Frequent and robust assessment of undergraduate student learning outcomes is essential to improving the quality of U.S. higher education in all disciplines, yet many universities struggle to transform teaching and learning in their classrooms.  One approach to accelerating change involves training current graduate students in the use of best practices for undergraduate learning assessment – before they join the faculty ranks. Strategies to Prepare Future Faculty to Assess Student Learning describes an impressive battery of effective methods for preparing future faculty, including strategies tailored to specific institutional contexts as well as those used by many institutions to meet common challenges. An additional resource, Preparing Future Faculty: A Framework for Program Design and Evaluation at the University Level, was developed using insights from participants in the PFF ASL initiative and is intended to help universities with PFF and PFF-like programs strengthen their programs and develop robust evaluations of their impacts.

Project Goals

The overarching goal of the project was to provide graduate students who aspire to faculty positions with strategies to:

• Identify needs and opportunities in their classrooms and in their programs;
• Respond to those needs through enhanced teaching and learning techniques; and
• Engage with other graduate students and faculty in evidence-based conversations within and across the arts and sciences.

Project Outcomes

 Strategies to Prepare Future Faculty to Assess Student Learning

Executive Summary

Full Report

Preparing Future Faculty Resource Library

Press Release

Preparing Future Faculty: A Framework for Program Design and Evaluation at the University Level

        Full Report

Research Partners

Through a competitive process, the following universities were selected to participate in the project as funded research partners:

• Cornell University
• Harvard University
• Indiana University
• Michigan State University
• North Carolina A&T State University
• University of California, Merced
• University of North Carolina at Greensboro

An additional 19 universities participated in the project as affiliate partners:

Additional Resources

In 2010, the Council of Graduate Schools was awarded a grant from the Teagle Foundation to explore the preparation of future faculty to assess student learning. The publication, Preparing Future Faculty to Assess Student Learning, reviews recent trends in learning assessment, reports on data from a CGS survey of institutions with PFF and similar programs, and provides insights gleaned from a meeting of assessment experts, graduate deans, and graduate students about challenges and opportunities for future action. A free copy of the report can be downloaded here.

Contact

Julia Kent

In collaboration with: