Letter from the Senior Director of the Searle Center

Collaborative Learning: Events, Programs, & Services

Signature Programs: Catalysts for Change

Strategic Initiatives: Ideas in Action

Educator Spotlight: Jennifer Cole

What We're Reading: Foundations of Assessment

What We're Writing: In Assessment, It's Not Rigor or Equity, It's Both

Teaching Tips: Pinch Points & Plus Ones

Assessment as Reflection, Insight, and Action

Illuminating Learning in Changing Times

Dear Colleagues,

Across disciplines and career stages, educators grapple with common, interconnected questions: How do we know our students are learning what we intend? How do we make sense of evidence to inform the next iteration of our courses? How might those insights lead to the discovery of new possibilities for curricular transformation?

These questions are central to Searle’s Strategic Plan Priority Three: stimulating assessment to drive substantive course and curricular change. As educational developers, we understand assessment not only as an endpoint for accountability or accreditation, but as a practice of reflection, a source of insight, and a catalyst for action. Assessment that is intentionally designed, thoughtfully interpreted, and collaboratively engaged can deepen student learning and purposefully guide instructional and curricular decisions.

Throughout this issue, you will find creative assessment practices across multiple levels of impact. In Teaching Tips: Pinch Points & Plus Ones, we highlight course-level strategies, such as exam wrappers, that make learning visible while it is still unfolding, supporting student reflection and instructional decision making. Our Educator Spotlight on Jennifer Cole illustrates generative program-level assessment, highlighting how shared frameworks, common rubrics, and coordinated use of evidence enable faculty to step back, identify patterns, and implement changes that shape students’ experiences across courses.

Individual course‑ and program‑level efforts connect to and are increasingly aligned with a broader ecosystem that supports learning. In Signature Programs: Catalysts for Change, we discuss how the University’s Strategic Framework for Assessment and our growing Assessment Gallery demonstrates continued momentum toward building sustainable, institutional-level capacity for evidence-informed improvement.

Many initiatives featured in this issue are designed to support educators in moving from intention to action. We are pleased to introduce the Program Assessment Cycle (PAC) Badge, a new self-paced learning experience that provides a clear, practical pathway for faculty, staff, and administrators to develop shared language, tools, and confidence for engaging in program-level assessment that informs meaningful curricular and programmatic change.

This issue’s curated literature reviews, What We’re Reading: Foundations of Assessment and What We’re Writing: In Assessment, It’s Not Rigor or Equity, It’s Both, emphasize assessment as relational, values-inspired work. By foregrounding transparency, student voice, and trust, these pieces demonstrate how rigorous expectations and equitable practices can be mutually reinforcing conditions for meaningful learning and sustainable change.

New questions are continually emerging. We are exploring how assessment can continue illuminating student learning in an era when AI can generate polished products, but not the thinking, judgment, or growth that learning requires. This question will be a focal point of our mid-quarter programming and resources, as we explore assessment approaches that remain rigorous, and learner-centered in an evolving AI landscape.

I invite you to engage with the sections of this issue that resonate with your teaching questions, disciplinary contexts, and assessment goals. Whether you are rethinking an assignment or reimagining a curriculum, know that the Searle Center is here as a thought partner in this important work.

Warm Regards,

Jennifer Keys, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Searle Center (she/her/hers)

Enhance your skills as an educator and make a meaningful impact on learning and teaching in higher education.

Our yearlong learning communities for graduate students and postdocs provide guided pedagogical and professional development that builds confidence in the classroom and strengthens preparation for the academic and non-academic job market.

Reflective & Effective Teaching (RET) Certificate Program
RET is a cohort-based learning community for graduate students and postdocs from any discipline who want to improve student learning through reflective, evidence-based teaching. Participants engage with peers and facilitators to thoughtfully develop their teaching practice.
Learn more and apply by June 15.

Reflective Teaching Guides (RTG)—$3,000 stipend
RTGs support RET participants by facilitating reflection and discussion while engaging in their own professional development. Guides meet twice per quarter and gain experience applying evidence-based teaching practices in a collaborative learning community.
Learn more and apply by June 15.

Graduate Teaching Fellows (GTF)—$3,000 stipend
GTFs develop pedagogical expertise and leadership through this prestigious fellowship. Fellows work with a cohort of peers and mentors to develop or sustain initiatives that enhance learning and teaching in their home departments or programs.
Learn more and apply by June 15.

Save the date for our second annual Searle Center Community Celebration from 2–4:00 pm on Wednesday, June 3, 2026!

This festive gathering brings our learning and teaching community together to celebrate our collective accomplishments, honor our partners, and present our inaugural RET Certificate of Excellence and this year's Spirit of Searle Awards.

Catalyzing Learning Through Northwestern’s New Strategic Assessment Framework

By Jennifer Keys, Greg Siering, and Lina Eskew

Propelled by the strong momentum of Northwestern’s successful reaccreditation and the thoughtful work across programs, the University is advancing its institutional assessment efforts through a new Strategic Framework, which will be shared in the coming weeks. As partners in this assessment work, we hope you will see in the Framework how your own course-level contributions in refining assignments, clarifying learning outcomes, and gathering evidence of student progress connect to the broader institutional efforts to deepen student learning. 

At the core of the Framework is a dynamic vision of assessment as “a tool for elevating the excellence of our curricular and cocurricular programs, empowering every student with learning experiences to achieve lasting success.” Developed through the leadership, expertise, and sustained commitment of the Assessment and Accreditation Council, the Framework articulates a clear mission and set of core values that center students, honor disciplinary cultures, and build capacity for meaningful, evidence-informed improvement.

Our role at the Searle Center is to support the faculty who bring these values to life. We extend special thanks to Jacqueline Babb for inviting Searle Center Directors to engage with the Faculty Senate’s Educational Affairs Committee to discuss Searle’s assessment work and exchange ideas about the Framework. 

In reaffirming accreditation last year, reviewers from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) praised the University for cultivating a “well-articulated and mature assessment ecosystem,” characterized by decentralized coordination with strong centralized support. They also recognized the Assessment Gallery as “a national model for transparency and faculty engagement.”

The Gallery, now featuring 41 submissions, serves as a public, searchable repository where programs share their stage in the assessment cycle, the artifacts they have developed, what they are learning about students’ achievement of program outcomes, and how evidence is informing curricular or programmatic change. Together, these submissions illuminate a shared commitment to continuous improvement rooted in curiosity, reflection, and authentic engagement with evidence.

Searle’s ongoing effort to broaden engagement in program assessment aligns with HLC’s new Criterion 3.E: “The institution improves the quality of educational programs based on its assessment of student learning.” The Assessment and Accreditation Council has also established Year 4 targets focused on building foundational capacity: by 2028–29, most programs will have clearly defined learning outcomes, and programs that have completed a full assessment cycle will have implemented curricular or program-level changes based on their evidence.

As the Searle Center works alongside you toward these goals, we appreciate the many ways in which your own assessment practices deepen our shared commitment to reflective inquiry. Each revised learning outcome, new method of assessing student work, mapped curriculum, or additional lens of student feedback helps build toward our shared goals. Programmatic contributions to the Assessment Gallery enhance the visibility of this work, demonstrating how small, intentional acts accumulate into something powerful: a sustainable, relational, evidence-driven approach that supports student success.

To discuss how your program can prepare a submission to the Assessment Gallery, set up a consultation with an educational developer at the Searle Center today. We look forward to supporting and celebrating your successes as we learn and grow together through the next decade of assessment at Northwestern.

Program Assessment Cycle (PAC) Badge

By Laura Ferdinand, Assistant Director of Content and Communications

In alignment with our strategic plan initiative, we are proud to launch the Program Assessment Cycle (PAC) Badge, a new self‑paced Canvas course designed to expand a growing community of faculty, staff, and administrators who value program assessment as a powerful tool for strengthening programs and supporting student success.

Assessment can provide clarity, guide improvement, and deepen understanding of student learning, but it can also feel time‑consuming, complex, or difficult to fit into already busy schedules. “I’ve seen both the power of assessment done well and the challenges that can make it feel overwhelming, disconnected, or overly focused on checking off the boxes,” said Lina Eskew, lead designer of the PAC Badge. “We wanted to create something different that would build foundational capacity, which is a key target in Northwestern’s new Strategic Framework, something that helps demystify program assessment while still honoring the rigor it requires.”

The PAC Badge offers clear, curated practices for undertaking and enhancing program assessment in ways that are meaningful and sustainable. Designed to help participants invest their time strategically, the full course takes about three hours, which can be completed at any pace, any time.

Participants who complete the PAC Badge gain:

• Greater confidence and clarity in engaging with program-level assessment.

• Practical tools and templates for both curricular and co-curricular contexts.

• Insight into how assessment is practiced at Northwestern.
• Recognition of professional development with a digital badge.

Learn more and enroll.

Jennifer Cole

By Lina Eskew, Senior Assistant Director of Assessment

Each quarter, we feature Northwestern educators doing innovative work in learning and teaching. These interviews showcase their educational journeys, signature styles, and how their teaching has been shaped by their work with the Searle Center.

In mid-February, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jennifer Cole about how meaningful and sustainable approaches to assessing student learning contribute to the culture of assessment at Northwestern. Dr. Cole is an Associate Professor of Instruction and Assistant Chair of Chemical and Biological Engineering as well as Director of the Northwestern Center for Engineering Education. Her work has been recognized for advancing equity in engineering education, innovative teaching strategies, and mentorship for both students and faculty.

In the conversation that follows, Jennifer reflects on how sustainable assessment systems develop over time, how faculty engagement helps build a culture of assessment, and why incorporating student perspectives is essential for advancing rigorous and equitable approaches to assessing learning and curricular change.

Engineering education often emphasizes measurable competencies directly assessed by faculty. You are also exploring more ways to incorporate student voice. What inspired you to do so?

When we began discussing potential changes to the first-year engineering curriculum, we realized that many of our conversations focused on what students could or could not do academically. At the same time, people frequently referenced student feedback as one of the reasons for considering curricular changes. Yet we did not actually have systematic data about how students were experiencing the program.

That realization led to the development of a survey focused on student self-efficacy, belonging, and support networks. We wanted to better understand whether students feel confident navigating engineering coursework, whether they feel they belong in the field, and what types of support systems they rely on.

These factors matter. A student may technically be progressing through the curriculum, but if they feel uncertain about their abilities or disconnected from their peers, that experience can shape their engagement and persistence in the program.

We are administering this student survey to capture a baseline before the curricular changes and once after the changes to assess whether we are moving in the right direction. However, I also think it would be valuable to continue using it in the future. It does not necessarily have to be administered every year, but it would be great to think about ways in which we can embed some of these questions into existing surveys, such as the Northwestern Enrolled Student Survey.

Incorporating student voice allows us to better understand the lived experience of learning engineering, not just the learning outcomes measured through coursework.

Read the full interview.

Foundations of Assessment: From Theory to Practice

Review by Sara Lazo, Searle Center Graduate Student Intern, Masters of Science in Higher Education Administration and Policy

In Foundations of Assessment: From Theory to Practice (2026), Joseph D. Levy and Natasha A. Jankowski present assessment as something far more meaningful than a compliance exercise. Instead, they emphasize a values-driven approach to assessing student learning, grounded in ongoing reflection on its purpose. By centering the “why,” they reframe assessment as a transformative practice, for improving student learning outcomes.

As a master’s student in Northwestern’s Higher Education Administration and Policy, I am greatly interested in how institutions can use assessment as a meaningful tool to support student success. In my previous role at MIT’s Office of Graduate Education, I experienced how university offices worked towards student success outcomes but had not yet seen how programs and departments collectively focused on that same goal.

Through my time at Northwestern and internship with the Searle Center, I now have a greater understanding of the assessment cycle and the opportunities it provides for clear communication and collaboration between students, faculty, and staff.

While reading Foundations in Assessment, I was invited to listen in on an interview between co-author Joseph Levy and Lina Eskew, Senior Assistant Director of Assessment at the Searle Center. In their conversation, Levy described the book as a way to bring together the authors’ different voices and experiences in service of a broader conversation about student success.

He shared that the book was inspired by a desire to bridge theory and practice, give greater attention to the history and philosophy of assessment, and integrate academic and student affairs perspectives. He and Jankowski also hoped to create a resource that would be useful to both practitioners and graduate students, while making assessment feel more approachable, collaborative, and impactful.

The authors bring this vision to life by tracing the history, methods, and real-world applications of assessment that support a sustained culture of continuous improvement in higher education. Emphasizing the purpose of assessment, they challenge decades of compliance-driven assessment culture in the U.S., demonstrating how an embedded culture of assessment can support the improvement of learning outcomes for all students.

Read the full review with key takeaways.

In Assessment, It’s Not Rigor or Equity, It’s Both

By Laura Ferdinand, Assistant Director of Content and Communications

Lina Eskew’s “In Assessment, It’s Not Rigor or Equity, It’s Both” was recently published in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Diversity and Equity in Educational Development (2026). Her article invites readers into a timely and affirming reframing of one of higher education’s most persistent tensions: the belief that rigor and equity work against one another. Drawing on the everyday concerns of faculty and the scholarship of relationship-rich education, Eskew argues that the real challenge in assessment is not standards, but trust.

“When assessment is relationship-rich, rigor ceases to be harsh and equity ceases to be lenient; both become acts of trust that propel learning forward.”

Through concrete, research-informed examples, the article demonstrates how transparent expectations, compassionate challenges, and diversified assessment methods can deepen learning while honoring students’ lived experiences. Written from her perspective as an experienced educational developer deeply committed to partnering with instructors, Eskew’s article showcases the kind of thoughtful, principled work that strengthens teaching and learning across our institution. We are immensely proud to share her article with the Searle Community, envisioning assessment not as a tradeoff, but as a shared act of trust that helps all students thrive.

Read the full article.

Improving Student Reflection and Metacognition 

By Greg Siering, Director of Pedagogy and Curricular Development

In Rigor by Design, Not Chance (2023), Karin Hess argues that a significant part of course-level assessment is providing “actionable feedback” to students based on information we gather about their learning, and by consistently promoting metacognition through encouraging reflection on their own learning. That is, rather than having our assignments and exams be opaque or performative, they can actively engage students in self-assessment of their own learning processes. Here are a few approaches to accomplishing this in your own teaching. 

Tip: Use a Background Knowledge Probe to gather information about what prior knowledge students bring to your course, situating it within the curriculum for both you and your students.  You will get information that helps you decide where to focus your instructional effort, and students will get a preview of their learning in the course.

To do this, identify a concept in your syllabus that is reliant on prior knowledge or skills, and break that down into its components, from more basic concepts you expect most students to know to more complex ones. Prepare a set of single-choice questions that either measure students' prior knowledge directly or ask them to self-report their familiarity with topics on a scale such as:

1. I am not yet familiar with this concept.

2. I have some familiarity and can describe basic elements, but my understanding is still developing.

3. I understand this concept and can explain it and use it with some guidance.

4. I can clearly explain, apply, and adapt this concept independently in new contexts.

If you are in a small class, you can collect information simply through notecards, and in larger classes you can use tools like Poll Everywhere or ungraded Canvas quizzes to collect and analyze the information. Whatever your collection method, emphasize the learning goal of the activity and be ready to share with students what you learned and how it will impact your teaching. 

Tip: Use Exam Wrappers to help students reflect on their exam performance and the efficacy of their study strategies. This approach makes the exam about reinforcing learning, not just performing for a grade, and it promotes metacognition, which has a strong evidence base demonstrating its critical role in student success (Gibbons, et al, 2025). 

To do this, create a reflective assignment students complete after they receive an exam back, with questions prompting them to do two things: 

1. Ask learners to identify areas where they did not earn full credit, and then guide them in noticing patterns across those areas, including any concepts or skills that were consistently challenging. You might also prompt them to identify where they did well, which reinforces their knowledge and serves as a motivator. 

2. Have learners reflect on how they prepared for the exam, including how/when/where they studied, how it worked out for them, and how they might study differently next time. 

While exam wrappers are an impactful approach for fostering metacognition and supporting student learning, their effectiveness relies on intentional implementation (Weimer, 2017). Studies suggest exam wrappers are most effective when instructors use them multiple times throughout a course or curriculum, when students receive other training on reflecting on their learning, and when there is structured support for students adopting more effective study strategies. Like most instructional approaches, how we implement exam wrappers is key to their success.

For more information on both of these classroom assessment techniques (CATs) and others, see Classroom Assessment Techniques (2024) by Thomas Angelo and Todd D. Zakrajsek. It is available in the Searle Center’s Menges Library and Northwestern Libraries. 

References

Angelo, T. A., & Zakrajsek, T. (2024). Classroom assessment techniques: Formative feedback tools for college and university teachers. Jossey-Bass.

Gibbons, R. E., Hokien, D., Hutson, B. L., & Maness, H. T. D. (2025). The potential of exam wrappers in higher education assessment practice: Fostering self-efficacy through guided self-reflection. Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning, 6(1).

Hess, K. (2023). Rigor by design, not chance: Deeper thinking through actionable instruction and assessment. ASCD.

Weimer, M. (2017, June 14). Does the strategy work? A look at exam wrappers. Faculty Focus.