1. Do something.
2. Pause.
3. Gather some more information.
4. Then decide what to do next.
Sounds easy. A lot of what we do at the TLT Group is helping academics with #3, whether you call it "assessment," "evaluation," "scholarship of teaching and learning," "accreditation self-studies," or something else. We provide Flashlight Online so people can gather their own information. We do external evaluations. Of equal importance, we help educate faculty and other staff so that they can ask the right questions for themselves: questions whose answers are likely to be useful in deciding what to do next.
We continually revise and expand our educational resources, including workshop materials and the Flashlight Evaluation Handbook.
For example, we just added some new material to our list of 'frequently made objections' to assessment. If you're doing an evaluation, or training others, and get some push back, it's time for you to do steps 1-4 above: why are people really objecting? This web page should help you ask them the right questions.
And, if you run workshops or give talks about evaluation, a little humor can help lighten the mood while making a point. Here are some cartoons and stories you might find laughable.
We assembled these resources for our subscribing institutions. If you find them useful and your institution isn't supporting the TLT Group's work, perhaps you could pursue a subscription.
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