Course Redesign Guidelines for Alternative Assessment

Getting Started: Considerations and Best Practice

When chang­ing an assess­ment or enhanc­ing an exist­ing one, there are steps to be con­sid­ered. The resources avail­able on Teach Any­where con­sis­tent­ly empha­size to start small. Per­haps you begin with adjust­ing a rubric or you replace an assess­ment that you inher­it­ed when you took over the course and that you feel does not accu­rate­ly eval­u­ate stu­dent learn­ing.

List of Helpful Resources

These pages about alter­na­tive assess­ment have been devel­oped with the 4 pil­lars of alter­na­tive assess­ment in mind.

Tips to Begin

The 4 pil­lars are indi­cat­ed in rel­e­vant areas through­out.

  • Hav­ing a strong ratio­nale for the change will be moti­vat­ing.
  • Ratio­nale can also be shared with stu­dents.
  • Clear­ly define the knowl­edge and skills stu­dents should demon­strate by the end of the course, and which relate to this assign­ment.
  • Deter­mine how the learn­ing out­comes align with course assess­ments or if updates or improve­ments may be required (this learn­ing out­come align­ment chart can assist). This is called con­struc­tive align­ment.
  • Deter­mine which of the learn­ing out­comes could be enhanced by inte­grat­ing an alter­na­tive assess­ment.
  • Deter­mine which of the learn­ing out­comes could be enhanced by inte­grat­ing an alter­na­tive assess­ment.

  More can be found about learn­ing out­comes on Teach Any­where.                 

  • Select an alter­na­tive method that best mea­sures the course learn­ing out­comes and that aligns with teach­ing and learn­ing activ­i­ties.
  • There are numer­ous exam­ples of alter­na­tive assess­ment with­in the teach any­where pages.
  • Reflect on the 4 pil­lars to help you choose.
  • CTLI can also help you with ideas and sug­ges­tions!
  • Pro­vide stu­dents with clear and suc­cinct cri­te­ria to help them under­stand what is expect­ed in the assess­ment.
  • Con­sid­er mak­ing a short Kaltura video to post on Bright­space that explains the assess­ment and expec­ta­tions.
  • Decide on how you will iden­ti­fy if the stu­dent has met the desired competencies/achieved the grade. Con­sult CTLI for feed­back and fur­ther sug­ges­tions.
  • Use rubrics or alter­nate mark­ing schemes that remove the empha­sis on a grade to pro­vide mean­ing­ful feed­back that sup­ports stu­dent growth
    (pil­lar #3: marks indi­cate progress).
  • Inte­grate ways that encour­age stu­dents to think about their own think­ing and learn­ing — Peer eval­u­a­tion and self-assess­ment, for exam­ple.
  • Con­sid­er the feed­back loop in the 4 pil­lars of assess­ment.
  • Review infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed about giv­ing and receiv­ing feed­back.
  • Con­sid­er pro­vid­ing class time to have stu­dents read the feed­back and discuss/ask for fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion.
  • Guide stu­dents though the process, using clear and trans­par­ent lan­guage (pil­lar #1: Clear­ly defined stan­dards).
  • Gath­er feed­back from stu­dents, peers and your own reflec­tions to eval­u­ate and revise the assess­ment as need­ed for future use.
  • Scaf­fold assign­ments to encour­age resub­mis­sions or even bet­ter resub­mis­sions demon­strat­ing appli­ca­tion of feed­back (pil­lar #4: reassess­ment with­out penal­ty).
  • Stay informed on new alter­na­tive assess­ment ideas.
  • Con­sid­er enhancing/changing the assess­ment based on reflec­tion and feed­back

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