Student Assessment

On Monday we talked about Student Assessment. We construed this very broadly including informal and formative assessment such as in class questioning and student body language through summative assessments such as papers and take home exams. We started the evening with a discussions of reasons Why we assess students and came up with the following list:

1. to rank students
2. so teacher knows if students are learning
3. so students know if they are learning
4. give students feed back on quality (#3 also)
5. Motivate students to org thoughts (study)
6. as tool for learning it self ( take home/ HW also #5)
   
7. practice real world(perform surgery)
   
8. transferable( critical thinking, public speaking, group work)
9. production of product (portfolio in art class)

We then brainstormed for our learning goals for courses, or what we wanted to assess. We had quite a discussion about what we wanted students to get out of our classes. We continued with a brief discussion of how we assess, e.g. self assessments, problem solving exam etc.

We had a protracted discussion about the relative importance of the various whats (what we assess for) and whys (purposes of assessment) we then talked about which methods of assessment (hows) assessed what and why would use that assessment. Our conclusion was that many forms of assessment assessed most of our learning goals, but with differing weights. We left with three questions for us to consider;

i) What is it about the various formats of assessing (hows), that fell into particular categories of what and why, that made them fall into that category?

ii) Do the forms of assessment you use in your classes match with the your learning goals?

iii) If not, how can you assess what you care about?

We welcome your comments about matching assessment in learning goals, or any or other thoughts you have on the topic of student assessment.