The Learning Assessment Process

Assessment of student learning in personal and interpersonal skills, and product, process, and system building skills, as well as in disciplinary knowledge. 

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The elements of the learning assessment process are intended to help develop and demonstrate a culture of quality, as described by Massy [7], He identifies a series of core quality principles that define the quality process for higher education. 

The fourth perhaps most important step in the student learning assessment process, shown in Fig. 7.1, is the use of assessment results to improve teaching and learning and help improve the program as a whole. This final step closes the assessment loop. 

The risk assessment process is a journey rather than an event. Companies that are just starting to complete risk assessments find their first efforts will require more time and will be less complete than later efforts. As personnel involved receive training and become more familiar with the risk assessment process, more hazards will be identified, more risk reduction methods deployed and the risk assessment process will improve and hasten in pace. As lessons are learned and experience is gained, risk assessment becomes more refined. However, some time and experience is required for the risk assessment process to become fully integrated into a company. How much time depends on the company and its circumstances, but it typically takes months, not weeks. Eventually the risk assessment process will become a part of normal business procedures. Until then, industry needs time to fully and formally implement these concepts. (Introduction)... 

The identification and the analysis of risk, and making rational decisions based on the known risk, are the best preventive management tools a maintenance workforce can use. The risk assessment will allow a company to maximize its safety program and thus reduce accidents. The risk assessment process should be formalized in order to reduce accidents that could cause injuries, death, machine damage, and longer equipment stoppage. One must learn in maintenance that one must reduce risk at all times. In any task there are risk and thus the reduction or elimination of risk will make all tasks more successful and safe. 

To prevent or at least minimize such problems, we must better understand the environment at all levels, including the fundamental chemical processes that affect it. We have learned the lesson that when assessing the fate of new products in the environment, we should not underestimate the potential of these to appear in unexpected places. The recognition, avoidance, or solution of complex environmental problems requires the expertise of a variety of science and engineering disciplines. Only then will it be possible to produce realistic evaluations of how new compounds will be distributed and will act in the ecosystem. In addition to chemistry and biochemistry, fields such as solution thermodynamics and transport phenomena in which many chemical engineers work, as well as earth sciences and environmental engineering, have crucial contributions to make. 

The process of change has started and I am sure it will continue. I feel that I have attained all the personal learning goals I set myself at the outset and most of the outcomes. I learnt a great deal from the process. It was extremely useful to assess my personal learning as I went along. All too often work is so busy and as soon as one task is completed you move swiftly on to the next. This process afforded me the opportunity to look more carefully at my approach and attitude to work and to make conscious decisions to change that approach. 

Chapter 2 reviews the lessons learned at JACADS. Chapter 3 assesses the adoption of these lessons into the modified baseline process and evaluates the design information available at the time the report was prepared. Chapter 4 presents the results of stakeholder interactions, as well as safety and risk management considerations. Findings and recommendations are provided in each chapter and compiled in Chapter 5. 

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