does it look like?
- How do we represent critical thinking in the curriculum and co-curriculum?
- How does the Office of Assessment operationalize and measure critical thinking?
Resources: Available following presentation
Researching the 1G student experience at Duke
Tuesday, March 27, 2018 - 10:00am
Rubenstein Library 349
- Guest speakers Emily Daly and Joyce Chapman, from Duke University Libraries, will introduce their recent study of the experience of first-generation students using Duke’s libraries. In addition to reflection on their research findings, the discussion will include ways of exploring the experiences of 1G students generally and current university initiatives to support 1G students.
Closing the Loop, part 1: Networking with other Trinity College assessment liaisons
Tuesday, April 3, 2018 - 12:00pm
Perkins Library 217
- Event intended for Trinity College assessment liaisons. Buffet lunch served. RSVPs to joan.shipman@duke.edu are requested.
- This is our semesterly assessment liaison luncheon, made possible by Dean Valerie Ashby and her team. Please join us for small-group conversations about assessment in your programs: what works, where you’re struggling, and how the College can support your work. Groups will be pre-assigned based on similarity of mission, student learning outcomes, and approaches to assessment of undergraduate learning. Assessment staff will facilitate sharing of effective practices and challenges among faculty peers.
Resources: Available following presentation
Closing the Loop, part 2: Do something meaningful with your findings!
Monday, May 7, 2018 - 8:30am
Perkins Library 217
In facilitated small-group discussions, participants will explore the following questions:
- What have you learned from your assessment efforts this cycle? What do you plan to do differently next year?
- How do you communicate the results of your study on student learning back to faculty?
- How do you communicate the results of your study on student learning back to students?
- What opportunities do you have to share your assessment work outside of Duke?
Resources: PowerPoint Slides
PebblePad information workshops
Events intended for Trinity College assessment liaisons.
- Liaisons are required to submit the 2017-18 department assessment portfolio by June 1, 2018.
- Participants will learn about new functions in the portfolio.
- Participants will migrate work from the 2016-17 cycle to the present academic year.
Fall 2017
Writing and evaluating student learning outcomes versus program objectives
Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 2:00pm
Perkins 217
- Participants will be able to articulate the difference between a Student Learning Outcome and a Program Objective
- Participants will be able to identify and articulate their program specific Program Objectives; ideally reflecting and complementing the program’s mission and associated student learning outcomes.
- Participants will identify and/or update the measures necessary to collect this information.
- Participants will be able to set reasonable targets and know how to evaluate them.
- Participants will identify a time/structure for reporting this work to garner feedback from faculty colleagues.
- Participants will be able to use the new “program objectives” feature in the Department Assessment Portfolio
Resources: Recorded Presentation - Presentation Slides - Handout 1 - Handout 2
Rubrics for assessment of learning across the program
Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - 1:00pm
Rubenstein 349 (Breedlove)
- Participants will understand difference between Holistic and Analytic rubrics.
- Participants will understand the relationship between course-level and program-level rubrics.
- Participants will describe viable use cases for program-level portfolios.
- Participants will begin the process of developing a rubric for the assessment of program-level student learning outcomes.
- Participants will understand the importance of rater calibration, and be able to apply basic techniques to promote validity and reliability of rubric-based data.
- Participants will report this work back to faculty colleagues in the near future.
Resource: Presentation slides
PebblePad information session: Building your program's assessment portfolio (Intended for assessment liaisons)
Monday, October 16, 2017 - 1:00pm
1:00 – 2:00 pm in Rubenstein 349 (Breedlove)
- Assessment liaisons are required to submit the 2017-18 department assessment portfolio by June 1, 2018.
- Participants will learn about new functions in the portfolio.
- Participants will understand how to migrate work from the 2016-17 cycle to the present academic year.
Resource: Presentation slides
Making use of the information you already have (or have access to)
Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 10:00am
Perkins 217
- Report examples include COFHE enrolled student and senior surveys, Tableau program informational reports, course evaluations.
- Participants will identify and report the types of data they’re already collecting.
- Participants will be become familiar with other types/sources of data (course, program and college wide) they already have access to.
- Participants will brainstorm the ways in which these data sources support the program’s student learning outcomes.
Resources: Recorded Presentation - Presentation slides
Accessing and understanding information in your "Tableau program informational reports"
Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 12:30pm and Wednesday, November 1, 2017 - 9:00am
Bevan 1001 (parking passes provided)
- Participants will be able to access interactive reports containing information about undergraduate student learning in their programs.
- Participants will understand the general types of data available and how they may be used to supplement ongoing evaluations of student learning.
- Data include measures of ethical reasoning, global perspectives, critical thinking, reflective judgment, and starting in 2015 quantitative reasoning and literacy
- The dashboards also include information about the composition of your student population, any relevant pre-matriculation inputs (e.g., SAT scores), co-incidental majors and minors, outcomes at graduation, and other attributes.
PebblePad information session: Building your program's assessment portfolio Intended for assessment liaisons
Wednesday, November 8, 2017 - 9:00am
Rubenstein 249 (Carpenter)
- Assessment liaisons are required to submit the 2017-18 department assessment portfolio by June 1, 2018.
- Participants will learn about new functions in the portfolio.
- Participants will understand how to migrate work from the 2016-17 cycle to the present academic year.
Analytic toolkit for numerical and text information
Wednesday, November 15, 2017 - 1:00pm
Perkins 217
- Participants will understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative data.
- Participants will know how to align assessment measures with the types of data they wish to collect.
- Participants will be able to identify commonly-used and easily-accessed tools, usually free, for making sense of quantitative and qualitative data.
- Participants will be able to judge which techniques to use when analyzing data.
Resource: Presentation Slides
Discussing a framework towards anti-racist assessment (Slides)
Delivered virtually at the December 2021 SACSCOC Annual Meeting
Inverting the QEP: Coordinating Departmental Innovations in Teaching (Slides)
Delivered virtually at the December 2020 SACSCOC Annual Meeting
Assessment in Times of Disruption: Balancing Continuity and Adaptation (Slides)
Delivered virtually at the December 2020 SACSCOC Annual Meeting
Trinity College Course Evaluation Administration (Slides)
- Course evaluation administration
- Department responsibilities
- Faculty responsibilities
- Important dates
- Changes to course evaluation questionnaire: New student form, elimination of Instructor Course Description Form
- Student Accessible Course Evaluation System (SACES): How to opt-in to SACES, accessing reports
- Accessing and navigating reports in Tableau: Logging in, available reports
Curriculum Mapping - defining, calibrating, testing and advancing student learning outcomes (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2019 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Houston, TX
Critical thinking is still critical - An institutional approach to assessing an enduring competency (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2019 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Houston, TX
Fostering Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Assessment (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2018 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA
Portfolio 2.0: A novel role for portfolios in assessment and accreditation (Slides)
Delivered at the January 2018 AACU ePortfolio Forum, Washington DC
Delivered at the December 2017 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX
For good measure. Assessing quantitative literacy and reasoning (QLR) in the general education (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2016 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
Delivered at the November 2015 AACU Regional STEM Meeting, Seattle, WA
Flip or flop? A research methodology comparing the learning outcomes of flipped & traditional classroom pedagogies (Slides)
Delivered at the January 2016 AACU Annual Meeting, Washington DC
Flex assessment: Accommodating diverse learning outcomes through an online assessment infrastructure (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2015 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
Revisiting e-Assessment: Leveraging online platforms for outcomes assessment in the general education (Slides)
Delivered at the January 2015 AACU Annual Meeting, Washington DC
Partnership and pedagogy. Admissions, assessment, and curricular reformfor improving diversity in STEM (Slides)
Delivered at the November 2014 AACU Regional STEM Meeting, Atlanta, GA
The new e-assessment? Leveraging online platforms for competency-based outcomes assessment (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2014 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Nashville, TN
Delivered at the January 2014 AACU Annual Meeting, Washington DC
New Thinking on ePortfolios: Bridging Student-Centered and Assessment-Centered Portfolio Designs (Slides)
Delivered at the December 2013 SACSCOC Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA
Assessing the assessment tool: New thinking about ePortfolios (Slides)
Delivered at the February 2013 AACU Regional Meeting, Boston, MA
Reconnecting with students as essential stakeholders: Early engagement and communication strategies (Slides)
Delivered at the February 2012 AACU Regional Meeting, New Orleans, LA