Getting started

ACE End-of-Semester Evaluations

Assessing the Classroom Environment (ACE) is an online evaluation system that collects student opinions about an instructor and provides a standard set of summary results. Instructors may or may not be required to use ACE and should check with their department to determine their options.

Key Features

  • Allows for greater access to course evaluations for students and faculty
  • Will distribute evaluations for all courses regardless of enrollment (independent studies excluded)
  • Flexible configuration and easy distribution
  • Quick access to results and reporting features

Ongoing Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is an ongoing process that provides information about teaching, learning, or both.  High-stakes assessments such as midterm and final exams and papers help instructors monitor student learning and can also help them plan future courses. But frequent, low- or no-stakes learning assessments throughout the semester help instructors better understand and revise their teaching to address their students’ immediate learning needs. 

Please visit the Formative Assessment Strategies page for ideas on how to gain valuable feedback from your students.

Spring 2024 Dates

 

ACE Overview

ACE Technical Questions/FAQs

ACE Task Force

ACE Task Force Summary

The 19-person ACE Task Force began in Spring 2018 as an effort to revise the end-of-semester Assessing the Classroom Environment (ACE) survey, but the scope of the effort grew. After reviewing initial objectives, the committee agreed that the guiding principle should be promoting high quality instruction and its continual improvement. This principle, coupled with the desire to increase student input and minimize well-documented biases in student ratings, demanded that we expand the measures used to assess teaching. Downloadable Version

Getting Started

ACE End-of-Semester Evaluations

Assessing the Classroom Environment (ACE) is an online evaluation system that collects student opinions about an instructor and provides a standard set of summary results. Instructors may or may not be required to use ACE and should check with their department to determine their options.

Key Features

  • Allows for greater access to course evaluations for students and faculty

  • Will distribute evaluations for all courses regardless of enrollment (independent studies excluded)

  • Flexible configuration and easy distribution

  • Quick access to results and reporting features

Ongoing Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is an ongoing process that provides information about teaching, learning, or both.  High-stakes assessments such as midterm and final exams and papers help instructors monitor student learning and can also help them plan future courses. But frequent, low- or no-stakes learning assessments throughout the semester help instructors better understand and revise their teaching to address their students’ immediate learning needs. 

Please visit the Formative Assessment Strategies page for ideas on how to gain valuable feedback from your students.

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Education Testimonial

The College of Education was happy to participate in a pilot of new items for end-of-course student evaluations. Although response rates have not improved, we found that participation in the pilot was useful on several levels.

ACE Pilot Participant
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Nursing Testimonial

The College of Nursing was a pilot site for testing the new proposed course evaluation questions. In the past, our course evaluation consisted of 10 items and an open ended ‘Other Comments’. Many of our courses have multiple faculty who teach/manage a large number of students. Students completed the entire assessment on each faculty.

ACE Pilot Participant
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Physics and Astronomy Peer Observation

A one-on-one conversation conveying these elements broadens the observer’s perspective beyond that single class period, getting closer to what students experience holistically as a course. 

Peer Observation Pilot Participant