Lead Assessment Strategist – School of Education

The salary range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Pay Range: $79,700.00 – $119,500.00

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Job Profile Summary:

The Lead Assessment Strategist will collaborate and consult with the director of assessment and curriculum to guide and support the design and development of assessment-driven learning pathways. This individual will collaborate with stakeholders across the university to ensure assessments meet the goals of the university and that assessment best practices have been followed. The Lead Assessment Strategist will serve as a key spokesperson and point of contact for assessment needs within the designated program area(s). The Lead Assessment Strategist will interface with assessment developers, instructional designers, and psychometricians to maintain valid and reliable assessments; to ensure all program requirements are met; and to ensure industry standards and processes are applied to and aligned with departmental goals and objectives.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Participate in the development of assessment-driven learning pathways, diagnostic assessments, and competency-based assessments for college programs.
• Consult on or develop models for both formative and summative assessments, as well as rubric-driven performance assessments. 
• Ensure that production goals for assessments are clearly conveyed through educational design, interface and navigation, and production values of the deliverables.
• Ensure alignment of assessment traverse with proficiencies, skills and competencies in programs and courses
• Collaborate to ensure alignment of assessment traverse with course learning material and student engagement strategies.  
• Provide thought leadership and advocacy for innovative, valid, reliable, cost-effective formative and summative assessment approaches.
• Collaborate with the technology and design and development teams to ensure the creation and adoption of flexible, valid, reliable, data-driven assessment tools.
• Translate requirements into defined specifications.
• As required, provide training, consultation, or guidance to team members and partners on assessment models, assessment design and development practices, and data-driven, evidence-based practices in assessment
• Consult with program development and the psychometrics team on validity studies, scoring methods, rubric development, and other assessment tools, models, and issues.
• Collaborate with executive leadership and cross-functional teams to decide on innovations and improvements to the existing student experience and processes, based on data, key performance indicators, current practice, and emerging trends.
• Provide thought leadership and vision for the continuous improvement of student outcomes and overall health and quality of assessments.
• Contribute to establishing best practices for assessment design, development, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure a consistent strategy for assessments is deployed across all colleges.
• Responsible for achieving college AQI (Assessment Quality Index) goals.
• Monitor assessment portfolio health across the assessment lifecycle.
• Produce timely, consistent, and accurate reports for stakeholders and executives.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Demonstrated technical knowledge of high-stakes assessment development and management practices.
• Demonstrated ability to proactively and creatively solve problems related to assessment design and development.
• Practical understanding of teaching and learning, educational trends and research
• Demonstrated skill in providing technical training as well as persuasively explaining complex assessment policy and best practices to a lay audience.
• Ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed organization.
• Ability to build relationships and influence at all levels.
• Ability to be an agent of change in a rapidly changing environment.
• Proven ability to analyze data to identify trends and drive innovative process improvement.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills, including the ability to effectively handle multiple tasks and pay attention to detail.
• Sound judgment and decision-making skills.
• A self-starter who can quickly jump in without a lot of direction and learn by asking questions.   
• Relentless attention to quality and evangelistic passion about authentic, high impact, engaging, valid assessment tools and techniques.
• Ability to be an agent of change in a rapidly changing environment.

Competencies

• Influences Others and Communicates Effectively: Communicates to improve and promote teamwork, decision making, and problem solving. Listens and responds effectively to the reactions and positions of others and encourages the expression of diverse ideas and opinions. Adjusts message and style to fit the audience. Provides timely and helpful feedback. Communicates appropriately to win support with all audiences.
• Collaborates: Works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives. Represents own interests while being fair to others and their areas. Partners with others to get work done. Credits others for their contributions and accomplishments. Gains buy-in, trust and support of others.
• Manages Ambiguity: Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change. Effectively handles risk. Can decide to act without the total picture. Is calm and productive, even when things are up in the air. Deals constructively with problems that do not have clear solutions or outcomes.
• Being Resilient: Is confident under pressure. Handles and manages crises effectively. Maintains a positive attitude despite adversity. Bounces back from obstacles and setbacks. Grows from hardships and negative experiences.
• Drives for Results: Has a strong outcomes-based orientation. Persists in accomplishing objectives despite obstacles and setbacks. Has a track record of successfully achieving goals. Pushes self and helps others achieve results. Has a continuous improvement mindset.
• Organizational Learning: Learns quickly when facing new situations. Experiments to find new solutions. Takes on challenges of unfamiliar tasks. Extracts lessons learned from failures and mistakes. Expands knowledge base through ongoing curiosity.

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in relevant field
• 3+ years of relevant professional experience developing high-stakes educational or licensure assessments at the course or program level.
• Experience with three or more of the following: adaptive assessment, competency-based assessment, psychometrics, rubric development, technology-enhanced items, prototyping and validating new item types and/or test designs.
• Experience facilitating workshops and leading training in assessment development.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated understanding of the higher education environment
• Demonstrated experience with process development and implementation.
• Demonstrated success with change management, particularly stabilizing and structuring diffuse and ambiguous situations.
• Experience in higher education or educational publishing.
• Ability to present ideas clearly; inspire thoughtful contemplation; spark innovation in others with discussion and insight.
• Experience selecting and implementing assessment technology solutions at scale.
• Background in assessment for learning (formative assessment) best practices

Working Conditions

• Travel up to 15-20% for college specific business.

Disclaimer:

This Job Description has been designed to indicate the general nature, essential duties, and responsibilities of work performed by employees within this classification. It does not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications that are required of the employee to do this job.  Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice. This Job Description does not constitute a contract of employment and the University may exercise its employment-at-will rights at any time.

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