2026 Pre-Institute Workshops

All Pre-Institute workshops will be held on Sunday, October 18, 2026. You may sign up and pay for any of the Pre-Institute workshops when completing the online registration form for the 2026 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 18, 2026

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 Associates, James Madison University
Audience: Beginner
Topic: Assessment Methods  

Sunday, October 18, 2026

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

02A – Jumpstarting General Education Program Review: A Systems Thinking Approach to the Self-Study
Often overlooked in discussions of 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 

02B – 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 visualizing student learning data 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 directly to registered participants prior to the start of the Institute. Please note that this session has been offered in prior years and will not significantly differ in content.
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 

02C – Beyond Western Metrics: Re-Examining Assessment through Indigenous Ways of Knowing
Efforts to improve assessment in higher education often prioritize processes, methods, and tools while leaving the paradigms that shape them largely unexamined. This half-day workshop disrupts that pattern by centering Indigenous ways of knowing, paradigms, and research methods as foundations for rethinking what counts as knowledge, evidence, and success. Grounded in responsibility, relational accountability, community, and place, participants will examine how Indigenous paradigms challenge dominant Western assumptions about rigor, objectivity, and impact—and what this means for assessment practice. Through dialogue, reflection, and applied examples, the workshop supports assessment professionals in engaging Indigenous approaches ethically and contextually, while developing practical strategies to transform assessment in meaningful, respectful, and responsible ways.
Gavin Henning, New England College; Anne Lundquist, Temple University; and Benny Rieth, BelongingU
Audience Level: Beginner and Intermediate
Topic: Assessment Methods 

02D – Survey Skills That Drive Decisions: From Design to Impact
Learn the art of building high-impact surveys that inform decision-making and strengthen student success and program improvement. In this interactive, half-day workshop, participants will gain practical, step-by-step experience to design, distribute, and analyze surveys that produce actionable feedback from students, faculty, staff, and program graduates. Geared to both beginning and seasoned assessment professionals, the workshop covers techniques for writing clear, engaging items; selecting the right question types; and using distribution strategies that reliably improve response rates. Participants will also learn approaches for summarizing results and creating compelling data visualizations that communicate key findings to stakeholders. Throughout the workshop, attendees can use the provided sample survey or work on their own survey projects, with time built in for refinement, peer discussion, and real-time feedback to ensure they leave with tools and templates they can apply immediately. 
Joanna Z Boeing, Bridgewater State University
Audience Levels: Beginner and Intermediate
Topics: Analytics and Metrics, Assessment Methods, Institution-Wide Data Collection/Use, Use of Technologies in Assessment 

02E – 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 (4) 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 

02F – ACCELERATE in Action: Adopting and Applying the Updated Assessment Principles
This workshop guides attendees on learning and implementing the new ten principles—ACCELERATE—a contemporary update to the foundational nine assessment principles that have guided higher education practice for decades. You will gain insights, strategies, and approaches on what these principles are and how they can be enacted across academic, co-curricular, and institutional contexts, through practitioner-informed examples and resources for meaningful decision-making and improvement. Designed for a broad audience, the workshop emphasizes actionable strategies for aligning assessment with meaningful action and improvement efforts in powerful ways to strengthen the assessment culture and practice on your campus. Participants will leave with a robust toolkit on how to approach and boost assessment design and use, and cross-functional collaboration for informed decision-making and student success.
Divya Bheda, Santa Clara University; Constance Tucker, Oregon Health & Science University; and Daniel J. Kaczmarek, University at Buffalo
Audience Levels: Beginner and Intermediate
Topic: Future Trends 

02G – From Compliance to Continuous Improvement: Practical Strategies for Making Assessment Matter
This workshop explores how a compliance mindset can undermine meaningful assessment efforts and limit its potential for improvement. Participants will examine how accreditation can be wielded in the wrong ways, common symptoms of compliance-driven culture, and explore strategies for reframing assessment (and accreditation efforts) as ongoing promotion of good practice. Using multiple institutional examples, presenters will engage attendees in reflection and activities to shift assessment practices toward betterment and continuous improvement aligned with institutional priorities.
Megan Good, James Madison University; Joe Levy, Excelsior University; and Will Miller, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Audience Levels: Beginner and Intermediate
Topics: Accreditation, Future Trends, and Leadership for Assessment 

02H – 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 

02I – Process Education Through the Lens of Assessment: A Five-Level Journey
This half-day highly interactive workshop is designed for those new to Process Education (PE) and desiring to improve student learning outcomes. Participants move through five interactive activities aligned to PE’s “in a Nutshell” levels: learning, performing, assessing, growing, and self-mentoring. Each activity features a brief framing, an experience guided by the Strengths–Improvements–Insights (SII) assessment, and a short transfer debrief. Participants practice metacognition, provide and receive peer feedback on performance, critically analyze the assessment process, map their own growth, and engage in self-mentoring for improvement. Pre-conference preparation and a take-home toolkit support continued practice and adaptation in any context.
Tris Utschig, Kennesaw State University; and Josh Morrison, University of Indianapolis
Audience Level: Beginner
Topic: Assessment Methods

Sunday, October 18, 2026

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