A Truly Academic Approach to Learning Outcomes

Starting now, colleges and universities have a new choice for attending to student learning outcomes: standards-based evaluation of student achievement. This is a consistent way to accurately document what students are actually and already achieving in regular college settings, according to standards, and now that this approach is system-supported, it is also an easy way to manage outcomes assessment.

Judging this approach and other common assessment methods according to a variety of important criteria reveals that this new approach is far better because it scores especially high on the academic principles that faculty care about: faculty ownership, academic freedom, attending directly to coursework and its evaluation, maintaining academic standards across-the-curriculum, and student accountability for actual achievement. In addition, the eLumen Collaborative approach is easy to use, generates quality data, and substantially enhances organizational capabilities.

eLumen Collaborative directly supports standards-based evaluation of student achievement:

• Faculty-driven
• Learning-centered
• Standards-based
• System-supported
• Incrementally-introduced
  

Spotlight on eLumen

eLumen Collaborative has recently been recognized in both the research community and the business community for its innovative approach to student learning outcomes:

The British academic journal On The Horizon devoted an entire issue (Volume 15, No. 2, 2007) to the theme "Focusing the Institution on Student Learning Outcomes." Dr. David Shupe, Director of Evaluation of Student Achievement for eLumen Collaborative, was the issue's guest editor and the author of the article "Significantly Better: the benefits for an academic institution focused on student learning outcomes." That issue also included articles contributed by faculty at four colleges working with eLumen Collaborative: Concordia University (St. Paul), Buena Vista University, Los Angeles City College, and Kirkwood Community College.

Star Tribune small business columnist Dick Youngblood featured eLumen Collaborative in his weekly showcase of innovative Minnesota companies on August 29, 2007.

For reprints of either or both, contact eLumen at info@elumen.info.

Here, finally, is a way that colleges can systematically focus on student learning.

-- John Tagg
author, The Learning Paradigm College, speaking about eLumen Collaborative