Our new advanced professional development offering, built for collaboration, resource-sharing, and specialized training.
Overview
This professional development opportunity is tailored to assessment professionals who are seeking to level up their professional competencies from the intermediate to the advanced level. The community of practice is a semester-long professional development offering launched in January 2024 and recurring in the Spring term every year.
The community of practice brings together 8-10 staff, supporting learning in 3 advanced competencies in Assessment, Evaluation, and Research as identified by NASPA and ACPA:
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Ability to lead assessment at the institutional, divisional, or unit level.
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Preparation across multiple methodological approaches (from data collection to dissemination) with a keen, critical eye to how findings can impact practice, theory, or future inquiries.
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Capacity to anticipate and proactively address challenges related to assessment.
These competencies are developed through a combination of expert-led workshops, guided discussions on assigned readings, and collective problem-solving. As a collaborative group, the community of practice works together to compile useful resources, examples, and templates that benefit participants as well as the wider campus community.
Expectations and Format
Participants will be expected to dedicate 12 hours to the community of practice over Spring 2024, 9 hours for meetings and 3 for preparation (30 minutes of preparation per meeting). Meetings will be held in-person in the Student Success District. The ACoP will meet Thursdays, 9 - 10:30.
Benefits of Participation
Advanced Training Along with learning from one-another through discussion and group problem-solving, participants will get training in advanced methods and communication skills from experts.
Resource sharing and resource creation Over Spring 2024, the community of practice will co-create an internal database of helpful readings, templates, and examples, which all participants can access to help support their own assessment. During the final meeting, the group will also collaborate on a resource guide on different domains of equity-minded assessment. The resource guide will be published on A&R’s website as a public resource, listing all contributors as co-authors.
Networking with fellow assessment professionals Participating in the Community of Practice will help you connect with professionals from a wide range of University of Arizona departments. The group fosters exchange and collaborative troubleshooting, encouraging long-term collaboration and interdepartmental conversations.
Join ongoing conversations about advancing assessment at UA Help identify the limits in our current assessment strategies or data infrastructure. Learn about exciting programs coordinated by campus partners. Become a part of the effort to grow our assessment capacity at the University of Arizona.
Spring 2024
To be effective, co-curricular assessment must be accessible by our readership and responsive to our diverse student population. Building inclusivity into every stage of assessment – from survey design to data dissemination—is the theme at the heart of the 2024 Assessment Community of Practice. Building on the document “A New Decade for Assessment: Embedding Equity into Assessment Practice” we ask: what should equity-minded assessment in student affairs look like at the University of Arizona?
We relate major challenges applicable across higher education to our campus: what resources do we have available to build more accessible survey instruments and reports? What are some methodologies that we can use to assess small programs with diverse populations, who may not be adequately captured through a comparison with the wider student body? How can rigorous analysis of qualitative data strengthen our assessment and feature student voices in our communication efforts? These are just some of the challenges we will be exploring together, compiling helpful tools along the way.
1. Community of Practice Meet yourself January 25th 9-10:30 am
2. Towards Inclusive Student Demographics February 8th – 9-10:30 am
3. Assessment in the AM: Propensity Score Matching (open to all UA) February 29th – 9-10:30 am
Main Library Room B254 - Learning Studio CATalyst
4. Featuring Diverse Voices through Rigorous Analysis of Qualitative Data March 14th – 9:10:30 am
5. Assessment in the AM: Building Accessibility into Assessment (open to all UA) April 4th 9-10:30 am
Main Library Room B254 - Learning Studio CATalyst
6. Conclusion session: compiling resources, identifying gaps April 11th 9-11 am
Participation in the 2024 pilot for the Community of Practice will be solicited by invite only.
If you are interested in participating in future editions of the community of practice, contact sperandioe@arizona.edu.