SENCER commissions, adapts, helps to develop, and disseminates a suite of assessment tools and resources. These tools and resources are listed below.

SENCER-SALG (Student Assessment of Learning Gains): A Free Online Resource

The SENCER-SALG is an on-line, customizable assessment instrument and reporting system that is available free to faculty interested in encouraging students to assess and report on their own learning. Originally created by Dr. Elaine Seymour as a pencil/paper assessment scheme, the current version of the SENCER-SALG was developed with support from the SENCER community, who constitute its largest single current constituency. Given the diversity of SENCER courses and programs, the SENCER-SALG provides a common instrument that allows for the development of cross-program formative and summative evidence. This evidence is supplementary to the actual performance/learning evidence acquired by faculty teaching SENCER courses.

The SENCER SALG enables broad demonstration of SENCER's impacts and is useful in three ways: [a] it identifies "inputs" (information about the students' attitudes about themselves as students, science scholars, and citizens), [b] it encourages students to engage in some meta-cognitive analysis (students think about their own learning) and [c] it provides valuable feedback that faculty can use to improve their courses. Over the past three years, the SALG's construct and item validity has been improved and established (with the help of SENCER colleagues); its technical platform, however, is in great need of improvement and modernization. With that goal in mind, in Fall 2006 the NSF made an award to the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) at the University of Wisconsin (where the SALG was originally created) to make technical improvements that will both simplify and increase the sophistication of the SALG and its reporting capabilities. Dr. Robert Mathieu, professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the PI on the current project, and Dr. Tim Weston, who served on the team that completed the independent evaluation of SENCER in 2006, is a Co-PI.

Dr. Stephen Carroll of Santa Clara University serves on the team that recently upgraded the platform of the SENCER-SALG, and serves on the SENCER Assessment Advisory Board.  Please contact Dr. Carroll with any questions or problems regarding the SENCER-SALG.

Access the SENCER-SALG page

SENCER-SALG Links

Go to the SALG site

Instructions for setting up the SENCER-SALG

 

Development of the SENCER-SALG

The development of the SALG and the SENCER-SALG have been a long term projects. The two resources below provide background and rationale for their development.

	Access the November 2003 Newsletter: Development of the SENCER-SALG (PDF)
	Access paper by Dr. Elaine Seymour, et al: "Creating a Better Mousetrap" (PDF)
	Access webpage: History and Background of SENCER Assessment Project
	Access webpage: SENCER Project Evaluation Questions

Setting Learning Goals in SENCER Courses

Good assessment starts with effective goal setting, yet the challenge of developing measurable learning goals eludes many course developers. The SENCER Summer Institutes emphasize effective goal setting as a major program challenge. NCSCE Senior Fellow Barbara Tewksbury, William R Kenan Professor of Geosciences at Hamilton College , serves as PI on a major NSF- project "On the Cutting Edge." Her plenary presentations at SSI introduce members of the SENCER community to the art of setting learning goals.

Access PowerPoint presentation by Dr. Barbara Tewksbury: Designing a SENCER Course: Don't Just Beat It to Fit and Paint It to Match (PDF)

Aligning Course Planning with What is Known about Learning

Dr. John Bransford, author of How People Learn and a member of SENCER's National Advisory Board, makes a powerful case for applying the science of learning to the learning of science. Thinking about learning--and the specific learning outcomes we desire to achieve in SENCER courses--is a fundamental building block in a comprehensive commitment to assessing learning outcomes. To help members of the SENCER community "apply" the insights gained by the National Academies and National Research Council panels, we invited Professors Jose Mestre and Eugenia Etkina to write a backgrounder on Implications of Learning Research for Teaching Science to Non-Science Majors . Their report contains nine recommendations for practice; all have implications for assessment.

Access the SENCER Backgrounder by Professors Eugenia Etkina and Jose Mestre Implications of Learning Research for Teaching Science (PDF)

Course Development Template

Dr. Elaine Seymour adapted a course planning template she developed working with Oberlin College for use by members of the SENCER community. This template helps course planner "walk through" the processes of goal setting, selection of appropriate pedagogy, as well as assessment and testing.

Access the Course Planning Template (PDF)

Assessing Experiential Education

Many members of the SENCER community have emphasized experiential education as a pedagogy in their SENCER and other courses. Dr. Karen Oates, co-PI of the SENCER project, offered a presentation on the special challenges of and promising techniques for assessing experiential education at the SENCER Summer Institute 2005.

Access PowerPoint presentation by Professor Karen Oates: Assessing Experiential Education (PPT)

Assessing Service Learning

Many members of the SENCER community have incorporated service-learning into their courses as a way to bolster student civic engagement. Dr. Karen Oates, SENCER Co-PI, has given presentations that guide faculty through the conception and assessment of service-learning activities.

Access PowerPoint presentation by Professor Karen Oates: Assessing Service Learning (PDF)

CAT (Classroom Assessment Techniques)

Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, in their seminal work, Classroom Assessment Techniques, A Handbook for College Teachers, have provided a persuasive rationale and a comprehensive set of strategies and activities that help instructors and students assess learning in time to improve it. In his backgrounder, Reinventing Myself as a Professor: The Catalytic Role of SENCER, Terry McGuire a professor of genetics at Rutgers University describes his use of just a few of these techniques in his courses and describes the results achieved.

Access the SENCER Backgrounder by Professor Terry McGuire: Reinventing Myself as a Professor: The Catalytic Role of SENCER (PDF)

Diversity in the STEM Fields and the SENCER Project

Results of a long-term study on SENCER show, among other positive points, that the SENCER approach is especially effective for engaging women, non-majors, and other students who have traditionally been underrepresented in the sciences.

Access PowerPoint presentation by Professor Karen Oates: Diversity in the STEM Fields (PDF)

Knowing What Your Students are Learning

Dr. Laurie Fathe, Associate Provost for Educational Improvement and Innovation at George Mason University, reviews research on student learning and applies the "Seven Principles of Learning" to the challenge of knowing what your students are learning.

	Access the PowerPoint presentation by Professor Laurie Fathe: Knowing What Your Students are Learning (PDF)
	Access the handout by Professor Laurie Fathe: Knowing What Your Students are Learning (PDF)

Additional Resources

The following section provides links to assessment resources that members of the SENCER community have found especially helpful.

National Research Council Reports

	Access: Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment (Fall 2001)
	Access: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School ( 1999)
	Access: How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice ( 1999)