Associate Professor Framingham State University Lincoln, Rhode Island, United States
Disclosure(s):
Andrea Gorman, PhD, RDN: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Objectives: Participants will be able to identify ways to use Canvas directly out-of-the-box to monitor achievement of individual student ACEND knowledge and competency standards.
Methods: This is not an original research presentation, but rather falls within career or professional development opportunity for attendees.
Results: ACEND accredited program educators must monitor individual student achievement of Knowledge Requirements for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (KRDNs) and Competency Requirements for Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (CRDNs) prior to issuing Verification Statements. Required Element 4.1 of the 2022 ACEND standards states that programs must have a plan for on-going assessment of students’ attainment of core knowledge and competencies. The plan must identify summative assessment methods used, as well as courses and/or supervised practice learning activities in which assessment will occur and the process for tracking individual students’ demonstration of core knowledge and competencies. There is little guidance on how to manage this new requirement efficiently and cost-effectively. Programs have purchased additional software to meet this requirement; however, there exists a way to achieve this without incurring additional costs.
Conclusions: Framingham State University is successfully tracking KRDNs and CRDNs for students in both the Didactic Program in Dietetics and the Coordinated Program in Dietetics using Canvas only. This was a novel collaborative effort with the Education Technology Office and Instructional Design staff. Methods will be shared on how to easily accomplish tracking student achievement of standards and outcome data sets available. These methods may be applied to other Learning Management Systems as well. This project has helped better inform methods for assessment of student learning objectives to meet ACEND Standards. Recent ACEND site reviewers evaluated these methods and suggested this unique approach be presented at the national level.
