Assessments: What Did Students Learn?

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to:

• explain the purpose of assessment in our courses
• define the difference between formative and summative assessment
• describe strategies for each

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What were the steps of the backward design process in order?�(Enter in the chat, but don’t press send until I say so.�Just send to me if you like)

Backward Design

1. What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the class/course?�(Learning Objectives)
2. How will you measure if students can do that?�(Aligned Assessment)
3. How will you prepare students for assessments?�(Design Instruction)

Backward Design

1. What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the class/course?�(Learning Objectives)
2. How will you measure if students can do that?�(Aligned Assessment)
3. How will you prepare students for assessments?�(Design Instruction)

What is the purpose of assessments?�(raise your hand or post in the chat)

Purpose of Assessment

Purpose of Assessment

• Assign Grade/Measure Mastery

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• Identify what students already know (purpose here!)
• Activate prior learning
• Give feedback to instructor 🡪Adjust instruction
• Motivate learning
• Evaluate the teacher
• Support program accreditation
• Conduct education research

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What is formative vs. summative assessment?

Formative vs Summative Assessment

• Formative (Prognosis):
• Ongoing assessment for feedback that is intended to improve individual student’s performance OR student learning outcomes at the course/program level
• Allows for quick adjustment to contents or approach of a course
• Summative (Diagnosis):
• Measures whether or not overall learning objectives have been achieved
• Assign grades

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Purpose of Assessment

Summative Assessment

• Assign Grade/Measure Mastery
• Accreditation
• Evaluate the teacher

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Formative Assessment

• Identify what students already know (purpose here!)
• Recall prior learning
• Give feedback to instructor 🡪Adjust instruction
• Motivate learning

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Formative Assessment Examples

What are examples of non-graded assessments to engage students and provide the instructor feedback?

Formative Assessment Examples

• Minute Paper or Five-Minute Paper
• Muddiest Point
• Exit Ticket
• Clickers/In-class voting
• Quick starter quiz or pre-test
• Directed Paraphrasing
• Documented Problem Solutions

What are examples of a fun course project?

Well-designed Summative Assessment

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Well-designed Summative Assessment

• Authentic
• Aligned with learning objectives
• Achievable
• Equitable
• Support provided
• Student choice
• Engaging

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Authentic: Global Social Change & Development Practicum

• Sociology “hands on” research experience in the field of global social change and development
• Focus on building competency with using various tools (GIS, databases, spreadsheets) and analyzing data
• Assessment: Code newspaper articles based on pre-determined categories and contribute them to a research database. Analyze how social unrests are correlated to economic cycles.

Supporting: Scaffolding

Zone of Proximal Development�Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the development of children, 23(3), 34-41.

What I can’t do

What I can do with help

What I can do

Supporting: Scaffolding

• Give clear, detailed instructions then pull back scaffold as students progress to later assignments
• Assign projects in stages/integrate steps

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Student Choice: Universal Design for Learning

Rubrics

Rubrics

• A scoring tool that lays out expectations for an assignment
• Divides assignment into its component parts
• Provides a detailed description of what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable levels of performance for each part
• Can be applied to papers, book/article critiques, discussion participation, lab reports, portfolios, group work, oral presentations, etc.

Parts of a Rubric

1. Task Description: What is the assignment?
2. Scale: How well or how poorly any given task is performed
3. Dimensions: What are the distinct parts of how students will be evaluated

Why Rubrics?

• Timely feedback
• Detailed feedback
• Helps prepare students to apply detailed feedback for improvement
• Encourages critical thinking
• Standardizes grading by multiple graders

Build a Rubric

Task description: You are a connoisseur of fast food and have been asked by the Huffington Post to evaluate all of the fast food restaurants in the Baltimore area for an upcoming blog. Your blog should include evaluation of the varieties of food, taste, appearance of food, service, and cleanliness of each restaurant. You decide to use a rubric.

Chadia

Debate Rubric

1. Dimensions: What matters?

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• Scale: How many levels?

Chadia

Debate Rubric

Summary

• Assessment serves multiple purposes
• Formative vs. summative
• Examples and strategies
• Challenging to do well, but can be motivate student learning

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Fast Food Restaurant Rubric