Assessment: Focused, Simple, Aligned Ideas

20 Fair, Clear and Simple IDeas for Assessing Learning

Twen­ty ped­a­gog­i­cal­ly-sound ideas for the assess­ment of stu­dent learn­ing in both online (asyn­chro­nous, syn­chro­nous and blend­ed) and face-to-face class­es with the intent to fos­ter a more flex­i­ble, acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sup­port­ive learn­ing envi­ron­ment for all stu­dents. Choose one or two and learn more.

	Aim for 3–5 For­mal Assess­ments with No One Item Worth More than 40% Aim for 3–5 for­mal assess­ments with no one assess­ment worth more than 40% (as per North Island Col­lege Pol­i­cy 3–33) unless you have a pro­gram with exter­nal adju­di­ca­tion or reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments that indi­cates oth­er­wise. In most cours­es, 3–5 well-designed and aligned assess­ments are often suf­fi­cient for stu­dents to appro­pri­ate­ly demon­strate core learn­ing out­comes. Include many infor­mal assess­ments to help pro­vide feed­back to stu­dents and give you a broad­er pic­ture of stu­dent learn­ing. A larg­er num­ber of assess­ments doesn’t mean you have more data to deter­mine a grade. Too many assess­ments can cre­ate increased stu­dent stress/anxiety and most like­ly will not give stu­dents the best expe­ri­ences to demon­strate their learn­ing. Too many assess­ments caus­es more work for instruc­tors to mark and man­age. •  Online Assess­ment in High­er Edu­ca­tion Guide (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary)
	Link All For­mal Assess­ments to Learn­ing Out­comes Ensure all for­mal assess­ments are direct­ly linked to course learn­ing out­comes. Note: Not all learn­ing out­comes require a for­mal assess­ment. Once you have linked the out­comes to your assess­ments, con­sid­er the instruc­tion­al activ­i­ties for your course. This is called con­struc­tive align­ment of a course. Stu­dents should see a direct link­age from the learn­ing out­come to the course activ­i­ties and the for­mal assess­ments. Con­sid­er list­ing your learn­ing out­comes on your assign­ment instruc­tions and mark­ing tools. •  Design & Teach a Course — Align Assess­ments with Objec­tives (Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty) •  Assess­ment – Fol­low­ing Through on Learn­ing Out­comes (Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to) •  Using Big­gs’ Mod­el of Con­struc­tive Align­ment in Cur­ricu­lum Design (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Dublin)
	Pro­vide Clear Cri­te­ria for Demon­strat­ing Learn­ing Ensure stu­dents are 100% clear on what is expect­ed of them. If pos­si­ble, pro­vide an exam­ple or two so stu­dents know what to do. Con­sid­er mak­ing a video describ­ing the assess­ment, the cri­te­ria, and the expec­ta­tions. Stu­dents with all abil­i­ties will be able to down­load the video, stop it at any point, take notes, replay the video, and have your words to refer to when they are doing the assess­ment. •  Clear Cri­te­ria: A Good Way to Improve Par­tic­i­pa­tion (Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle) •  Mak­ing Assess­ment Cri­te­ria Clear to Stu­dents (Queen’s Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Offer Choice in For­mat, With­in and Between Assess­ments Con­sid­er giv­ing stu­dents choice around the media for­mats for demon­strat­ing learn­ing (e.g., com­put­er vs. paper, in-class exam vs. take home, pre­sent­ing on video or live), choice with­in an assess­ment (e.g., 3 out of 4 essay ques­tions, 10 out of 15 math ques­tions) or choice between assess­ments (e.g., writ­ing a paper, or doing an oral pre­sen­ta­tion, or cre­at­ing a video, or build­ing a con­cept map, or teach­ing class­mates). Choice builds engage­ment in the learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Choice is a core prin­ci­ple of Uni­ver­sal Design for Learn­ing. •  Stu­dent Choice in Assess­ment (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary) •  UDL and Assess­ment (Cen­ter for Applied and Spe­cial Tech­nol­o­gy — CAST)
	Con­sid­er Non-Dis­pos­able Assign­ments and Authen­tic Assess­ments Non-dis­pos­able assign­ments are activ­i­ties that add val­ue to the local or glob­al com­mu­ni­ties, pro­fes­sions, or dis­ci­plines. They are assign­ments root­ed in cur­rent and rel­e­vant issues, top­ics, or chal­lenges. They are assign­ments not like­ly to be tossed out after a course is com­plete. Stu­dents appre­ci­ate non-dis­pos­able assign­ments because they are more engag­ing and fun to do. These types of assign­ments are often pub­licly shared (e.g., a web­site, blog post, pub­li­ca­tion etc.) Also con­sid­er assess­ments that are authen­tic – mean­ing they are focused on messy, com­plex real-world sit­u­a­tions. •  Non-Dis­pos­able Assign­ments (NIC Curat­ed Resources) •  Authen­tic Assess­ment (Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Aim for Sim­plic­i­ty with Sin­gle Point Rubrics Keep your mark­ing tools, espe­cial­ly rubrics, sim­ple and easy to use. Sin­gle point rubrics are one exam­ple of uncom­pli­cat­ing assess­ment. A sin­gle point rubric is a col­lec­tion of state­ments about what is expect­ed writ­ten in the mid­dle of a 3‑column chart. A blank col­umn to the right is for com­ments about work exceed­ing learn­ing expec­ta­tions. A blank col­umn to the left for work not yet meet­ing the learn­ing expec­ta­tions. Sin­gle point rubrics focus on what is expect­ed and give space for instruc­tor com­ments and stu­dent self-reflec­tions. •  Sin­gle-Point Rubric (Cam­bri­an Col­lege) •  6 Rea­sons to Try a Sin­gle-Point Rubric (Edu­topia)
	Assign Learn­ing Wrap­pers for Improved Metacog­ni­tion in Quizzes, Tests and Assign­ments Ask stu­dents to assess them­selves before hand­ing in their assign­ments or after doing a test – by answer­ing a spe­cif­ic set of ques­tions about how they under­took the assign­ment, what went well, what they learned etc. This is called a learn­ing wrap­per and it can be used for an assign­ment, les­son, or exam. Give stu­dents marks for com­plet­ing the learn­ing wrap­per. Learn­ing wrap­pers build metacog­ni­tion and self-reg­u­lat­ed learn­ing in stu­dents by forc­ing them to think about not just the out­come but the process of learn­ing. •  Cog­ni­tive Wrap­pers (Blog Post — Teach­ing Naked and Word hand­out) •  Exam Wrap­pers (Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty) •  Assign­ment Wrap­per Tem­plate — Full (Word Doc) and Assign­ment Wrap­per Tem­plate — Short (Word Doc)
	Use a Pro­fes­sion­al­ism Rubric to Cap­ture Stu­dent Pre­pared­ness and Engage­ment A pro­fes­sion­al­ism (or aca­d­e­m­ic behav­iour) rubric out­lines a col­lec­tion of actions and activ­i­ties of an aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly hon­est and engaged stu­dent. It is like a check­list with descrip­tive phras­es. Build with stu­dents. Dis­cuss as a class. 1/3 through course have stu­dents self-reflect on the com­po­nents. 2/3 through course have them self-reflect again on their first com­ments and pro­vide updat­ed thoughts. Near end of course have stu­dents review pre­vi­ous two reflec­tions and assign them­selves a grade or lev­el or some final assess­ment about their work through­out the term in being pre­pared and engaged in the learn­ing. Instruc­tor reviews and gives a final mark or assess­ment. •  Pro­fes­sion­al Assess­ment Rubric (North­ern Ari­zona Uni­ver­si­ty) •  Pro­fes­sion­al­ism & Social Con­scious­ness Rubric (Pueblo Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege)
	Pro­vide Fre­quent but Bal­anced Amount of Low Stakes Assess­ments Assess­ment is best when there are many oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to demon­strate their learn­ing and receive imme­di­ate feed­back. This could be a short quiz, a writ­ten para­graph, a post in a dis­cus­sion forum, an out­line for a project, a 2‑minute video sum­ma­ry – with both self-reflec­tive feed­back, along with peer or teacher feed­back. These assess­ments do not have to be for marks or if they are for marks, they are low-stakes val­ues (5%, 10% etc.) Con­sid­er a bal­ance of low stakes assess­ments to for­mal assess­ments along with course work­load – aim for a good com­bi­na­tion for opti­mal stu­dent learn­ing. •  Fre­quent, Low-Stakes Grad­ing: Assess­ment for Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Con­fi­dence (Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle) •  Con­crete Strate­gies for Fre­quent, Low-Stakes Assessments/Practice (Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty) •  Class­room Assess­ment Tech­niques (CATs) (Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Avoid Grad­ing Dis­cus­sion Posts with Com­plex Rubrics Count­ing the num­ber of posts or the num­ber of replies to a post will dri­ve you nuts when try­ing to assess – and is not a true indi­ca­tion of learn­ing. This is an out­dat­ed prac­tice. How about hav­ing stu­dents self-assess their con­tri­bu­tions and pro­vide a sum­ma­ry of what they learned from an online dis­cus­sion? Ask­ing stu­dents to con­tribute to dis­cus­sions every week is not always good learn­ing and results in over­load and stress. Try doing dis­cus­sions every oth­er week or only 4–5X through­out a course. •  Strate­gies for Man­ag­ing Online Dis­cus­sions (Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle) •  Dis­cus­sion Boards: Valu­able? Overused? Dis­cuss. (Inside High­er Edu­ca­tion Arti­cle)
	Pro­vide Options for Online Group Pre­sen­ta­tions Think about how you man­age group pre­sen­ta­tions in the online for­mat. Stu­dents fre­quent­ly rate the expe­ri­ence as less than ide­al and live class times might be bet­ter used. Con­struct a wor­thy project for online groups and ensure pre­sen­ta­tions have a com­po­nent of dig­i­tal engage­ment or peer assess­ment. Maybe have stu­dents sum­ma­rize their learn­ing via a short video, share the link and sub­mit a self-reflec­tive sum­ma­ry instead of live pre­sen­ta­tions. •  Man­ag­ing Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tions When Teach­ing Remote­ly (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary) •  Online Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tions (Duke Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Group Assign­ments May Need Bet­ter Plan­ning Most stu­dents do not like group assign­ments most­ly because they are not with the skills and abil­i­ties to man­age group work or they have had poor expe­ri­ences in the past. They espe­cial­ly dis­like group assign­ments in the online learn­ing envi­ron­ment. They are hard to sched­ule and find time for all group mem­bers to work togeth­er. If you want to have a group assign­ment, cre­ate one that has both indi­vid­ual account­abil­i­ty pieces worth 70–80% of the mark and a small (10% or so) mark for some­thing tru­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive they only do as a group. Pro­vide space and sug­ges­tions for com­ing togeth­er to work effec­tive­ly in a dig­i­tal for­mat. •  Online Stu­dents Don’t Have to Work Solo (Inside High­er Edu­ca­tion Arti­cle) •  Tips for Par­tic­i­pat­ing in Group Work & Projects Online (Drex­el Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Pro­vide Flex­i­bil­i­ty in Sched­ul­ing Asyn­chro­nous Online Quizzes Asyn­chro­nous class­es need flex­i­bil­i­ty in test and quiz sched­ul­ing. Pre-sched­uled and lim­it­ed-time quizzes cre­ate more stress and anx­i­ety for stu­dents and do not align with the intent of the for­mat. Give stu­dents a day or two or three to take the quiz so they can work around their sched­ules. Once they start the quiz you can con­strain the time. •  Asyn­chro­nous or Syn­chro­nous — Aca­d­e­m­ic Integri­ty Con­sid­er­a­tions (Emory Col­lege)
	Reduce Cheat­ing on Online Exams and Tests Cheat­ing often hap­pens when ques­tions or com­po­nents of an assign­ment are eas­i­ly “Googled” or found on web­sites like Course Hero or Chegg. Aca­d­e­m­ic sur­veil­lance soft­ware is not the solu­tion and is harm­ful to stu­dents in terms of pri­va­cy, stress, anx­i­ety, and mon­i­tor­ing activ­i­ties. Cre­ate ques­tions that require high­er order think­ing, use var­ied ques­tion types, have stu­dents sign an hon­esty con­tract, refrain from using pub­lish­er test banks etc. •  Four­teen Sim­ple Strate­gies to Reduce Cheat­ing on Online Exam­i­na­tions (Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle) •  How Teach­ers Are Sac­ri­fic­ing Stu­dent Pri­va­cy to Stop Cheat­ing (Vox Arti­cle)
	Align Due Dates with Oth­er Instruc­tors and Cours­es If you teach in a cohort pro­gram, check in with oth­er instruc­tors of cours­es your stu­dents will most like­ly be tak­ing. Find out their due dates and times when stu­dents might be busiest and work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to find dates that will not result in too many items due at the same time. Even if you do not teach in a cohort-based pro­gram, ask your stu­dents when oth­er assess­ments are due and pos­si­bly adjust your course due dates. Stu­dents will appre­ci­ate you work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to build a bal­anced sched­ule of assess­ment dates. •  Man­ag­ing Work­load in Online Class­es (Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia)
	Avoid Mak­ing Assign­ments and Tests due on Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, or Sun­day Nights If stu­dents are sub­mit­ting assign­ments or tak­ing tests in the evenings or on the week­ends, Stu­dent Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices is not avail­able to help – and, most like­ly you also are not avail­able for help. Have assign­ments and tests due/be sub­mit­ted dur­ing times when NIC sup­port staff are avail­able to help them with upload­ing issues, tech­ni­cal prob­lems etc. Remind them of the hours and con­tact details for NIC’s Stu­dent Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices. • North Island Col­lege Stu­dent Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices: https://library.nic.bc.ca/studenttech
	Is an Exam Nec­es­sary for Con­sol­i­da­tion of Learn­ing? Exams are often giv­en to assess mem­o­ry of key con­cepts and com­po­nents, along with stu­dent abil­i­ties to apply learn­ing to new sit­u­a­tions. Whether online or in per­son, exams also cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant stress and anx­i­ety in stu­dents and may not pro­duce accu­rate results of stu­dent learn­ing. If you are not with artic­u­la­tion or reg­u­la­to­ry body expec­ta­tions, con­sid­er ditch­ing the exam for anoth­er way of allow­ing stu­dents to con­sol­i­date and apply their learn­ing. •  Alter­na­tives to Tra­di­tion­al Test­ing (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Berkley) •  Alter­na­tives to Tra­di­tion­al Exams and Papers (Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty)
	Feed­back: The Giv­ing, The Receiv­ing, The Inter­pre­ta­tion and The Appli­ca­tion of Feed­back Giv­ing feed­back that is prop­er­ly received and act­ed upon is how stu­dents learn best. Focus your efforts on giv­ing time­ly and rich feed­back, but also on how stu­dents receive, inter­pret and act upon the feed­back. Pro­vide audio feed­back, writ­ten feed­back, peer feed­back, expert feed­back, self-reflec­tive feed­back etc. – and then fol­low up with their inter­pre­ta­tion, under­stand­ing and appli­ca­tion of that feed­back. •  Feed­back That Improves Stu­dent Per­for­mance (Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick) •  Get­ting Feed­back Right: a Q&A With John Hat­tie (Edu­ca­tion Week Arti­cle)
	The Mer­its of Ungrad­ing Your Course Sep­a­rat­ing grades (val­ues, num­bers, per­cent­ages, lev­els, let­ters) from feed­back (ver­bal or writ­ten com­ments, direc­tions on where to improve, out­lin­ing strengths, sug­ges­tions for next steps) is the first step in ‘ungrad­ing’ a course. Once stu­dents see how grades (putting a val­ue on learn­ing) does not aid in the learn­ing process, ungrad­ing prac­tices and ped­a­go­gies will become clear­er. The ungrad­ing move­ment is gain­ing momen­tum in cre­at­ing a more com­pas­sion­ate learn­ing envi­ron­ment for all. •  Ungrad­ing (NIC Curat­ed Resource Page) •  Ungrad­ing: an FAQ (Jesse Stom­mel Blog Post) •  Ungrad­ing (Inside High­er Edu­ca­tion Arti­cle)
	Ask Your Stu­dents to Co-Con­struct Assess­ment Expe­ri­ences Con­sid­er ask­ing your stu­dents to help design the for­mal and infor­mal assess­ment com­po­nents. Often called ‘co-con­struct­ing learn­ing’ or ‘stu­dents as part­ners’, involve stu­dents in the design and devel­op­ment of a cours­es’ assess­ment (or pieces of it). Work­ing togeth­er will build greater stu­dent engage­ment and their under­stand­ing of the learn­ing process. •  Co-Con­struct­ing Your Course Cur­ricu­lum (Oak­land Uni­ver­si­ty) •  Stu­dents as Part­ners (UBC) •  Stu­dents as Part­ners (Uni­ver­si­ty of Queens­land, Aus­tralia)