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 6-10 staff, supporting learning in 3 advanced competencies in Assessment, Evaluation, and Research as identified by NASPA and ACPA:
Ability to lead assessment at the institutional, divisional, or unit level.
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.
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, project work, and collective problem-solving.
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.
Project Workshopping & Troubleshooting Over Spring 2025, each member of the Community of Practice will advance their own assessment projects, with the support of their cohort members and A&R staff. The goal is to provide a dedicated opportunity to do more with our assessment data, whether it means a more expansive outreach strategy, creating a presentation for external audiences, or adding a brief infographic to your annual reporting plans, to make data more accessible.
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.
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.
Previous Editions
Meet the 2024 Community of Practice
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