2025 Pre-Institute Workshops

All Pre-Institute workshops will be held on Sunday, October 26, 2025. You may sign up and pay for any of the Pre-Institute workshops when completing the online registration form for the 2025 Assessment Institute in Indianapolis. Pre-Institute workshop fees ($150 for full-day; $75 for half-day) are in addition to the Institute registration fees.

Attending a Pre-Institute workshop can be a valuable experience for several reasons:

1. In-depth learning: Pre-Institute workshops offer a more in-depth learning experience than regular conference sessions. Due to their longer duration, workshops allow for a more comprehensive exploration of the specific workshop topic.
2. Practical experience: Pre-Institute workshops offer engaging exposure to the subject matter, giving attendees the opportunity to consider and apply what they learn in the workshop to their own contexts. This can be particularly helpful for attendees who prefer a more interactive learning experience.
3. Networking: Pre-Institute workshops can be an excellent opportunity to connect with other attendees who share similar interests and goals. By attending a workshop, you can meet and network with other practitioners, potentially leading to new opportunities for collaboration.
4. Access to thought-leaders: Pre-Institute workshops are facilitated by assessment and improvement thought-leaders. This provides attendees with a unique opportunity to learn directly from experienced practitioners and to ask questions in real-time.

Overall, attending a Pre-Institute workshop can be a valuable investment in your professional development. The workshops offer opportunities to learn in-depth, gain practical and applicable experience, network with like-minded colleagues, and access experienced practitioners in the field of assessment and improvement.

Full–Day Workshop | 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Morning Half–Day Workshops | 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Afternoon Half–Day Workshops | 1:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m.

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Full–Day Workshop | 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. | $150

01A – Assessment 101
Assessment. Where to start? It’s here in Assessment 101. Participants will interact with each other and engage in hands-on activities throughout this full-day workshop. You will grapple with questions fundamental to higher education such as: What should students know, think, and be able to do when they graduate? And how would someone know if students succeeded? Fortunately, assessment can help us address these questions. Specifically, by the end of this workshop, you will be able to do the following: (1) explain the basic steps in the assessment process, (2) distinguish among beginning, developing, good, and advanced assessment reporting, (3) develop an assessment plan for one student learning outcome (SLO), and (4) discuss the fundamentals of applying interventions [e.g., pedagogy and curriculum] at the program level to improve student learning.
Keston H. Fulcher and Mason Jones, James Madison University, and Associates
Audience: Beginner
Topic: Assessment Methods  

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Morning Half–Day Workshops | 9:00 a.m.–12:00 Noon | $75 each

02A – The Scholar’s Academy: From Evidence-Informed Inquiry to Knowledge Dissemination
The purpose of the Scholar’s Academy is to: (1) promote the use of evidence-informed perspectives in teaching, learning, assessment, and improvement, (2) equip participants with the frameworks, resources, and networks to support their growth as evidence-informed professionals, and (3) encourage the dissemination of promising practices, lessons learned, and ideas for consideration, replication, or adaptation through conference presentations and articles in publication outlets. Participants will leave the workshop with a plan to conduct evidence-informed scholarly inquiry in their context—including Zoom-based follow-up support—with the goal leading to eventual knowledge dissemination. Note: There is also an afternoon Scholar’s Academy workshop, organized by the HIPs in the States Community of Practice, with an emphasis on High Impact Practices (HIPs) scholarship.
Organizers of the Assessment Institute and Editors from such publications as Assessment Update, Research & Practice in Assessment, and the Journal of Student Affairs Inquiry, Improvement, and Impact
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: Leadership for Assessment

02B – Jumpstarting General Education Program Review: A Systems Thinking Approach to the Self-Study
Often overlooked in the discussion of a general education program development and assessment is the issue of program review. The Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS) offers two resources, “The Gen Ed Leader’s Playbook” and a “Guide to Assessment and Program Review,” to stimulate a collaborative discussion for improving a general education program. The Playbook provides leaders with various tools to help address the tough questions, such as “Why do we need Gen Ed Programs?” At the heart of the “Guide” is a set of twenty systems analysis questions to improve program quality. This workshop focuses on the initial stage of the self-study and allows attendees to “test-drive” the tools and practice some basic general education program evaluation steps.
Jody DeKorte, Purdue Global; Christine Robinson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and Kevin Hermberg, Dominican University New York
Audience Level: Beginner
Topic: General Education 

02C – Designing a Comprehensive Assessment Plan for Equity-Centered Student Success
Student success is typically defined by GPA, retention, persistence, and career outcomes. To foster these outcomes, colleges and universities provide myriad support services. However, critical considerations such as basic needs, belonging, and self-efficacy are missing from this success equation, especially for minoritized students. In this workshop, presenters will share a framework conceptualizing the connection between prerequisites for success and outcomes that will guide participants through a process to develop a comprehensive assessment plan for equity-centered student success. Participants will leave with actionable strategies for assessing student success and its antecedents.
Gavin Henning, New England College; and Anne Lundquist, Temple University
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: Leadership for Assessment

02D – Student Partnership in Assessment: Ideas for Meaningful Student Engagement  
In more than three decades of work, we are yet to regularly evidence a return on the investment of student outcomes assessment. Many adjustments to the process have been made (e.g., outcomes design, motivation, instrument design, faculty buy-in). Nevertheless, the key stakeholders, students, are rarely included in the process. Instead, we must—often incorrectly—assume the student experience and build our processes accordingly. To address this issue, participants will engage in a guided redesign of a specific assessment process at their own institution; intentionally planning for student partnership.
Nicholas Curtis, University of Wisconsin–Madison; and Robin Anderson, James Madison University
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: Student Partnership and Engagement in Assessment

02E – From Theory to Practice: Applying Propensity Score Matching in R to Evaluate the Effects of High-Impact Practices (HIPs) on Student Outcomes
This workshop provides an interactive learning environment focused on evaluating High-Impact Practices (HIPs) in higher education through advanced statistical methodologies. Given that conducting Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) is not feasible in higher education settings due to the lack of control over who enrolls in HIPs, a quasi-experimental approach is recommended. Participants will explore the use of the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) package in R to match data based on HIP enrollment and create a control group of students who are similar to those who participated in HIPs. This process allows for studying the causal effect of HIP participation on student outcomes, such as retention, using further analysis methods like logistic regression. By utilizing R, attendees will engage in hands-on activities to analyze sample datasets, applying PSM to control for selection bias and employing logistic regression to build predictive models. The workshop aims to equip educators and researchers with practical tools to enhance their understanding of HIP effectiveness, ultimately informing data-driven decision-making to improve student success. Through a combination of theoretical discussions, guided exercises, and group collaboration, participants will gain the skills necessary to apply these methods in their own institutional contexts. Note: Participants will need to bring their own laptop to the workshop and will be required to download the free version of R and R-Studio prior to the workshop. More information and instructions will be communicated to registered participants prior to the start of the Institute.
Alaa Alsarhan, Utah Valley University
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: HIPs in the States/High-Impact Practices 

02F – Power BI Boot Camp: Dashboard Building for Assessment Professionals
Interactive dashboards are a powerful tool used to visualize data. As postsecondary campuses collect an increasing amount of data related to student learning, satisfaction, and success outcomes, dashboards are becoming a commonly used method to visualize data. Dashboards are highly adaptive and can be used to display many types of data, including data from learning management systems, student surveys, admissions data, demographic data, and student success indicators. This workshop will focus on building dashboards using Power BI for participants with little or no prior experience. The workshop will be a hands-on learning experience, and participants will leave with a newly created dashboard. The emphasis of the workshop will be learning the basic steps of Power BI dashboard building so that participants can use these skills in the future. Note: Participants will need to bring their own laptop to the workshop with the desktop version of Power BI installed on the laptop prior to the workshop. Participants should bring a laptop with the Microsoft Windows operating system, as the free desktop version of Power BI does not work with Mac (iOS) laptops. A dataset will be provided to participants. More information and instructions will be communicated to registered participants prior to the start of the Institute.  
Shane Schellpfeffer, University of North Dakota; Caitlyn Jessee, Florida State University; and Jeremy Fry, Indiana University School of Dentistry
Audience Level: Beginner
Topic: Use of Technologies in Assessment 

02G – Strategic Framework: Crafting a Comprehensive Faculty Development Program Aligned with Assessment and Accreditation Standards
Faculty development that is timely and responds to accreditation changes and feedback is critically important. This workshop aims to help participants develop a comprehensive faculty professional development program including a robust orientation. Recognizing the substantial investment of time, attention, effort, and financial resources in faculty development, this process is strategically crucial. It serves as a pivotal process in acquainting faculty with the institution, establishing institutional and faculty connections, communicating expectations clearly, and assuring accreditation needs become part of faculty development. During the workshop, participants will engage in interactive, hands-on activities to: 1) identify the essential components of faculty professional development including initial orientation, establish a comprehensive understanding of “must-have” elements, 2) develop a “just-in-time” model for faculty professional development, ensuring relevance and timeliness and considering feedback from accreditors, 3) evaluate the effectiveness of their institution’s faculty professional development program through practical assessment strategies, and 3) provide evidence demonstrating that the institution meets and responds to accreditation requirements, both institutional and programmatic, pertaining to faculty training.
Amy N. Morris and Nehad El-Sawi, Des Moines University
Audience Level: Beginner
Topic: Faculty/Professional Development 

02H – Creating and Implementing a Sustainable Assessment Process: Practical Approaches for Harmonizing Accountability and Improvement
The fundamental purpose of assessment is to continually enhance student learning. However, in most educational institutions, the design and execution of assessments are predominantly tied to meeting external demands, such as regional and discipline-specific accreditations and state mandates. Unfortunately, this approach often relegates systematic improvements in student learning and program effectiveness to mere byproducts of the assessment process. In this workshop, we offer practical strategies for creating, implementing, and sustaining a systematic institutional assessment process. These strategies are geared toward fostering a culture of continuous improvement, particularly in light of the ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence, while also addressing compliance requirements.
Felix Wao, University of Oklahoma
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: Leadership for Assessment 

02I – ChatGPT and Educational Assessment: Opportunities and Challenges
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how assessment practitioners, test developers, and faculty design, implement, and report assessment findings. This workshop introduces participants to using ChatGPT as a collaborative partner to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in assessment practices. Through a focus on prompt engineering, participants will explore how AI can support each stage of the assessment cycle, including writing student learning outcomes, developing instruments, analyzing results, and identifying actionable improvements. Practical examples and interactive activities will be used to demonstrate AI's potential to streamline workflows and inform data-driven decision-making. Participants will leave with hands-on strategies for integrating AI into their assessment toolkit.
John Hathcoat, Yu Bao, Kaijie Liu, and Hunter Castleton, James Madison University; and Ruth Slotnick, Bridgewater State University
Audience Level: Beginner
Topic: Use of Technologies in Assessment 

02J – Developing Implementation Plans for Meaningful Assessment: Connecting Theory to Practice  
This workshop is intended for those starting an assessment process or practice, wanting to review or revise existing assessment processes or practices, or those interested in examining the efficacy or embeddedness of assessment at the course, program, general education, student affairs, or institution-level. Workshop participants will explore a contextualized history of assessment, consider the theory connections behind design of assessment processes and data collection and use, and develop an action plan to inform local implementation of meaningful assessment. Whether faculty, staff, or administrators, this workshop provides guidance and resources pulling from a forthcoming textbook on the theory and implementation of assessment in higher education. 
Joseph D. Levy, Excelsior University; and Natasha Jankowski, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Audience Level: Intermediate
Topic: Strategy and Planning

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Afternoon Half–Day Workshops | 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. | $75 each