Agee                          The New CAS Standards for Learning Assistance Programs    

24/F                           11:00 AM                                                   Rockefeller

 

 

The New CAS Standards for Learning Assistance Programs

 

As a member of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education, CRLA helped rewrite the standards for learning assistance programs.  How will the new standards affect our work in learning centers?  Participants will review the new guidelines and explore ways to evaluate both student learning and development.

 

Summary:

The purpose of this presentation is to reveal to CRLA members and other interested participants the new learning center standards developed with the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. 

 

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Participants will be able to explain the principle of CAS standards, in preparation for sharing this knowledge with colleagues back on campus;
  2. Participants will get acquainted with the new CAS standards for learning assistance programs;
  3. Participants will use their knowledge of their own learning assistance program and the materials provided in this presentation to construct learning and development outcomes for all appropriate Òstudent learning and developmental outcome domains.Ó

 

First comes a brief explanation of CAS itself.  Because the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education arose from an affiliation among student affairs programs in higher education, its work – indeed, its existence – is not well known among faculty in academic affairs divisions.  Printed information and CAS links will be provided.

 

The setting of shared professional standards is critically important to the standing of learning assistance programs in higher education, and the development of revised standards for learning assistance programs provides a unique opportunity to review the goals as well as the methods of our enterprise.  Revision of the LAP standards began first with revision of the Contextual Statement in 2005-6 by a small CRLA committee under the leadership of CRLAÕs ten-year director on the Council, Becky Johnen.   The standards themselves were revised by an expanded committee in 2006 and 2007.  After approval of the new LAP standards by the CAS committee charged with their review, CRLA now helps disseminate the standards and advocates for their use by learning assistance professionals. 

 

Self-Assessment Guides are used to evaluate learning assistance programs in each of the 13 areas for which CAS sets standards: 

1.         mission

2.         program

3.         leadership

4.         organization and management

5.         human resources

6.         financial resources

7.         facilities and equipment

8.         legal responsibilities

9.         equity and access

10.       campus and external relations

11.       diversity

12.       ethics

13.       assessment and evaluation

Copies of the 2008 revised standards will be provided at the presentation.  Though the formal Self-Assessment Guide cannot be given out, key pages will be provided in the presentation transparencies.  We will wrestle with one of the thorniest problems, assessing student development.

 

A topic of particular discussion among members of CRLAÕs standards revision committee has been the list of student learning and development outcomes in the statement of standards.  ÒThe LAP must provide evidence of its impact on the achievement of student learning and development outcomesÓ -- but what should those outcomes be for each of our learning centers?  Session participants will work together to winnow the current learning and development outcomes (and a multitudinous list of possibilities provided by the presenter); depending on the number of participants, we will work as a group of the whole or in smaller groups.  We will then develop a focused list of achievable outcomes for our own programs.  Finally we will consider implications of the new standards for assessing the strengths and deficiencies of our own learning centers and evaluating our programs, with particular emphasis on student learning outcomes assessment mandated by higher education accreditation boards.

 

Presenter Agee has been involved in review of the standards since the 1980Õs and was recently named CRLAÕs representative to CAS. 

 

Karen S. Agee, Ph.D., has been Reading and Learning Coordinator at the University of Northern Iowa since 1984.  She continues to seek new teaching and social learning strategies and to incite critical reading on campus.  Karen has served as President, Secretary, and Executive Assistant of CRLA.  She has received CRLAÕs Robert Griffin Long and Outstanding Service Award, the BoardÕs Special Recognition Award, her campusÕ Exemplary Service Award, and the Iowa Board of RegentsÕ Award for Staff Excellence, but she knows itÕs really her students and student staff who do the hard work.