After successful completion of the Assessment tutorial, you will have:
In a content-centered course, two mid-terms and a final exam are usually considered sufficient feedback and assessment for determining if the student “got it” or not. This “auditive assessment” process is designed principally to help the teacher assign grades. A learning-centered course calls for a more sophisticated approach to this aspect of course design. A set of feedback and assessment procedures collectively known as “educative assessment” is needed. This process is designed to enhance the quality of student learning. In the figure below, the key components of educative assessment are contrasted with the more traditional auditive assessment.
Auditive Assessment: Assessment, which only determines whether students learned correctly, rather than helping them learn, which educative assessment promotes.
Backward-Looking Assessment: Assessment is constructed to determine whether students “got” the material they studied.
Forward-Looking Assessment: Assessment is constructed to determine whether students are ready for some future activity, after the current period of learning is over.
Forward-Looking Assessment incorporates exercises, questions, and/or problems that create a real-life context for a given issue, problem, or decision to be addressed. To construct this kind of question or problem, the teacher has to “look forward,” beyond the time when the course is over, and ask: “In what kind of situation do I expect students to need, or to be able to use this knowledge?” Then, create a question or problem that replicates this real-life context as closely as possible. The problem also should be somewhat open-ended and not totally pre-structured. If necessary, certain assumptions or constraints can be given, in order to be able to assess the quality of student responses.
An example from a course in world geography in which the students have studied a unit on Southeast Asia illustrates the difference between a backward- and a forward-looking assessment. A backward-looking assessment would ask students to tell what the differences are in the population and resources of the various countries in that region. In a forward-looking assessment question, I would ask them to imagine that they are working for a company that wants to establish itself in that region; the company wants the students’ opinions on which country has the necessary political stability, purchasing power for their product, prospects for economic growth, etc. This kind of question asks students to imagine a situation where they could actually use what they have learned.
Teachers should explain clearly the criteria and standards that will be used to assess student work. Teachers need to ask themselves, and then share with students: “What are the general traits or characteristics of high quality work in this area?” These are the criteria for evaluation. Then, on each of these criteria, how good does the work have to be, to be acceptably good or exceptionally good? The answers to these questions reveal the teacher’s standards.
It is also important for teachers to create opportunities for students to engage in self-assessment. Later in life, students will need to assess their own performance, and they should start learning how to do that while in the course. You may want the class to do this initially in groups, and later individually. Somewhere along the way, students need to generate—and perhaps discuss—appropriate criteria for evaluating and assessing their own work.
As the students work to learn how to perform well, teachers need to provide feedback. Characteristics of high quality feedback are discussed later in this resource.
Please use Worksheet 3A: Educative Assessment to formulate the assessment plan for your course.
After you have identified forward looking assessments and the criteria and standards to determine the extent to which students have accomplished each of the learning outcomes, you can start to create an assessment plan. Please use Worksheet 3B: Course Assessment Plan to guide you through the planning of assessing students' learning.
Use the Assessment Plan Checklist after completing Worksheets 3A and 3B.
Assessments should provide evidence of how well the students have learned the intended outcome or objective. No single type of assessment provides a complete picture of student learning, but selecting the right type or combination of assessments can offer a more accurate measurement of student learning.
In this document, we will review some general assessment concepts, discuss characteristics of effective assessments, and look at several types of assessments. We will use the Bloom's taxonomy matrix to illustrate the types of knowledge assessed. As you read about each type of assessment, think about choosing assessments to create alignment with your learning outcomes and objectives in your course
Please use the Time for Reflection sheet to keep a journal of your reflections.
RESEARCH HELP
LIBRARY SERVICES
INSTRUCTION SUPPORT
CONTACT
