North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  The Assessment Toolkit

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Topics  What is Assessment?  Why Do We Assess?  Assessment is More than Grades!  Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Design Assessment Techniques  Traditional vs. Non-traditional Assessment  Options for Assessing Online  The Assessment Toolkit – Hints and Techniques

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Outcomes 1.Define assessment and describe why there is a need for a variety of assessment techniques. 2.Assess your own assessment strategies. 3.Compare and contrast traditional and non-traditional methods of assessment. 4.Select appropriate methods of assessment for selected student outcomes. 5.Identify assessment challenges and choose strategies to integrate in a traditonal or online class. 6.Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to design appropriate assessment activities.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Assessment... “…is the systematic collection of information about student learning, conducted within the time, resources, and knowledge that are available, and used to improve learning by the most effective possible use of available resources.” Barbara Walvoord

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  What is Assessment? on-going  The systematic, on-going, interactive process of monitoring learning in order to determine what we are doing well and what we must improve.  Assessment involves observing, describing, collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting information.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Why do we assess?  Find out what students are actually learning  Identify student-learning areas.  Make changes in our courses.  Become better teachers.  For accountability

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  What Are YOU Already Doing?  Capstone experiences  Senior seminars  Internships  Field Experience  Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATS)  Comprehensive Exams  Essay Tests  Multiple Choice Tests  Research papers  Portfolio evaluation  Oral Reports  Portfolios  Reflective journals  Rubrics  Service learning projects  Simulations  Quizzes  Lab tests  Others:

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Assessment is More Than Grades “Assessment should their ownassist students in diagnosing their own learning and self-assessing, self- directedhelp students "become more effective, self-assessing, self- directed learners." Angelo & Cross

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Assessment is More Than Grades feedback  Assessment is feedback for both instructors and students relationship  Assessment is a relationship between objectives and outcomes

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Bloom’s Levels of Learning Remember Understand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Designing Assessment Activities Using Bloom’s Taxonomy ObjectiveVerb / Level of Learning Assessment Technique Example: Students should be able to plan a well balanced meal using knowledge of the food pyramid. PLAN = Synthesis Question on an exam A Project Journal writing of planned meals

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Givens about Assessment  Assessment techniques should be based on desired learning outcomes.  Assessment results should be used by students for self-evaluation of progress through the course.  Assessment results should provide the instructor with … –evidence of effectiveness of course materials –indications of content areas that need further enhancement and/or development. –feedback on teaching/learning strategies. 23

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  The Assessment Cycle Assessment

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Traditional vs. Alternative Assessment Traditional Approaches to Assessment are objective test/exams where students choose a response from a given list, such as multiple-choice, true/false, or matching. Alternative Assessment Capstones Research Projects Classroom Assessment Essays Learning Logs Oral presentations Demonstrations Portfolios

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Assessing Online  Multiple Choice  True False  Multiple Answer  Matching  Ordering  Short Answer/Essay

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Ways to Minimizing Students' Complaints About Grading 1.Give enough opportunities 2.Provide alternative assignments. 3.State grading procedures 4.Provide policies on late work. 5.Avoid modifying your grading policies during the term. 6.Keep accurate records of students' grades. 7.Create a test bank 8.Mix question types

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Ways to Minimizing Students' Complaints About Grading 9.Test early 10.Test often 11.Test what you really want students to learn. 12.Return the first graded assignment before the add/drop deadline. 13.Record results numerically rather than as letter grades, whenever possible. 14.Matching Table. Compare the objectives for your course with the questions on your test by setting up a simple table that lists the completed course content in one column and the test questions in the other. Keep students from asking questions about material that was not adequately treated during the course.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Rubrics  A rubric is a guideline for assessing student performance.  It is the criteria or scoring rules against which student work will be judged.  One purpose of a rubric is to make public the key criteria that students can use in developing, revising, and judging their own work. The key elements of a rubric are –the descriptors for what a performance is like and –the full range of possible performance levels

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Steps to Designing a Rubrics 1.Brainstorm or generate a number of potential dimensions to use. 2.Select a reasonable number of the most important dimensions. 3.Identify benchmarks for each level of each dimension.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Components of a Rubric Levels of Mastery Excellent, Good, Needs Improvement, Unacceptable, Exemplary, Acceptable, Unacceptable. Dimensions of Quality- components of quality performance E.g., written communication, logical reasoning, Organizational Groupings - Skill dimensions divided into skills. E.g., Written communication may be assessed on grammar, organization, appropriateness, use of evidence, documenting sources, etc) Commentaries - Information on the critical features& standards for each of the mastery levels.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Rubric Worksheet IF…the Task has these elements... THEN…consider these as possible dimensions: Oral Presentation Problem Solving Teamwork Written products Demonstration

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Student Portfolios Portfolios are collections of students' work over time A purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting the contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self- reflection. “Purposefully Selected"

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Why use portfolios? Because they…  provide multiple ways of demonstrating competence.  can be more accommodating of different learning styles.  portray the process by which students produce work not just the final product.  could engage students actively in the learning process.  are flexible, in that the contents can be chosen to reflect the needs of the student, course, program, or institution.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Types of portfolios  Showcase model, consists of work samples chosen by the student.  Cumulative, consists of all work that represents each objective into the portfolio.  Descriptive model, consists of representative work of the student, with no attempt at evaluation.  Evaluative model, consists of representative products that have been evaluated according to established criteria.

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  How to Create a Portfolio Purpose:Purpose: What is the purpose(s) of the portfolio? Audience: For what audience(s) will the portfolio be created? Content:Content: What samples of student work will be included? Process: What processes will be engaged in during the development of the portfolio? Management:Management: How will time and materials be managed in the development of the portfolio? Communication: How and when will the portfolio be shared with pertinent audiences? Evaluation:Evaluation: If the portfolio is to be used for evaluation, when and how should it be evaluated?

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Components of a portfolios 1.Table of Contents with page numbers. 2.Personal introduction describing the student’s background and experiences. 3.Each artifact is described in a short narrative reflecting upon what it is, how it demonstrates obtainment of the objective, and what the student learned as a result (self-reflection)

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Portfolio Example Course: ENG 114: Business Writing Objectives to Demonstrate the ability to: 1. Develop a resume. 2. Participate in a mock job interview using appropriate techniques. 3. Write a business letter with zero grammatical errors. Items to Include in the Portfolio: 1. Resume 2. Transcript of interview scenario 3. Business Letter

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Other Assessment Tools Application Logs Take-home tests Observation Checklist

North Carolina Network for Excellence in Teaching  Challenges (What I have heard about today that I would like to try.) By whenWhat Course? My Plan