The International Assessment and Retention Conference is designed to help all campus educators promote student learning and success by strengthening assessment, quality improvement, and intentional retention programs. Institutional leadership must create an environment which builds capacity, as well as encourage an organizational culture that includes a comprehensive assessment and retention program as part of strategic planning.

The International Assessment & Retention Conference has been designed to address emerging issues in assessment and retention, as well as to provide a forum for experienced assessment professionals to advance their skills by discussing assessment with practitioners and policy-makers.

Institutional Team Attendance

The conference planning committee believes that those institutions sending multi-disciplinary teams to the conference will reap the greatest benefit, as there will be structured opportunities to discuss effective campus collaborations. By having a team, campuses increase the probability of successfully implementing improved assessment and retention programs when they get back to campus. Assessment of learning requires collaboration across both academic and student affairs divisions.

The committee encourages campuses to send representatives from the following areas in order to allow for substantive conversations around how to create change on your campus:

• Senior Student Affairs Officers
• Provosts
• Academic Affairs
• Assessment Professionals
• Student Affairs
• Faculty
• Institutional Researchers
• Educational Researchers
• Testing Officers

Integrated Assessment & Retention Practice

Higher education leaders must create an infrastructure that can support an integrated assessment practice. Aligning the assessment process with overall institutional learning goals can help scholar-practitioners focus on the overall picture of assessment and retention, rather than current practice within individual departments or divisions.

Learning Outcome: Participants will be able to describe the importance of an integrated assessment culture at each institution which sees the production, support, and facilitation of learning throughout an institution and explore the ways in which all parts of an institution should contribute to learning, development, and student retention.

Using Data to Support Improvement, Reporting, and Accountability

Many academic departments and student affairs divisions are actively engaged in assessing the programs and curricular models that affect student learning. However, the data are not always used to provide a basis for institutional strategic planning or decision-making. Using data to drive institutional decision-making and resource allocation can assist faculty and administrators in creating a more effective institution.

Learning Outcome: Participants will be able to articulate how the focus of all institutional assessment should be improvement, not merely reporting or justifying and how to develop information that is used for ongoing institutional improvement.

Assessment & Retention Methods

Determining the mode or method appropriate for the assessment process depends on purposes, the intended use of the results, the relative importance and sensitivity of the learning experience being assessed, and the resources available. Academic and student affairs educators gather evidence and measure the success of educational strategies and programs on campus by quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods.

Learning Outcome: Participants will be able to explain the use, comparative values and benefit of various assessment methods in facilitating and documenting learning, assessing the achievement of outcomes, developing institutional information on learning and retention that is usable for institutional planning, and managing the relationship between student and institution.

Educational Tracks

The International Assessment & Retention Conference will have clearly designated tracks throughout the conference to speak to a broad range of faculty, institutional researchers, student affairs educators, and policy-makers.

Beginner

The basics of understanding learning, developing and writing a learning outcome, and designing assessment plans, and more. These sessions will be focused for professionals new to assessment.

Intermediate

Academic and student affairs professionals who have some experience with assessment will explore new ways to use assessment to improve student learning in both academic and student affairs and move from individual program assessment to integrating assessment as an institutional focus.

Advanced

Professionals who have broad experience with assessment will focus on the next exciting steps in assessment practice, including integrating learning and assessment across students' experiences, using learning taxonomies and knowledge of student and brain development to guide assessment efforts, the creative blending of assessment methods and using assessment methods to support institutional data analysis, policy-making, and resource decisions.

Session Formats

There are four session formats from which to choose: (1) pre-conference workshop, (2) concurrent session, (3) poster session, and (4) roundtable discussion. Please select the format that will best facilitate participants' understanding and potential use of your work.

Pre-Conference Workshop (three-hour workshop; prior to the start of conference)

Pre-Conference Workshops provide participants an opportunity to engage the facilitator and each other in an extended learning session about a particular topic and apply it to their unique situations. Workshops should be application-oriented sessions designed to provide participants with tools and approaches for implementing or improving assessment and retention efforts on their own situations.

Each workshop will be aimed at a specific level of implementation, from initial planning or implementation through the uses of data for institutional change through assessment programs, so that participants can enroll in sessions appropriate to their individual level of development. The session should begin with a brief framing of an issue, theory, model, or process and include data benchmarks and challenges, practical examples, and evidence that you and the participants can then use to examine and discuss the topic. If you are sharing a campus-based project, provide an opportunity for workshop participants to apply the concepts to their own situations. For example, if your work takes place at a research university, please facilitate discussion among participants as to how community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and comprehensive institutions might adapt your work to account for institutional differences.

Concurrent Sessions (60 minutes)

This session should allow 20 minutes to provide research findings or overview of a model or program, 20 minutes to provide practical applications; and 20 minutes for participant discussion. The content for concurrent sessions should demonstrate programs, practices and ideas that have data and conclusions based on years of successful activities. Data, findings, and applications should be presented in ways that are accessible to participants and allow them to engage in a discussion about the implications of your findings. Models might be presented visually as well as verbally and include strategies for implementation.

Poster/Demonstration Sessions (90 minutes; one or two facilitators; 8 wide x 4 tall message board provided)

Poster/demonstration sessions provide an opportunity for you to share your work with the entire conference audience and are designed to showcase interesting new approaches and practices that do not yet have the maturity of programs presented in concurrent sessions. These sessions can display visual charts, diagrams, pictures, graphs, etc. that demonstrate key findings.

Roundtable Discussions (60 minutes; one or two facilitators; during continental breakfast; no audio visual)

Roundtables are facilitated discussions among colleagues with a common interest. Facilitators lead discussions on current topics, issues, and strategies in assessment and retention. No formal presentations are expected in roundtable discussions; instead, proponents should have a clear plan for facilitating a highly interactive discussion on important topics.