Lunch & Learn Wrap-Up: Aligning Assessments to NGO’s

The Center for Educational Technologies (CET) recently welcomed faculty and staff to a lunch and learn experience full of lively conversation and debate regarding the best practices and challenges associated with aligning NGO’s to assessment questions. In 2017, a competency-based curriculum was implemented at the TAMU – College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM) starting with the Class of 2021. The CVM developed a set of “New Graduate Outcomes (NGOs)” that outline the knowledge, skills, and attributes expected of new veterinary graduates. For faculty, aligning their assessment questions to the established NGOs gives them the opportunity to identify where students are being successful and where remediation is needed. Led by Laura Hammons of the Professional Programs Office and Molly Gonzales of the Center for Educational Technologies, the workshop explored how participants could review their course assessments and tag individual questions to their appropriate New Graduate Outcome (NGO). Participants also learned how these tags could be applied to assessment questions within both Moodle and ExamSoft. By tagging assessment questions and activities within the two platforms, the systems are in turn able to generate reports that analyze student mastery of the individual graduate outcomes. Further, in leveraging this technology, faculty will be better equipped to identify and support those students in need of remediation.

CET team member presenting at workshop

Overall, the workshop was highlighted by robust discussion and debate on how best to approach alignment, and the resources available to support the process. Through example assessment questions, attendees had the opportunity to test their skills and seek advice on strategy from their peers. By the end of  the session, many participants felt more encouraged and were looking forward to seeing how the reports they would soon be gathering could impact their work in the classroom. Be on the lookout for more Lunch & Learn sessions this year hosted by the Center for Educational Technologies!