while assessment at the institutional or program level can provide useful information to the faculty as a whole, large-scale assessments are rarely designed to ask questions that are meaningful and useful to individual classroom teachers. for example, it is both legitimate and useful for a college to assess the overall outcomes of general education or such assessments, however, tend to apply more to the structure of the curriculum or the organization of programs and departments than to teaching and learning in particular courses. to best-understand their students'learning. faculty need specific and timely information about the particular individuals in their classroom, not about the student body in general or all chemistry majors. as a result of these different needs and purposes, there is often a gap between assessment and classroom teaching.