Welcome to the faculty iWay pages dedicated to assessment! This page will guide you to the resources and information you need to maintain and use your assessment plans. If you have questions or suggestions for improving this site, please contact Prof. Richard Leiby.
Rationale for assessment
Plato quotes Socrates as having believed that “the unexamined life is not worth living...” Self-examination, for the purposes of evaluation and improvement, is an essential ingredient of the human experience. As teachers, we owe it to our students and to ourselves to be introspective and identify problems that impede our performance. Academic assessment provides the framework for that effort.
The old educational paradigm equated success with knowledge. Today, however, we live in a society driven by technology that changes almost as rapidly as the seasons. It is no longer enough to rely on knowledge alone; we must also recognize that students need skills in order to function in the global marketplace. Education has to be responsive to both of these needs. Assessment helps us do just that, by allowing us to change as society changes.