Northwest Vista College held a Norming Session Training in preparation for our Annual Assessment Day a few weeks ago. Almost 50 faculty members spent half a day building their understanding of the importance of a norming process and identifying best practices for norming sessions.
Norming sessions are a valuable part of assessment in that it creates consistency in assessment regardless of the individual perspectives and preferences of the raters. In addition, it promotes awareness of expectations for student performance among faculty, and it ultimately promotes improved student performance by measuring progress towards outcomes.
Attendees included key leaders in our assessment processes such as the Cross Curriculum/Core Objective Coordinators and most of the Quality Enhancement Plan liaisons. The training included several practice norming sessions to prepare these assessment leaders for their upcoming norming sessions.
Our training facilitator was Jeremy Donald, the Assessment & User Experience Librarian at Trinity University. Jeremy’s recent projects include the development and norming of rubrics of Trinity First Year Writing outcomes across the curriculum, conducting program assessment for the United Way San Antonio, and redesigning the library’s annual assessment plans and reports.
Contributed by Denise Tolan, QEP Director and Assistant Professor, NVC English Department