Abstract:

The objectives of this session is to demonstrate the benefits of improved learning assessment beyond the academic curriculum by including professional development grants that use a continuing professional education rubric. Universities have spent significant resources to deliver uniform outcomes among their face-to-face, hybrid and online programs. These resources should also be utilized for research grants that focus on professional development using online training format. This expansion enhances the quality learning outcomes in curriculum and improves the evaluation components of professional development grants. The use of a continuing professional education rubric and direct assessment benefit the learning outcomes of both the academic curriculum and professional development training.

The centerpiece of the continuing professional education rubric is the alignment of learning activities with learning outcomes that provide quality measurements. The expansion of direct assessment and mapping of online professional development grants benefit the curriculum by expediting capacity building of the infrastructure. In addition, the culture for learning assessment expands to include research faculty. Furthermore, professional development grants benefit in their evaluation components that increases their opportunities for funding.

The session will first illustrate how program policies can be reframed using the continuing professional education rubric. Secondly, the session demonstrates how the infrastructure and culture to support learning assessment is expedited. Lastly, the session investigates interventions to improve and align course to program level outcomes that improve the quality measures in the breadth and depth of learner competencies.

The session will present an illustration integrating an academic program and professional development grant. It will utilize Drexel School of Public Health’s effort to map the Association of Schools & Programs of Public Health competencies to Drexel's Opening Doors Program outcomes. Opening Doors Program is a professional development research grant that develops students to pursue health disparities research. Furthermore, the illustration will demonstrate the school's initiative that utilizes the Academic Evaluation Feedback Intervention System to develop and incorporate direct and indirect assessment to evaluate program outcomes.

At the conclusion of the session, the audience will meet the following objectives: (1) Identify benefits of the continuing professional education rubric towards improving a framework for learning assessment. (2) Apply direct learning and indirect assessment techniques (3) Apply techniques to expedite capacity building of infrastructure to support learning assessment with quality measurements.

Keywords:

pedagogy, direct assessment, alignment, STEM