Assessing Student Learning

Assessing student learning involves synthesizing the information that you have gathered about the student’s learning. Your assessment will focus on learning that is distinct from experience and is considered to be college-level.

Through your assessment you will:

• differentiate learning from experience
• consider the depth and breadth of learning, while determining if the learning is college-level
• determine credit designations (i.e., liberal arts and sciences, level of learning and general education)
• decide credit amounts and the best title for the learning
• identify possible redundancy with any other learning indicated on the degree program plan.

Empire State College Degree Requirements

The iPLA request that you will be evaluating fits within a student’s degree program plan. The student may use the iPLA credits to meet any of the degree requirements. 

Degrees at Empire State College are required to have a specific number of credits with the following designations:

• advanced level
• liberal arts and sciences
• SUNY general education.

Students may request that their prior learning assessment credits be awarded with one or more of these designations.

The student will request a specific title, number and type of credits in the iPLA request. These are based on consultation between the student and the faculty mentor and possibly on research about similar course titles or expectations within the field.

We do not require that students match their learning to an existing course, but courses can be used as a framework to determine the title and number of credits to request.

As the evaluator, you have the authority to determine whether the title, requested number of credits and the credit designations are supported by the student's learning description, supporting materials and the interview.