Best Practices

Mid-Term Evaluations

Asking students for feedback on the course part way through the semester (ideally, even before the midpoint) can be a powerful way to harness their ideas, increase their buy-in and engagement, and decrease student annoyance on the end-of-semester evaluations. Fevzi Okumus's workshop provides a number of ideas, parameters, and suggestions for doing a midterm evaluation. This sample midterm evaluation may also be freely used or adapted for your own class.

9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning

American Association of Higher Education

1. The assessment of student learning begins with educational values.
2. Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time.
3. Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes.
4. Assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes.
5. Assessment works best when it is ongoing not episodic.
6. Assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved.
7. Assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about.
8. Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change.
9. Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public.

Best Practices Websites

Website Title	Comments
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education	Excellent site on evaluating teaching using best practices model.

In addition to the information included here, we invite you to participate in events focused on Assessment listed in our calendar and to contact the Faculty Center for additional assistance.