About CLA in the Classroom

CLA in the Classroom is a curricular and pedagogical program that focuses on the higher order skills of critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving and written communication.

CLA in the Classroom complements general assessment by looking to the course-level work of faculty. It provides an opportunity for faculty members to do more diagnostic work with their individual students. The program will aid faculty as well as teaching and learning center staff in using a CLA in the Classroom Performance Task as an instructional tool. In addition, it will provide opportunities for participants to create their own performance tasks.

To use the CLA in the Classroom materials, a representative from your institution must participate in the CLA in the Classroom Academy, a special two-day training workshop led by the CLA in the Classroom staff.

“One of our faculty members was skeptical of the utility of the CLA given her own professional needs and concerns. However, after she participated in the workshop on designing a unique, course-based performance task to assess student learning, she was a convert. Immediately, she saw how a performance task—especially one that she could tailor to reflect the concerns of her science course—could energize student learning and serve as a platform on which students could synthesize and integrate knowledge from various different disciplines and courses.”

                            -- Dean of Academic Affairs

A Thought On Assessment

When thinking about authentic assessment, it may be useful to consider this important point raised by Diana Laurillard in her 2002 book Rethinking University Teaching:

"There is an ongoing debate about whether we should assess what students know, or what they can do. The traditional modes of assessment of knowledge are seen as inadequate because they fail to assess students' capability in the authentic activities of their discipline. The authentic assessment movement would instead reflect the complex performances that are central to a field of study (e.g. writing a position paper on an environmental issue, investigating a mathematical concept. The debate continues, questioning the validity of the claim that authentic assessment is a true measure of students) capacity to generalise their learning to new situations. Given that students orient their study towards their perception of the assessment, the solution offered is to find more challenging forms of assessment. They must link to the learning aims and reveal what students have learned at a general level, rather than simply assess the technicalities, which leads to a more instrumental form of learning." (p. 204)

Foundation Support

Special thanks and recognition to the Teagle Foundation for a generous grant that supported the development of CLA in the Classroom and the field test of the Academy materials.

About the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)

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To learn more about the CLA in the Classroom, please contact us anytime! We look forward to hearing from you.

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