Upending Current Assessment Practices: Addressing Faculty’s Values

After more than 35 years of conducting assessment, which initially emphasized reporting, assessment practitioners and researchers continue their attempts to change faculty members’ perceptions that assessment is a mandated add-on and burdensome to their sizable responsibilities. This workshop endorsed the perception of assessment and assessment practitioners as champions of student learning and aimed to advance this perception. Therefore, attention was centered on faculty and addressing their primary concerns of students and student learning, rather than programs and aggregating and reporting of assessment results. To foster the perception and achieve assessment adjustments needed, one practical and effective core component of Program Theory (PT) and Implementation Fidelity (IF), which centers on student learning, was presented and encouraged for broader assessment use. Because PT and IF are typically presented as research in assessment and instructional literature, modifications to the processes were essential due to their resource intensity. Both PT and IF can be facilitated with Generative AI, which was discussed as an effective resource for researching beneficial strategies and analyzing often underused qualitative learning evidence. Finally, Learning Organization literature was offered as guidance for cultivating a learning organization within a subset of the larger institution. For example, the importance of time and space for faculty to reflect on these approaches, and encouragement from supportive leaders, especially when learning about and applying new or revised approaches, were stressed in the workshop. This article explains the theoretical underpinnings and the implementation of the workshop facilitated at the 2025 AALHE Annual Conference. It also describes the foundations of the strategies discussed and the basic organization of the workshop.