Assessing Student Learning
There are many reasons to assess students. Homework and exam grades let students know how they are mastering the class material. Final course grades determine advancement in a major and help students earn internships, or move on to professional school, graduate school, or employment. But assessment is also the metric for which we gauge how we are doing as instructors. Unfortunately, if you looked at a lot of college classrooms (and syllabi), you would have the impression that the only type of assessments are multiple choice exams and term papers. To become an effective instructor, one must learn about the many different types of assessments and how to use them to improve your own teaching as well as student learning.
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Artifact 1: Please see my Mentored Teaching Project for a description of assessments I utilized in an undergraduate course and my findings on their effectiveness.
Artifact 2: I attended a workshop as part of the college teaching certification institute at Michigan State University. The following are some notes I took pertaining to what I found helpful and interesting. My reflections and thoughts on the usage of what I learned from this workshop follow. |
Improving Teaching and Learning Through Assessment
by Dr. Tammy Long
CCTP Teaching Workshop, May 11, 2011
As instructors, we know that we must evaluate students- but what is the best way?
Assessment: a mechanism for providing instructors with data for improving teaching methods and for guiding and motivating students to be actively involved in their own learning. I.e. assessment helps us figure out whether our students are learning what we think we are teaching. A good place to begin in the classroom is to find out what the students come in knowing (know the foundation/starting point/range of students). You could assess this with a survey or quiz (for points or not for points?). Or if you have the Clicker system in the classroom, you can ask the whole class questions and gather data at once. The questions can be material they should know coming into class, as well as demographic questions, so you can get a better feel for the make-up of your class. Many professors, when providing feedback about their own teaching experiences, state frustration with what knowledge and skills their students are taking with them after their classes (or the lack thereof). The professors say they want students to connect big ideas in science, at a level where they should be able to read, understand, and critique the NYTimes science section. Problem: their assessments are ridiculous multi-choice exams. There are two things at work here. One, many professors tend to use summative assessments. In the table below, the characteristics of summative assessment are compared to formative assessment. Two, the summative assessments do not align with your goals. If you find yourself with the second problem, try using the Backward Design Approach (See this in diagram form, below): Make sure you have a clear learning goal in mind. You should be able to state this as what your student will be able to do after you instruct them. It should be concrete. It should not simply be that they should ‘know’ something. It would be better if they can do something- how can they demonstrate what you want them to know? If you have a more concrete goal, then this will help with your assessment design. Think about how you would determine if the student has achieved this goal, this is what you should assess. This way, you are conscientiously making sure the assessment matches your goal. Finally, you design your instruction to match the goals and assessments. The figures to the right were created by me, based on images used in Dr. Long's presentation.
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Reflections and Applications of Teaching and Learning
Session: Assessing Student Learning
What skills and techniques did I learn that will help me become a better educator?
Backwards Design is a way to ensure that my assessment actually aligns with what I look for my students to achieve, and Bloom’s Taxonomy helps me determine what level of learning I am expecting and measuring from students. For example, I may want my students to ‘know’ that neurons use synaptic transmission to communicate. But this does not easily explain what I will be looking for the students to be able to do. A better learning goal or objective to give students would be something like, ‘students will be able to describe the structures involved in synaptic transmission and their corresponding functions’. I learned about the two basic forms of assessments, formative and summative. Formative meaning assessments are given while students are forming the knowledge, and thus while you are instructing, rather than summative assessments, which are given to students after you have completed your instructions. You can see why summative assessments are so popular. You would only need to write one or two exams, and only grade one or two exams. Also, it would seem that you would have much more time for your lectures if you did not take away time for lots of assessments. However, formative assessments are probably a lot more valuable to both instructors and students. It gives you more opportunities to gauge where the students are 'course-correct'. And they need not be so formal that you are constantly writing the perfect question and then grading lots of answers. |
What things am I still uncertain about regarding this topic that I need to investigate further in the future?
I am still uncertain about how to achieve a moderate stress level across the semester to keep students actively participating. Having only midterm and final assessments is too stressful, but maybe having a few points everyday is not important enough for students to always keep attending or participating. Finding the right balance will be important, and I know only experience in the classroom will help me find the appropriate balance for my classroom, but I’d like to hear more about what has worked for others so it doesn't have to be too rocky of a learning experience. How can I apply materials from this session to my own class to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning? In designing my own courses, I would like to have several occasions that require recall, instead of only asking students to recall material once or twice (quiz/final). I don’t necessarily mean lots of homework or quizzes, but also discussions that need not be graded. |