Assessing Student Learning
“Assessment is the systematic collection of information about student learning, using the time, knowledge, expertise, and resources available, in order to inform decisions that affect student learning.”
—Barbara Walvoord, Notre Dame faculty emerita and founding director of the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, Assessment Clear and Simple
- Assessment Overview & Consultations
- Kaneb Center Guiding Principles for Assessment
- Assessing Learning in Courses
- Assessing Learning in Programs
- Assessing Learning Across the University
- More Assessment Resources and Related Workshops
- Teaching and Learning Research and Grant Proposal Support
- Assessment and Accreditation
1. Assessment Overview & Consultations
When we think of how we assess student learning, our minds often go straight to grading. And to be sure, grades are probably the most universally recognized form of assessment.
But in reality, assessment comprises a large range of strategies and practices, with grading most accurately viewed as one (albeit typically quite important) tool in that process.
In her widely influential book Assessment Clear and Simple, Barbara Walvoord writes that assessment is both “a natural, scholarly act” and one in which constituencies within and beyond a university, from the general public to accreditation bodies, are rightfully interested. She further identifies three steps of assessment:
- Goals. What do we want students to be able to do when they complete our courses of study? (Goals may also be called “outcomes” or “objectives.”)
- Information. How well are students achieving these goals, and what factors influence their learning?
- Action. How can we use the information to improve student learning?
In practice at Notre Dame, we use the word “assessment” broadly, encompassing everything from how an individual instructor figures out whether a student is meeting a given learning goal in a class, how groups of faculty in a department or school responsible for a program understand how students are learning throughout that program, and how the entire University might understand and demonstrate the value of a Notre Dame education.
While much of the formal policy-setting related to assessment is left to the individual colleges and schools, the resources linked on this page are meant to support everyone who teaches at the University and further our collective assessment practice. The Notre Dame Learning team is also available for consultations.
Request an Assessment Consultation
2. Kaneb Center Guiding Principles for Assessment
Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence is charged by the provost with supporting assessment of learning in programs, including the Core Curriculum. Assessment of learning conducted in collaboration with the Kaneb Center is not done for Kaneb staff to evaluate faculty—it is done to help Notre Dame faculty understand learning and improve teaching in courses, programs, and other educational activities. It is done in a spirit of collegiality and collaboration, not judgment.
Whenever possible, particularly in individual and small group consultations, confidentiality is preserved throughout the process. We only share information about our work with faculty in limited contexts, primarily when there is explicit agreement among everyone involved (e.g., research collaborations, program-level assessment of learning), and with a default stance of maximum confidentiality as appropriate for the particular context.
As we support assessment of learning across the University, we also aspire to help others understand how assessment can meaningfully inform and improve teaching and learning. We embrace the following characteristics of meaningful assessment and encourage others to do so as well:
- Supportive and collegial
- Focused on understanding and improving student learning
- Meaningful for faculty and students
- Integrated with institutional practices, culture, and resources
- Recognized, rewarded, and supported throughout the University
The mission of the University of Notre Dame charges us to create and support “an environment of teaching and learning that fosters the development in its students of those disciplined habits of mind, body, and spirit that characterize educated, skilled, and free human beings.” Similarly, the University’s foundations in the Holy Cross order call us to “striv[e] for academic excellence” (King, J. B., 2015, Holy Cross and Christian Education, p. 13).
Meeting these goals requires us to have a clear understanding of what and how Notre Dame students are learning not only in specific courses and experiences but also in programs and curricula, especially degree-granting programs. That information should be collected and shared with faculty, staff, and students so they can make informed judgments and decisions about teaching and learning.
This necessity to share information can sometimes be in tension with the Kaneb Center’s value of confidentiality, so we have developed these guiding principles to help us communicate and navigate this tension.
3. Assessing Learning in Courses
Assessing student learning often begins in courses—homework problems, quizzes, lab reports, papers, exams, etc. Many of our online resources and Notre Dame Learning workshops focus on student learning in courses, and we always welcome consultation requests on this topic.
The Kaneb Center Course Design Academy (KCCDA) is a more formal and structured way to focus on assessing student learning. It is a cohort-based professional development program for Notre Dame faculty focused on using evidence-based teaching principles and strategies to design or redesign a course for Notre Dame undergraduate or graduate students. The program is open to all ND faculty regardless of rank and runs for an academic year (September–May).
The explosion of generative artificial intelligence tools poses new challenges for traditional assessment practices. Notre Dame Learning’s Lab for AI in Teaching and Learning (LAITL) was founded in 2025 to (a) advance AI literacy in education, (b) explore AI-driven teaching and learning innovation, and (c) foster AI collaboration across campus and institutions.
Our Resource Library also offers a series of items on AI for Teaching and Learning, including the article “Strategies for Effective Teaching in the Age of AI,” which shares new ways you might ask students to demonstrate their skills, knowledge, and abilities.
4. Assessing Learning in Programs
Although learning is regularly assessed in specific courses, students typically enroll in courses because those courses are organized into a cohesive degree program. And just as each course has learning goals, each program has (explicit or implicit) learning goals that have guided the decisions made by the faculty who are responsible for that program. Because assessment is typically done at the course level, assessing student achievement of program learning goals requires faculty to systematically collaborate and communicate to share information about student learning in their individual courses.
In the 2025–2026 academic year, the Kaneb Center is piloting a new Program Learning Assessment Network (PLAN) Academy. This workshop series will provide support and resources for faculty who would like to design, redesign, or implement an organized assessment process in one or more of their degree-granting programs.
Participants will use the academy to begin:
- updating or reinforcing the learning goals for one of their degree-granting programs,
- creating or updating the curriculum map for that program, and
- creating or updating a meaningful and sustainable plan for assessing student learning in that program.
The academy will meet four times throughout the fall semester on the first Friday of each month (September 5, October 3, November 7, and December 5) from 1:00 until 3:00 p.m. This initial pilot is invitation-only, but we plan to open future academies to all interested Notre Dame faculty.
5. Assessing Learning Across the University
Just as we have learning goals for courses and programs, we also have learning goals for the entire University, especially at the undergraduate level. These goals include the University Learning Goals and the goals of Notre Dame’s Core Curriculum.
In 2025–2026, the Kaneb Center is partnering with the Core Curriculum Committee to pilot a new approach to assessing student learning in the Core Curriculum. This plan prioritizes respect for faculty expertise by collaborating with faculty teaching individual courses within the Core Curriculum to incorporate assessments already planned in each course as the primary source of information about student learning. Further details about the pilot and what we are learning about student learning will be provided as the process unfolds.
6. More Assessment Resources and Related Workshops
We offer a collection of online resources and Notre Dame Learning workshops featuring strategies you can use to plan and conduct assessments that both facilitate and measure student learning. Topics range from course design and how to enhance student learning with frequent, low-stakes assessments to using rubrics to assess student work, strategies for what to do after you’ve graded the test, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SoTL.
Depending on the time of year and faculty demand for our services, most of the workshops can be delivered for individual departments upon request. That said, the materials associated with each workshop are always available through our website and serve as valuable reference tools. (Note that some do require a Notre Dame NetID and password to access).
7. Teaching and Learning Research and Grant Proposal Support
Notre Dame Learning provides consultations and advice to support grant proposals related to assessment and evaluation. We also offer assistance with research design, data collection, and an umbrella IRB, enabling teaching faculty to engage as scholar-practitioners in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), discipline-based education research (DBER), and other formal investigations into student learning. In addition, we have conducted workshops on “Improve your Teaching & Student Learning with Classroom Research” and “Design, Study, Publish: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.”
For more information, contact Kevin R. Guidry, assessment program director at the Kaneb Center.
8. Assessment and Accreditation
Notre Dame’s institutional accrediting body, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), articulates four criteria for accreditation.
- Criterion 3 is focused on teaching and learning: “The institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning environments and support services, and it evaluates their effectiveness in fulfilling its mission. The rigor and quality of each educational program is consistent regardless of modality, location or other differentiating factors.” (emphasis added)
- Criterion 3.E specifically focuses on assessment: “The institution improves the quality of educational programs based on its assessment of student learning.”
- Criterion 3.F also requires that “[t]he institution improves its curriculum based on periodic program review.”
The University meets this standard and its criteria through the activities described on this webpage, with learning routinely assessed in courses, programs, and the Core Curriculum.