The first step to building or strengthening a meaningful and well-functioning assessment ‘ecosystem’ is for everyone to understand their roles and responsibilities. Each educational program creates an assessment governance structure most suitable to its size, existing leadership structures, aspirations, and culture.

At the level of educational programs, the assessment process is a shared responsibility between all departmental faculty: instructors, undergraduate and graduate program directors, the Department Chairperson, and the (Associate/Assistant) Dean(s). According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), “[a]ssessment of student learning and reform of teaching and academic programs are core academic activities. As such, the AAUP sees them as being the primary responsibility of faculty – individually and collectively. In the classroom, a core element of academic freedom is the autonomy of the individual faculty member to determine what and how to teach. At the same time, the AAUP emphasizes the collective responsibility of the faculty as a whole for academic programs, suggesting that an academic department, for instance, can adopt pedagogical or curricular standards that colleagues teaching the course(s) need to adopt…. There is no reason that a faculty cannot collectively take on the task of identifying student learning outcomes, conducting those assessments, and revising curriculum accordingly.” (Gold, Rhodes, Smith, & Kuh, 2011, p. 7) 

Curriculum committees are integral to the assessment process. Assessment-related activities should be carried out in close coordination with existing college, department, and program curriculum committees, especially in cases when new curricular actions or changes are being proposed in furtherance of continuous improvement of student learning. Curriculum committees are often best positioned to determine appropriate SLOs and their assessment approaches as well as to help analyze subsequent evidence of learning and design sound enhancements to teaching and learning experiences.

Typically, each academic department designates one or two faculty members as assessment coordinators who lead and manage the assessment process and implementation of improvements at the level of their educational program(s). However, it is expected that (almost) all program faculty understand, provide input for, agree with, and participate in the assessment and improvement of educational activities. Assessment coordinators can also function as the program’s IE representative(s) responsible for documenting the assessment reports in the university IE Portal housed in the Nuventive platform at iep.fsu.edu. For small academic departments with few faculty, the Department Chairperson/School Director can assume all three roles: functioning as the assessment coordinator, IE representative and the department head who has the responsibility of creating and maintaining a culture of assessment and guiding faculty and committees through the IE assessment process in a timely, accurate, and meaningful manner.

Several university resources are available to support educational programs throughout the assessment process. The Office of IPA offers academic assessment seminars and workshops and IE Portal trainings; the office staff is also available to provide feedback and assistance with drafting learning outcomes and their assessment reports. IPA can also help programs retrieve, aggregate, and visualize learning outcomes data for specific programs, courses, sections, locations/modalities, majors/concentration tracks, etc.

The FSU Office of Institutional Research provides academic departments with data reports on various student success metrics and may generate custom datasets and analytic projects upon request. The FSU Center for the Advancement of Teaching supports university faculty by providing workshops and seminars on topics like designing curricula, courses, and assignments that enhance student learning. The FSU Office of Distance Learning helps instructors improve educational experiences through training and workshops on using Canvas gradebooks, designing effective assessments, etc.

Every academic entity (college, department/school, degree/certificate program) should have an active and current mission statement, which is “a broad statement of what the program is, what it does, and for whom it does it. It should provide a clear description of the purpose of the program and the learning environment. For a given program, the mission statement should, in specific terms, reflect how the program contributes to the education and careers of students graduating from the program. Mission statements for academic programs should reflect how the teaching and research efforts of the department are used to enhance student learning. The mission should be aligned with the Department, College, and University missions. In addition, the mission should be distinctive for your program.” (UCF Academic Assessment Handbook, p. 17). 

A well-defined mission statement includes the following components (UCF Academic Assessment Handbook, pp. 17-18): 

1. Purpose of the program – the main reason(s) why your college, department/school, degree/certificate program exists. Your program’s focus may be preparing students for work in a particular field or to continue their education at the graduate level. 

2. Program’s stakeholders – the groups of individuals for whom the program is provided and/or those who are benefiting from the program. For example, students, employers, graduate programs, faculty, and staff. 

3. Primary activities – the program’s most important functions, operations, outcomes and/or offerings that help realize the program’s purpose. For instance, education, scholarship, mentoring. 

4. Connection to University’s mission – the alignment between the program’s mission statement and the mission statement of FSU. Furthermore, program missions should be aligned with the missions of the department/school and college. Your program’s mission may be focused on leadership education, which supports part of FSU’s mission to “instill strength, skill and character”. Another example is a degree program striving to graduate students with strong knowledge and skill set in the data science discipline, which directly aligns with FSU’s mission to preserve, expand, and disseminate knowledge in the sciences and technology. 

Below are a few examples of mission statements, with the four components of a well-defined mission statement underlined and numbered. 

FSU College of Education: “Florida State University’s College of Education (1) advances society and enriches our community through the (3) support and advocacy of education as a public good, while enhancing the quality of life of all our (2) students, faculty and staff.” The mission statement echoes the university’s mission to be dedicated to excellence in service. 

Hypothetical Biology program: “The mission of the Biology Bachelor’s degree program is to (1) prepare (3) students for employment in various biology-related areas (1) and/or for the pursuit of advanced degrees in biology or health-related processional schools by (3) educating them in the fundamental concepts, knowledge, and laboratory/field techniques and skills of the life sciences.” 

Hypothetical Engineering program: “The mission of Hypothetical Engineering bachelor’s degree program is to (3) educate (2) students from diverse backgrounds in the fundamental skills, knowledge, and practice of Hypothetical Engineering (through courses and an internship) in order to (1) prepare them for Hypothetical Engineering positions in service or manufacturing industries and prepare them for continuing for advanced degrees in Hypothetical Engineering or related disciplines. The program promotes a commitment to continued scholarship and service among graduates and will foster a spirit of innovation. Also, it promotes an environment that is inclusive and diverse.” 

In the field of student learning assessment, Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) refer to the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and habits of mind that students are expected to attain throughout their studies in a program or in program courses. SLOs encapsulate what students will be able to know, do, and care about by the time they have completed a degree program and as a result of their learning experiences (Nichols & Nichols, 2005, pp. 74-75; SACSCOC Resource Manual, p. 69; Suskie, 2018, p. 41).

When educational programs engage in the process of identifying, fine-tuning, or ‘sunsetting’ learning outcomes, it is helpful to study how outcomes of student learning are defined and organized in various taxonomies, typologies and other systems. These frameworks may help spark some ideas, guide decision-making and ensure that all major goals of learning are being addressed.

Five categories of learning outcomes in the Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP; 2014).

1. Specialized Knowledge – what students in any specialization should demonstrate with respect to the specialization beyond the vocabularies, theories and skills of particular fields of study;
2. Broad and Integrative Knowledge – students consolidate learning from different broad fields of study (e.g., the humanities, arts, sciences and social sciences) and discover and explore concepts and questions that bridge them;
3. Intellectual Skills – various cognitive skills such as analytic inquiry, use of information resources, engagement with diverse perspectives, ethical reasoning, quantitative fluency and communicative fluency;
4. Applied and Collaborative Learning – this category emphasizes what students can do with what they know. Students are asked to demonstrate their learning by addressing unscripted problems in scholarly inquiry, at work and in other settings outside the classroom. This category includes research and creative activities involving both individual and group effort and may include practical skills crucial to the application of expertise;
5. Civic and Global Learning – this category recognizes higher education’s responsibilities both to democracy and the global community. Students must demonstrate integration of their knowledge and skills by engaging with and responding to civic, social, environmental and economic challenges at local, national and global levels.

Four blocks of Essential Learning Outcomes gained from a liberal education as conceptualized by the Association of American Colleges and Universities:

1. Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
   • Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring

2. Intellectual and Practical Skills, including
   • Inquiry and analysis
   • Critical and creative thinking
   • Written and oral communication
   • Quantitative literacy
   • Information literacy
   • Teamwork and problem solving

Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance

3. Personal and Social Responsibility, including
   • Civic knowledge and engagement – local and global
   • Intercultural knowledge and competence
   • Ethical reasoning and action
   • Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges

4. Integrative and Applied Learning, including
   • Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies

Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of learning in the cognitive domain (Essential Learning Outcomes):

Some additional learning outcomes that have gained more interest recently and are becoming incorporated into curriculum and assessment of educational programs across the country are described below.

Professionalism: a set of behaviors, attitudes and habits of mind required to carry out professional responsibilities (Suskie, 2018). In the higher education setting, professionalism can be demonstrated through coming to class and meetings on time, engaging in oral and written communication that is formal, respectful, and timely, correctly following assignment instructions, participating in group work and class discussions, and giving a task one’s best effort.

Habits of Mind: dispositions toward behaving intelligently when confronted with complex problems (The Institute for Habits of Mind). Some of the 16 attributes of what students can do when they behave intelligently include persisting, managing impulsivity, listening to others with understanding and empathy, striving for accuracy and precision, thinking interdependently, taking responsible risks, and learning continuously.

Metacognition: thinking about one’s thinking – planning, monitoring, and assessing one’s understanding and performance (Chick, 2013). Students practice and exhibit metacognition when they verbalize what it means to learn, when they show “awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses with specific skills or in a given learning context, plan what’s required to accomplish a specific learning goal or activity, identifying and correcting errors, and preparing ahead for learning processes.”

As mentioned in the beginning of this Handbook, due to increased accountability for undergraduate educational outcomes, the Florida Board of Governors mandates that each baccalaureate program must have “expected core student learning outcomes in the areas of content/discipline knowledge and skills, communication skills, and critical thinking skills” (BOG Regulation 8.016). University IE Portal contains a drop-down field where each SLO can be assigned one of these three learning outcomes categories.

When developing expectations for learning outcomes, program faculty are asked, in addition to their own expert opinion, to also take into consideration perspectives of appropriate constituencies, such as actual/potential employers and graduate programs, recent alumni and current students, and/or if available, discipline-specific accrediting agencies and professional organizations. Essentially, any person or entity who has a stake in assessment and outcomes of student learning can become a collaborator whose contribution informs, corrects and enriches the SLOs selection process (e.g., ; Hart Research Associates, 2013). It is up to each FSU College and/or department/school to decide who, in addition to the department/program faculty, needs to be invited to the table, but generally the broader the representation of stakeholders, the more supported and successful the students should be throughout their studies and post-graduation.

Because students learn best in programs with intentional, integrated, and cohesive curriculum, faculty (and other constituents) should communicate and collaborate when choosing key learning goals for their students. There are different approaches to establishing a set of essential SLOs that all instructional faculty (and other stakeholders) can agree upon. One method known as the Delphi technique (Hsu & Sandford, 2007) can be used to achieve consensus regarding the exact repertoire of content knowledge, skills, and values/attitudes program graduates should possess. Suggested implementation steps of this approach are outlined below.

• Process coordinator (department chair, undergraduate or graduate program director, associate/assistant dean) solicits up to five learning outcomes from each faculty member (and other participants) independently in order to prevent contributors from inadvertently influencing each other’s selection.
• After all lists with potential learning goals are received, the coordinator narrows down and wordsmiths learning goal statements and distributes the aggregated catalog of SLOs back to all faculty (and other parties) participating in the process.
• Participants are asked to check off a handful of the most important student learning outcomes from the longlist: 5-7 SLOs in undergraduate programs and 2-3 SLOs in graduate and certificate programs. Checked-off outcomes may also be rank-ordered to provide additional information about their relative importance.
• The lists are collected again, checkmarks (and rankings) are tallied, and SLOs with the most votes are moved to the shortlist. The shortlisted learning outcomes are shared with the group and if a consensus is reached, the final list of SLOs is adopted by the program.
• If opinions are not converging, group members may provide their rationale for excluding or including certain learning goals to the coordinator. In the final round, “the list of remaining items, their ratings, minority opinions, and items achieving consensus are distributed to the panelists. This round provides a final opportunity for participants to revise their judgments.” (Hsu & Sandford, 2007, p. 3). After the second vote, either unanimity or sufficient general agreement is typically reached.

Image retrieved from https://research.phoenix.edu/content/research-methodology-group/delphi-method

SLOs selected for an educational program can and should be changed periodically. There are two primary reasons for occasionally updating the selection of learning outcomes that are being actively assessed and improved upon in any given year. First, if an SLO has been assessed and has been met consistently for three or more years, there is sufficient evidence that the program curriculum is effective at preparing students to demonstrate knowledge and skills associated with this learning outcome. At this point, the SLO may be ‘rotated out’ of the shortlist and another, perhaps almost as important, learning outcome can be ‘rotated in’. This approach is especially useful for departments/programs with limited assessment resources. The second reason for updating the selection of SLOs is changes in the academic discipline such as new tools and technologies, fresh scientific discovery, and/or innovative techniques. Once the new content is incorporated into the curriculum, there may be a need to either select new SLOs or update existing SLOs, so they include the new knowledge sets or skills.

Learning outcomes in an educational program are content knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students will have attained by the time they complete the program’s course of study. SLOs are program-level learning outcomes; they are not course-level learning objectives or university-level/institutional learning goals. Although aligned with and supportive of both, degree/certificate program-level SLOs are narrower than university learning goals expressed in the FSU mission statement and are broader than the learning objectives of individual courses in the program curriculum. Because an academic program should be greater than the sum of its parts (courses), program-level student learning outcomes combine course-level objectives into an amplified, deepened, cohesive, integrated whole.

High-quality statements of Learning Outcomes have several important characteristics. When formulating SLO statements, it is useful to design them to be S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable/Appropriate, Results-Oriented, and Time-Bound.

Specific: A clearly articulated and distinguishable set of knowledge, skills, values or attitudes is identified. An SLO should express a single idea, even if it has multiple components. For example, “Students will define the essential aspects of complex problems, investigate them, propose solutions, and evaluate the relative merits of alternative solutions” is a strong statement of an SLO focused on problem-solving skills. Although there are several distinct actions packed in one statement, they are all part of a larger learning goal, they fit together under one umbrella, and can be taught and assessed collectively (Suskie, 2018).

Measurable: Evidence of learning can be demonstrated, observed and assessed. Avoid statements such as “Students will learn, understand, appreciate, comprehend, be aware of, feel, or think” and the like. When writing SLO statements, we recommend using concrete action verbs that describe what students will be able to do in the cognitive (see Appendix A and Adelman, 2015), affective, or psychomotor domains. Proper use of action verbs helps instructors to think through and communicate to the students what will be learned and how it will be assessed.

Attainable/Appropriate: The desired knowledge, skills, values and attitudes can be achieved by a typical student as a result of learning experiences in the program. For example, in order to demonstrate communicative fluency, it is reasonable to expect students at the bachelor’s level to “develop and present cogent, coherent and substantially error-free writing for communication to general and specialized audiences”, whereas students at the master’s level may be expected to “create sustained, coherent arguments or explanations summarizing his/her work or that of collaborators in two or more media or languages for both general and specialized audiences” to demonstrate the same SLO but to a more advanced stage (DQP, 2014, p. 30).

Results-Oriented: SLOs should reflect what students will have learned rather than what content will be taught or what teaching activities will take place in various courses and/or overall curriculum. Using the ‘backward curriculum design’ (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) approach may help formulate results-oriented SLOs. First, identify with which competencies students in your program should attain/learn by the time they graduate, then determine what assessment sources and tools (essay, oral presentation, thesis, rubric, etc.) will generate acceptable evidence of their learning of the said competencies, and finally, plan and design learning experiences and instruction that will best position the students to do well on those assignments.

Time-Bound: Students should be able to master and competently demonstrate learned content, skills, values and attitudes by a certain milestone in a program. SLOs are oftentimes set to be achieved by the time students complete the entire program of study and are ready to graduate from the program. In these cases, assessment of SLOs is typically tied to some culminating learning experience/product like a capstone project, research paper, thesis or dissertation, comprehensive exam, art exhibition, etc. However, it is also possible to designate an SLO to be achieved by the end of a specific course or a co-curricular experience (e.g., study abroad, internship, UROP, LLC). 

Consider several examples below that illustrate SLO statements with various shortcomings and their improved versions.

Most educational programs use a ‘forward curriculum design’ approach, which “starts with syllabus planning, moves to methodology, and is followed by assessment of learning outcomes. Resolving issues of syllabus content and sequencing are essential starting points with forward design” (Richards, 2013). In ‘forward-designed’ curricula, once SLOs for a degree/certificate program have been identified and formulated, they are mapped onto the existing program curriculum (or proposed program curriculum for new degree/certificate programs). This process is referred to as ‘curriculum mapping’. Narrowly speaking, a curriculum map is a chart that shows in which specific courses various competencies are initially introduced, further developed and reinforced, and finally mastered and assessed.

The rows in the curriculum map/matrix contain SLOs that specify knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that students will attain throughout their studies in a program. The columns usually contain courses required to graduate from a given program. For programs with extensive course offerings, the rows and columns can be flipped so that SLOs are listed across the top and curricular requirements are listed in the left column.

The intersection cells contain information about how each course supports each SLO: I=Introduced, R=Reinforced and Practiced, and M=Mastered. “Such codes help demonstrate that the program has progressive rigor – one of the characteristics of effective curricula. They also help identify assessment opportunities; the courses in which students are supposed to demonstrate satisfactory achievement are often ideal places for assessment.” (Suskie, 2018, p. 80). The star (*) marks the points in the curriculum when evidence of student learning is collected to determine whether SLOs were achieved.

Although most often the columns in the curriculum map/matrix will only contain required courses, other essential program curriculum elements may also be included. Depending on the complexity of the curriculum, degree type (e.g., MFA vs. MA) and degree level (Bachelor’s, Specialist, Master’s, Doctorate, Certificate), required learning events and experiences may include internships, department symposium, art exhibition, national licensure exam, qualifying or comprehensive exam, prospectus (defense), dissertation (defense), etc.

Aligning intended SLOs with program curriculum is a hugely beneficial activity. The mapping process allows us to visually represent how learning is scaffolded over the course of the curriculum and makes visible how courses in a curriculum align to the learning outcomes to which that curriculum strives. The curriculum map/matrix helps reveal gaps (‘under-taught’ SLOs) and redundancies (‘over-taught’ SLOs), improves communication and encourages reflective practice and ultimately, benefits student learning experience and outcomes. The mapping process “allows a conversational space and lens through which to examine our educational design” (National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, 2018, p. 5) and “provides a means to counteract incoherence and fragmentation of the college experience” (Jankowski, 2017, p. 10).

Below are some curriculum mapping best practices and considerations, including guidelines for programs with special circumstances (Suskie, 2018):

• Keep the curriculum map ‘lean’ and focused. Complicated, sprawling curriculum pathways with a myriad of course options may be an obstacle to ensuring that students complete their programs of study on time and have mastered the most important content and skills. Construct curriculum maps with clear routes to achieving target SLOs with most learning outcomes addressed in 2-4 required courses/learning experiences.
• Only mark intersection cells if a part of the final course grade is based on progress toward achieving the SLO. Most students focus their time and efforts on the graded course components. So, if a course, for example, reinforces students’ oral communication, but these skills are not graded or assessed in any other way, do not place the ‘R’ code in the corresponding intersection point in the map.
• Electives have no place in a program curriculum map. Elective courses should not be included in the map because they are not taken by every student in the program. Even though electives may support development of some SLOs, it’s the required courses/experiences that ensure that all students have sufficient opportunity to achieve key learning outcomes.
• Group clusters of ‘pick-from-a-list’ courses together in one column. Some educational programs require students to take one out of a cluster of two or more courses. If all courses in a cluster support the same SLO(s), group them together as shown in the curriculum map below. If all or some courses in a required curricular cluster address different SLOs, you may treat them as electives and exclude them from the map or you may still include them if they all provide students with additional learning activities that further introduce (I), reinforce (R) or help master (M) program SLOs.

• Multi-course/multi-instructor. When different instructors teach different courses in the same course cluster as shown above, it is a good idea for them to collaborate on creating a shared core package. Elements of the shared curricular core may include a series of the same in-class activities and/or homework assignments, a final paper with the same prompt or the same set of ten questions incorporated into each course’s midterm (‘shared/embedded questions’), or a standard ‘grading’ rubric applied to different class projects. The most important consideration here is to ensure that even though the syllabi and class materials may be different, students get a chance to develop the same learning outcome(s) regardless of which exact course in the cluster they chose.
• Multi-section/multi-instructor. When multiple instructors teach different sections of the same course, the program should establish a common course syllabus with shared course learning activities and same assignments. An educational program can take it a step further and develop a standard course package that includes a stock syllabus, lecture slides, class activities, tests and quizzes, and a gradebook. This approach is especially useful for courses whose sections are typically taught by different instructors most years/semesters (e.g., graduate teaching assistants, adjunct faculty, visiting scholars).
• Multi-‘path’ programs. It is common for a single degree program to have multiple paths to the same credential. For example, FSU students can receive a doctorate in Educational Psychology (degree program with CIP 422806) by completing coursework in either one of its two offered majors: Learning and Cognition (major code 220306) or Sports Psychology (major code 220312). (See FSU Degree Program Inventory for more details regarding institutional academic structure.) In these cases, some SLOs may be developed and assessed in the shared core courses, while some other SLOs may be developed and assessed in courses that are specific to one major. It is possible to have one or two SLO(s) that are not shared among the different ‘paths’ (majors, degree types: MFA vs. MA, concentration tracks: thesis/research track vs. non-thesis/professional track). It is ultimately up to the program faculty to jointly decide if the ‘paths’ under the single degree program are so distinct from each other that a separate set of SLOs and a separate curriculum map are warranted.

The FSU IPA Office created and made available for download curriculum map template for programs of various degree levels (Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate, and Certificate). The templates also offer examples of aligning SLOs and curriculum in programs with sufficiently distinct ‘paths’ (majors, degree types, and/or concentration tracks). Each file contains additional information about curriculum mapping and specific instructions on how to fill out the map/matrix. Further, each file offers an example of an abbreviated completed SLOs x Curriculum map/matrix and a partially filled out template. The templates may be adjusted in any way to meet the needs of the program. IPA staff are available by request to facilitate a curriculum mapping session for academic departments and programs.

After students have been provided with sufficient opportunity to develop each SLO (i.e., each learning outcome was introduced, reinforced/practiced, and mastered), evidence of student learning is collected. In order to determine if students have indeed gained the desired knowledge, skills, and values/attitudes, each learning outcome is measured using the means of assessment best suited to the nature of the learning.

For example, the critical thinking skills of students in Political Science may be best assessed through an evaluative report that provides analysis of a political organization. The communication skills of students studying Russian may be best showcased through an oral presentation and evaluated by the means of a rubric that allows for scoring of pronunciation, fluency, and use of vocabulary. The technical skills of students in Electrical Engineering may be best measured through a lab report documenting proper use of specialized equipment and techniques. The professional attitudes and values of students in Social Work may be best gauged using a reflective essay on the topic of confidentiality limits. Put simply, “assessments should reveal how well students have learned what we want them to learn while instruction ensures that they learn it. For this to occur, assessments, learning objectives, and instructional strategies need to be closely aligned so that they reinforce one another” (Eberly Center).

Creating new or aligning existing assignments to appropriately assess the desired SLO can seem daunting. Using Bloom’s “Knowledge, Assessment, and Verb Wheel” shown below may help identify appropriate assignments and artifacts that best match how to assess different depth of learning in cognitive domain using specific observable behaviors/actions demonstrated by the student. The wheel has the depth of learning in the innermost circle, followed by related action verbs, like those frequently used in developing SLO statements, in the second circle. The outermost circle contains means of assessment that align with the depth of learning and action verbs of the SLO.

This model can be used to simplify the process of selecting an appropriate assessment approach for a particular learning outcome. Let’s use the following SLO Statement as an example: “Upon completion of the master’s program in nursing, students will describe and critique a tradition, assumption, or prevailing practice within the healthcare field by identifying and examining relevant ethical principles.” The four action verbs (underlined) require students to:

• ‘Remember’, which is Level 1 of learning, – the action verb is ‘Identify’;
• ‘Understand’, which is Level 2 of learning, – the action verb is ‘Describe’;
• ‘Analyze’, which is Level 4 of learning, – the action verb is ‘Examine’;
• ‘Evaluate’, which is Level 5 of learning, – the action verb is ‘Critique’.

Looking to the outermost circle of the wheel for Levels 1, 2, 4 and 5, an instructor might choose to have students complete a case study assignment and use submitted reports to assess the target SLO.