Assessment and Evaluation

It is important to consider assessment and evaluation as you are building a partnership. Discuss and plan for measuring the impact on students, faculty, and the community.

Evaluation of Students

A variety of evaluation methods can be used to determine what the students are learning through their community engagement experience. Many of these methods will be driven by faculty and occur through classroom activities and assignments.

Ask the faculty partner what role they would like you to play in the student evaluation. Examples could include:

• the opportunity to provide feedback on final product/presentation/work with no impact on grade
• opportunity to provide feedback on final product/presentation/work with those thoughts be incorporated into the grade (this can vary on how much the feedback will impact the grade e.g. 10% of assignment grade)
• or student evaluation score sheet/rubric for community partner to complete.

There may be a formal or informal mid-term evaluation as well.

Also discuss if there are particular items you would like incorporated into student assessments or evaluations.

Evaluation of the Partnership

When the partnership has concluded (usually at the end of the semester), it is important to take time to debrief the experience. Data from student evaluations and assessments can be a great jumping off point to know exactly what students learned. This also provides an opportunity to discuss the roles that each party played in the partnership, what could be done differently in the future, and if their is an opportunity or desire to work together again.

Assessment and Evaluation Resources

The Center for Community Engagement and Service learning has a number of tools available to assess student learning as well as books available for check out.

Share your Results

Be sure to share the results with relevant stakeholders, including the Center for Civic Engagement. This is an opportunity to celebrate the partnership and the great results that came from it.