As faculty at Heartland Community College, we believe that institutional success is measured by student success.  Therefore, we are committed to improving student performance, and we believe that assessment provides us feedback about the effectiveness of teaching and the quality of learning.  Such assessment should be formative¹, occur on multiple levels², and uphold the integrity of teaching and learning at Heartland Community College.

The Assessment Committee (AC) is a learning team that will provide faculty with a forum to discuss and share assessment strategies, make resources available to encourage continued learning about assessment, maintain the College's Learning Outcomes, and encourage challenging and creative student-centered instruction.  The AC shall be faculty led with appropriate support from the Administration to carry out its responsibilities.

The AC has four main functions:

1. Providing assessment resources to faculty
1. Workshops, both internal and external
2. Assessment web pages
3. Books, magazines, and other references sources
4. Institutional data
5. Newsletter
6. Yearly assessment report

2. Providing forum to discuss assessment
1. Faculty workshops, seminars (i.e. “Best Practices” day)
2. Online discussion
3. Discipline-level discussions
4. Newsletter

3. Maintain the College's Learning Outcomes (LO)
1. Review, revise, and adapt statements as necessary
2. Interpret the LO for faculty
3. Provide support for updating syllabi
4. Provide support for new or major revisions in courses
5. Coordinate information with program reviews and institutional reviews

4. Oversee the College’s assessment efforts
1. Record the history of assessment at HCC
2. Determine current assessment needs
3. Set College goals related to assessment
4. Assist disciplines and/or departments with programmatic assessment goals
5. Review of student performance with respect to the LO’s.

¹Formative: of or relating to the growth and development.  In term of assessment, we mean using the cycle of teaching, learning, assessment, and feedback throughout the endurance of the course.  For a further explanation, see p. 5 of Classroom Assessment Techniques, by Cross and Angelo.

²Multiple-levels imply that assessments should include methods that examine student learning in daily activities (individual assignments, short essays, tests, etc.) to the whole course (portfolios, final exams, cumulative papers, etc.) to the discipline or department (program and department goals) to the entire College (learning outcomes).