Winter Week 4: Assessment to enhance student engagement
This week we discussed the issues of assessment methods and
student engagement. Most of us in the
GTC have not had direct experience formulating assessments for our own classes
yet, but hopefully now we have some ideas of how we can best assess learning of
students in our future classes. We first
discussed the difference between formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments check for learning and can be thought of as
checks of understanding whereas summative assessment is an assessment of learning. Most of what we discussed afterwards centered
on formative assessments, which might have more room for creativity in the
types of activities used to formally or informally check for
understanding. Some additional questions
addressed:
Backwards course
design – write the assessment (e.g. test questions) before units of
learning are written. For example, the
test question you want students to be able to answer by the end of your class
should guide how you structure the class leading them to be able to answer the
question.
Why do we want
student engagement with assessment?
Students have so much content to get through and sadly, most
of it will not stick with them after they leave the class. Assessments that
engage students are more likely to build “process” learning and to allow students
to delve more deeply into topics, take more ownership, etc.
What might some of
the challenges be to creating assessments that engage students?
TIME. Anything you do
to enhance your class will lead to more work for you. For example, changing from a scan-tron
test-based class structure to one with a group project and presentations equals
more work for you setting up and guiding the project as well as grading it.
Student resistance – Students may resist some of these
changes because they are unfamiliar and require more work on their end, or
because of miscommunication of goals and objectives between teacher and student
Reduces Content of Class – Assessments that you do that
require students to be more in-depth with their learning and to focus more on
process-based learning will necessarily mean that you cannot cover as much
content. This might be more an
acceptable tradeoff for some courses than for others. For example, an upper division, specialized
class may be better able to switch to engaged assessment than a lower division
survey course.
What are some
potential assessment techniques that might be effective in increasing student
engagement?
Some ideas:
-
Self assessment
-
Peer assessment (takes time to build this skill
in students)
-
Drafts
-
Rubrics
-
“Carousel” have students go around the room and
write answers to various questions to see which are in need of more explanation
from the teacher
-
Independent learning – students are responsible
for learning a specific topic on their own
-
Student teaching – possibly deriving from
independent learning above, students teach other
Resources
Plethora of books on assessment techniques in higher
education
Authentic Assessment toolbox: http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/
A short essay on student-centered assessment with examples:
Learner centered assessment cycle consisting of 1) define
learning outcomes 2) assess learning outcomes 3) review and discuss results of
assessment 4) implement changes based on results:
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