Assessment is a cornerstone of success in higher education institutions. As the technological and educational landscape has changed, institutions have moved away from traditional assessment tools in education. Instead, they're taking a broader view of how assessment can drive institutional success.
Educational technology assessment tools can build a culture of assessment to continuously improve the student experience, increase enrollment and retention, and drive institution-wide change.
What Are Educational Technology Assessment Tools?
Assessment tools for educators assist in evaluating student learning and give institutions options to assess student learning beyond an exam at the end of a course. Higher education assessment software lets institutions distribute assessments to students, collect the data, streamline the analysis and grading process, and provide actionable insights on improvement opportunities.
A suite of software tools designed for higher education can help institutions take massive amounts of data and turn them into solutions for their most pressing challenges. As you collect data, you can drive meaningful change and improve the student learning experience in the areas that matter most. Quality assessment tools place students at the center of the learning process and allow institutions to drive change that continually prioritizes the student experience.
How Our Tools Help Institutions With Assessment
Assessment is a complex and detailed process in higher education, and you need a suite of education assessment tools purpose-built for the task to leverage your assessment data in the most meaningful way. Watermark's solutions for higher education can help you elevate every part of the assessment process.
With Watermark, you can make every part of the academic journey meaningful to your students and your institution. Our higher education assessment tools can assist with assessment through:
Course Evaluations & Surveys
With students at the heart of your assessment strategy, course feedback is a powerful tool for collecting meaningful student data and gathering insights. It gives students a voice in the assessment process and tells them you care about their learning experience. If you're trying to reach specific outcomes, students can provide valuable insights into areas that need improvement and those currently succeeding.
With the input of students, you can eliminate much of the guesswork and create well-rounded student experiences. Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys helps boost student survey response rates by meeting students where they are: allowing them to respond via their smartphones. You can also set up the option to request responses before students receive their grades.
Curriculum Strategy
Your course curriculum and catalog are the most comprehensive way to get a holistic view of the learning experience your institution provides. Mapping your curriculum allows you to see connections between courses and outcomes, identify and address curriculum gaps, and measure learning outcomes. It's an integral part of many successful assessment processes.
Watermark Curriculum Strategy allows you to implement robust assessments throughout each course, empowering students and showcasing the heart of the student experience. You can connect your curriculum and outcomes-based education strategy, giving you and your collaborators a global view of each item to identify gaps and improve.
Outcomes Assessment Projects
Assessment should encourage students to engage with course material and measure how well institutions prepare them for their future careers. Students should be able to identify areas where they can apply their skills and knowledge. To keep up with the new purpose of assessment — which is to look beyond its ability to measure how much students have retained — educators should be able to identify where students struggle and excel.
Assessment is most effective when meaningful and sustainable, driving your institution toward its objectives. Watermark Outcomes Assessment Projects lets you monitor and support the assessment process, merging assessments with innovative and purpose-built technology to measure the effectiveness of your initiatives. You can use rubric-based reviews to measure and outcomes with dynamic filters and comparison views to analyze learning outcome achievement.
Planning & Self-Study
Accessing your planning, success, and outcomes data from a single integrated platform gives you a detailed view of your overall assessment strategy. Assessment takes time, and tools like Watermark Planning & Self-Study streamline the assessment process, letting you import or create report templates and export information for accreditation. You can take your assessments further and integrate direct and indirect measurements for more accurate and actionable data collection.
Beyond direct measurements of student learning, you can use indirect measures to foster a culture of assessment in your institution, increase student satisfaction, and empower your faculty to take an active role in your continuous improvement.
Student Learning & Licensure
Connected data is changing the face of higher education, giving institutions the information they need for effective decision-making, identifying trends and patterns, communicating with students where they are, and improving student and faculty experiences. As formative assessments — assessments throughout a course or program instead of at the end — institutions and faculty need the option of intuitive reporting and instant feedback to make improvements in real time.
Watermark Student Learning & Licensure gives educators instant feedback, supporting rigorous assessment throughout a program and field placements for internships and clinicals. With this tool, your institution has 360-degree insights into student learning, so students, assessors, and administrators can provide actionable feedback.
Student Success & Engagement
Institutions must look beyond the individual data points to get a broad view of student satisfaction and performance. Accessing robust student data helps your institution drive change, empower your faculty and students, and enrich the learning experience with engaging classrooms and relevant course material.
Student engagement is critical to learning outcomes, and institutions are responsible for ensuring students remain engaged through to degree completion. Institutions must meet students where they are, identify at-risk students, and intervene.
Watermark Student Success & Engagement is an artificial intelligence (AI) solution your institution can leverage to engage various student groups, increase retention, and drive student success through degree completion. With this tool, you can identify students who need support in real time. You can also support your intervention strategy with validated research and data from your existing institutional systems.
Faculty Success
Your faculty is one of the most critical elements of your institution's success. Faculty engagement should be a priority at any institution, actively driving positive change and empowering your faculty to deliver a quality learning experience and contribute to your institution's mission and vision. Watermark Faculty Success lets institutions collect insights and support faculty growth.
You can help your faculty perform optimally with a central hub of faculty activity data that pulls information from multiple sources. Together, you can turn data into action using tailored data collection and configurable reports that align with your institution's processes and perspectives. In addition, faculty users can cut data entry time by up to 80%, freeing them to focus on enriching the student experience.
Elevate Your Assessment Strategy With Watermark
A robust assessment strategy can elevate the student experience and support student success. Watermark's suite of educational technology assessment tools can help you leverage technology to make a personalized impact on student's lives — now and in the future. Contact us today to learn more about our tools, or request a demo to see how they can help you achieve your goals.
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