2027 Conference Tracks
The Assessment Continuum: From Evidence to Impact
The three conference tracks form a connected assessment continuum. They move from identifying meaningful evidence, to using it collaboratively for improvement, to determining whether resulting actions improved student and institutional outcomes: Evidence → Action → Impact.
Track 1: Building the Evidence Base
What evidence do we have, and what evidence do we need?
This track focuses on identifying, locating, organizing, and evaluating evidence needed to understand students, programs, services, workforce alignment, and institutional performance.
Workshops may help participants
- Identify evidence related to learning, skills, persistence, completion, graduation, transfer, and employment.
- Develop evidence inventories, curriculum or competency maps, student-journey maps, or assessment plans.
- Connect program outcomes with credentials, licensure, transfer, and workforce needs.
- Identify evidence gaps, duplication, reporting burdens, and data silos.
- Incorporate student, graduate, employer, advisory committee, and community perspectives.
- Use institutional, accreditation, state, federal, and workforce information more effectively.
Possible Workshop Topics
- Building an evidence inventory (program review data, learning outcome data, unorthodox sources of evidence, etc.).
- Mapping courses and competencies to credentials, transfer, and employment.
- Identifying early indicators of student attrition.
- Assessing technical and applied skills.
- Mapping the student experience to identify barriers.
- Conducting a data-gap or assessment-process audit.
Possible Participant Takeaway
Participants should leave with a draft evidence inventory, map, data-gap analysis, assessment-process framework, or similar product they can refine at their institution.
Track 2: Turning Evidence into Action
What does the evidence tell us, and what should we do?
This track focuses on analyzing evidence collaboratively and translating findings into improvements in teaching, training, advising, student services, program design, and resource allocation.
Workshops may help participants
- Ask meaningful questions of institutional, program, student-services, and workforce data.
- Analyze and disaggregate quantitative, qualitative, and skills-based evidence.
- Identify where students become delayed, disengaged, or leave.
- Translate findings into improvements in curriculum, scheduling, advising, financial aid, tutoring, and other supports.
- Use employer and industry feedback to improve CTE and workforce programs.
- Prioritize strategies and connect evidence to staffing, equipment, facilities, and other resource decisions.
- Establish responsibilities, timelines, and measures of success.
Possible Workshop Topics
- Moving from a dashboard to a program-level decision.
- Using evidence to address retention and completion gaps.
- Redesigning a high-withdrawal or high-failure course.
- Turning employer feedback into CTE improvements.
- Improving advising, registration, or financial-aid processes.
- Transforming a compliance report into an improvement plan.
Possible Participant Takeaway
Participants should leave with an improvement plan identifying the problem, supporting evidence, proposed action, responsibilities, resources, timeline, and measures of success.
Track 3: Demonstrating Meaningful Impact
Did our actions make a difference, and how do we know?
This track focuses on determining whether evidence-informed actions produced meaningful improvements and communicating those results effectively.
Implementing a new initiative, revising a course, or purchasing equipment does not alone demonstrate effectiveness. Institutions must determine whether those actions improved learning, persistence, completion, employment, or other intended outcomes.
Workshops may help participants
- Establish meaningful baselines, benchmarks, targets, and follow-up measures.
- Evaluate learning, technical skills, retention, graduation, credential attainment, transfer, employment, and other outcomes.
- Use leading indicators such as course success, credit accumulation, reenrollment, and credential milestones.
- Determine whether interventions should be continued, expanded, revised, or discontinued.
- Demonstrate the impact of investments in personnel, equipment, technology, and facilities.
- Communicate results effectively to governing boards, accreditors, policymakers, employers, communities, and the public.
Possible Workshop Topics
- Building an impact framework.
- Moving from “we implemented it” to “it improved outcomes.”
- Evaluating advising, tutoring, or student-success interventions.
- Demonstrating the impact of equipment, technology, or facilities.
- Assessing the return on investment of CTE or workforce programs.
- Developing an evidence-based success story for policymakers, boards, or accreditors.
Possible Participant Takeaway
Participants should leave with an assessment-loop summary, dashboard outline, evidence-based success story, communication plan, or similar product connecting evidence, action, and results.