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Examples of Assessment by Institution |
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Swarthmore College: A significant portion (roughly one third) of Swarthmore students engages with the Honors Program. The program’s emphases on rigor, content, collaboration, and independent learning, make it the purest manifestation of the College’s mission. Participation entails both a mode of preparation and a final scrutiny by external examiners. To prepare, small groups of dedicated and accomplished students work with each other and their professor to explore a subject, or to advance a research topic in an independent study experience. At the end of the senior year, students are examined in four subjects, three in a major and one in a minor (or four related subjects in a special interdisciplinary major), by scholars external to the College. Evaluating the written examinations they set, orals they administer personally, and often a 10-12 page portfolio paper in each of the subjects, the External Examiners constitute an exceptional assessment mechanism, not only of individual students, but of Swarthmore’s academic program as a whole. (The External Examiners are responsible for assigning the only college-sponsored graduation honorifics.) At the end of the Honors examination process, departments normally meet with the examiners to solicit feedback about the performance of their students, and also about their programs more generally, which benefits “Course” (non-honors) students as well.
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Swarthmore College |
