Student Learning Assessment Resources
Learning Activities and Engagement Overview
This section of your assessment document includes a description of the learning activities and student engagement that take place in core courses or courses throughout an academic program that directly support student learning relevant to the student learning outcomes. It should be clear that these learning activities are intentionally planned and organized to build student knowledge, skills and dispositions throughout the core course or academic program. The most well-developed learning activities and engagement documentation includes a description of the activities and the intended effects on student learning.
It is important to think about how each core course aligns with the Core Area Learning Outcome or how each course within your program aligns with the program student learning outcomes as you describe the learning activities in specific courses to introduce, reinforce, or require mastery of those student learning outcomes. For academic programs, your curriculum map serves as a reference here, to create a visual representation of your program design that should show the progression of student learning from course to course throughout the program.
Some specific challenges in writing this narrative arise with large enrollment courses with multiple sections taught by faculty on different campuses or modes of instruction. It can be difficult to capture all of the activities that might be employed in these various contexts while also showing that there is consistency in supporting student learning in relation to the program student learning outcome. To address these challenges, you may want to include examples of learning activities for each of the contexts of the course along with a brief explanation of why that activity is appropriate and how it provides adequate support for student learning.
Tips for Learning Activities and Engagement
- Write a description of the primary learning activities that take place throughout the core course or academic program. Explain how those strategies and activities link to the Core Area Learning Outcome or program student learning outcomes.
- For courses with multiple sections, you should include several examples that will illustrate the range of approaches faculty may take in their individual sections.
- If a course is taught with different modes of delivery, give examples that apply to each delivery method (on ground, online, hybrid, site synchronous)
- The purpose of this section is to show the peer-reviewer how learning happens in the course or program. Specific examples of projects, assignments, and activities will help reviewers to understand the kind of instruction provided. If someone walked into the classroom on a day when this student learning outcome was the focus of the class, what would they observe happening?
Examples
For examples of teaching strategies from Georgia Southern University academic programs, please see the Academic Program Assessment Document Handbook or the Core Course Assessment Document Handbook.
Learning Activities and Engagement Peer-review Criteria
Academic Program Learning Activities and Engagement Criteria
At Georgia Southern, the Academic Assessment Steering Committee (AASC) reviews all academic program assessment documents on an annual basis. When reviewing learning activities and engagement, the committee uses the following rubric criteria to provide feedback to the program.
| 1- BEGINNING | 2- DEVELOPING | 3-ACCEPTABLE | 4- EXEMPLARY |
| No courses/experiences are described, or information provided does not connect to the SLOs | Courses/experiences provide opportunities for students to obtain the knowledge, skills, and/ or disposition described in the SLOs | Courses/experiences are limited to the SLOs with multiple and diverse opportunities for students to obtain the content knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions specific to the discipline | Courses/experiences connect to and/or build upon each other to help students achieve content knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions specific to the discipline, as described in the SLOs |
Core Course Learning Activities and Engagement Criteria
At Georgia Southern, the General Education and Core Curriculum (GECC) Committee reviews all academic program assessment documents on an annual basis. When reviewing learning activities and engagement of core curriculum, the committee uses the following rubric criteria to provide feedback to the program.
| 1-BEGINNING | 2- DEVELOPING | 3- ACCEPTABLE | 4- EXEMPLARY |
| No teaching and learning activities are described, or information provided does not connect to Area Student Learning Outcome. | Teaching and learning activities provide minimal opportunities for students to obtain the knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions contained in the Area Student Learning Outcome. | Teaching and learning activities provide diverse opportunities for students to obtain the content knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions contained in the Area Student Learning Outcome. | Teaching and learning activities build upon each other to help students achieve content knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions contained in the Area Student Learning Outcome. |
Learning Activities and Engagement Additional Resources
- Active Learning Activities (University of Waterloo)Brief overview of the learning theory that informs active learning pedagogy with examples of active learning techniques that explains how and why to apply each activity.
- Interactive Classroom Activities (Brown University)Short selection of interactive classroom activities with a description of each and a summary of the advantages of each.
- Active Learning for the College Classroom (California State University)Background and definitions of active learning, followed by activities and descriptions grouped by the type of learning engagement, including both individual and collaborative learning activities.
- 20 Formative Assessment Examples To Use In Your College Classroom (Top Hat Blog)Links active learning techniques to assessment strategies with a focus on formative assessment.
- Student Engagement Techniques (Georgia Southern University)A categorized list of teaching strategies developed by the Center for Teaching Excellence. Groups activities by how complex they are to create/manage and the type of learning engagement.
- Teaching in Blooms: A Guide to the Levels of Learning and Teaching Strategies (Georgia Southern University)A useful table that shows different types of teaching and learning activities aligned to specific levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.