<p> Annual Report Part Two Facts</p><p>. What should be included in the Means of Assessment and Benchmark column of your Multi-years Assessment Plan? Means of Assessment are direct or indirect assessment methods. Direct methods include local or standardized tests, student portfolios, samples of student work, or embedded assignments. All kinds of surveys, focus groups, or interviews are indirect methods of assessment. WASC requires to use direct and indirect assessment for each outcome. . What re benchmarks? what about benchmarks? Your results tell you nothing until you compare them against something else – a benchmark. These define how well you hope your students will do: for example, you might expect two-thirds of them to score 70% or more on an external, standardized test. In many cases, you won’t have external standards, and so your department will have to come up with your own measures. The benchmarks can seem a little arbitrary, but they are a way of raising the conversation about whether our students are doing as well as we would like. . What if we do not administer standardized tests and do not have external benchmarks? Then the departmental faculty have to decide what you expect your students to demonstrate for you to be satisfied with their learning. The most important thing is to be realistic and clearly understand what kind of student performance represents acceptable work for your program. If the benchmark is set too low you will not be able to receive useful data; if it is set too high you will end up with frustration because most of your students will not be able to meet this benchmark. . How fill in the Closing the Loop column? This is the place to write down what you plan to change in order to help your students learn more effectively. That may be how you teach, or what you assign, or what courses you require. You may decide you need to work more closely with others, such as Jennifer Taylor in the Internships Office, or Writers’ Corner. You may conclude that you need to put in a strong plea for more resources—and now you will have the data to back that up. . What if our data do not suggest any improvement? Celebrate! You and your colleagues have done a great job and should be proud. </p>