We would like to announce a very successful inaugural Faculty Retreat, "Assessment Design for Performance" on May 5, 2015! Dr. Jennifer Eddy's workshop was extremely generative for many of our participants and encouraged our faculty members to engage more deeply with questions about assessment and lesson plan design. Our Feedback Surveys reflected the success of this retreat and many of the faculty in attendance expressed their desire for IWL to continue hosting faculty retreats in the future. Faculty also noted how their experience made them think about their research and teaching and encouraged them to development assignments that will address many of the questions we discussed.

RETREAT DESCRIPTION
How do I design performance assessments that enable seamless articulation for my program? How can I use these assessments to plan a cohesive major? This retreat guides faculty through a model protocol to develop performance assessment tasks and “Can Do” statements that frame a course curriculum. This assessment system shapes entire majors and language programs, from literature to language, focusing on recurring ideas and themes you want students to revisit and remember over time. Faculty will design tasks in the three modes of communication: Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational and learn to turnaround tasks for transfer. Participants will learn how to use culturally authentic materials for designing these assessments and bring deeper understanding of “must have” concepts and perspectives that recur and reprise across your curriculum. Participants are encouraged to bring both informational and literary texts made by and for the people that speak the languages in their programs and their laptops for task design. Faculty will leave with tools to continue design work for their program or major. This retreat is hands-on and interactive with presentation, examples, feedback and discussion.