About CLA in the Classroom

CLA in the Classroom focuses on issues of teaching and learning, and draws on principles from the literature on authentic assessment, performance tasks and rubrics.  The initiative includes a set of curricular and pedagogical programs that focus on key higher order skills (including critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving and written communication).  Click here to get more detail on how these skills have been more specifically defined by the CLA.

CLA in the Classroom complements general assessment by looking to the course-level work of faculty.  There are three related programs:

PERFORMANCE TASK ACADEMY

The Academy is a hands-on training workshop that is open to faculty as well as teaching and learning center staff.  (Note: you can attend one of the Academies even if your institution is not currently participating in the CLA/CCLA/CWRA).

PERFORMANCE TASK LIBRARY

Faculty who have participated in the Performance Task Academies have been invited to share the performance tasks they have created.  These tasks have been constructed for use in their classrooms.  Some have been designed for high school classes, some for undergraduate courses, and some for graduate student programs. Some tasks are appropriate for general education courses, while others include specific disciplinary content.  

DIAGNOSTIC REPORTS

The Student Diagnostic Report provides students with feedback on their higher order skills.  The Institutional Diagnostic Report aggregates these data to provide overall feedback.

Foundation Support

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

About the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)

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)