This book positions learning as the observable, verifiable demonstration of skills and competencies acquired through instruction, shifting the focus from grade-point averages and standardized tests to direct evidence of college student performance.Beginning with an examination of how higher education has prioritized certification over demonstrable learning, this text offers practical frameworks for designing instruction, assessments, and outcomes that emphasize demonstrable competence over abstract metrics. Key topics include learning theories, AI challenges, ethical data practices, funding incentives, and performance-based accreditation. Vignettes showcase real-world application across diverse institutional settings, weaving together perspectives from faculty, administrators, and students for a rich, comprehensive view of these practices in action.This book is written for faculty, assessment leaders, administrators, accreditors, and policymakers who want claims about learning to be clear, verifiable, and publicly defensible.
Jarek Janio is a faculty coordinator at Santa Ana College in Southern California, USA. He founded the SLO Symposium in 2014, a national annual conference for assessment professionals, and has coordinated Friday SLO Talks since 2020, a weekly forum devoted to the assessment of student learning outcomes through observable demonstration of competence.
Introduction 1. Learning as Skill: From Apprenticeship to Observable Competence 2. Learning as Evidence: Why Theories Matter for the Assessment of Student Learning 3. What Counts as Learning: Observable Behavior and Public Trust 4. Every Verb Counts: Making Learning Visible Without Cognitive Guesswork Interlude 5. Designing Instruction for Observable Learning: From Pedagogy to Documented Competence 6. Assessing What Students Do: Direct Methods Across Disciplines 7. When Products Are All We Have: Assessing Behavior in the Age of AI 8. Learning as Evidence Ecology: Managing Records for the Assessment of Student Learning 9. Aligning Assessment of Student Learning with Funding and Accountability 10. Accreditation, Assessment of Student Learning, and Public Trust