1. Evaluation Of and For Learning
Sarah Sullivan, PhD
Department of Surgery
University of Wisconsin
Thank you to Bev for sharing resources with us.

2. Goals for Today What is evaluation? Developing assessment tools
Different forms and purposes of assessment
Developing assessment tools
How would you assess…?
Discuss the importance of feedback as part of assessment to facilitate learning
Reflect on how to effectively complete an evaluation
Evaluation to identify projects and areas for improvement
Evaluations used in your programs

3. What is Evaluation?
Evaluate: to judge the value or condition (of someone or something) in a careful and thoughtful way
-Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary
We assess to inform decisions
Three broad purposes for assessment
Measuring Individual Achievement
Evaluating Programs
Assisting Learning

4. Use of Assessment Use of Assessment needs to be: Valid Reliable Fair
Interpretations of assessment scores are justified
Reliable
An assessments’ results are consistent across individuals or groups
Fair
Assessments should be absent of bias and measure what is being learned
Use of Assessment needs to be:
Valid
Validity is the degree to which evidence and theory support interpretations of assessment scores
Reliable
Reliability is the consistency of an assessment’s results when the procedure is repeated on a population of individuals or groups
Fair
Fairness hits a broad range of issues
Absence of bias in the process
Opportunity to learn the material being assessed
Comparable validity
Scores shouldn’t over or under estimate the competencies of a particular group

5. Assessment Plans
A plan ensures that our standards, instruction and assessment are aligned.
Includes
Learning Objectives
Time Frame
Types of Assessment and Evaluation
Use of Results
You should always know how you will or can assess before you teach and structure learning environments!
Types of assessment would be - in class, homework, tests, quizzes
Types of evaluation would be - rubric, weighted assigments, etc.

6. ACTIVITY!
How would you assess making a spaghetti dinner?

7. Some things to decide… What will you assess? What are the steps?
Do all steps have the same importance?
How will you grade?
What is your cut off for “passing”?
Other things??

8. Adult Learning
Adult learners must be active participants in their learning
i.e., Self-regulated learning
Application to practice
The pedagogy of medical education is changing

9. Importance of Feedback
University of Wisconsin • Department of Surgery
Importance of Feedback
Specific
Actionable

10. Tips for Eliciting Useful Feedback
Develop goals for the rotation or learning context
Elicit feedback that is:
- specific rather than general
- focused on behavior rather than personality
- descriptive rather than evaluative
- timely
Ask generalizing, process-oriented questions such as:
“How do you decide to…?”
“What is the difference between…and…?”
“How are…and…similar?”
“What is the best…and why…?”
Take time to reflect and self evaluation to promote practices for life-long learning
You’re not done learning when you leave school!

11. Completing an Evaluation
Activity:
Review the sample evaluation form:
Imagine that you were the evaluator
How would you go about completing this form?
How could you make the information you provide most valuable for understanding the performance of the student?
Imagine that you were the learner
How would you use the feedback and information provided to you?
What would you find most useful?

12. Bloom’s Taxonomy

13. Variations in Assessment Types
Formal vs. Informal
Formal is preplanned, systematic
Informal is spontaneous and/or unstructured
Formative vs. Summative
Formative determines progress, checks understanding, and adjusts midstream
Summative is evaluation of progress at end for students/program/instruction
Traditional vs. Authentic
Traditional is the tests, quizzes and paper and pencil we are used to
Authentic is situated in the context of learning and/or relevant to future use of material
We can play mix and match… a formal traditional summative assessment would be a test. An informal formative authentic assessment would be evaluating group brainstorming on a real world problem.

14. Performance & Authentic Assessments
Carrying out a relevant activity or performing a skill/task
Authentic
Problem solving tasks that allow use of knowledge and skills in a meaningful way
These assessment types:
Use multiple forms of assessment
Assess a broader range of abilities and talents
Use assessment as a part of instruction
Use tasks that are relevant to real life or represent common tasks in the discipline
Performance - process and product are both important here! Make sure the performance objective matches the instructional objectives
Authentic - real world problems, use the skills we would use in the read world, may have multiple solutions.

15. Performance & Authentic Assessment: Some Methods
Checklists
Especially good for performances.
Important that the elements all be weighted the same
Rating Scales
Can be graphic, numeric or descriptive
Rubrics
Good when you have multiple criteria being assessed
Clarifies standards
I love rubrics because they are a great way to let the learner know exactly what I expect from them! Grading Alternative assessments is really hard. You need to have a system like this both to justify your grade, and to ensure good products from the student.

16. activity!
How would you categorize the types of assessments you use in your work? How might you use them to identify and evaluate a project that is meaningful to you? (click to next slide during activity)

17. Variations in Assessment Types
Formal vs. Informal
Formal is preplanned, systematic
Informal is spontaneous and/or unstructured
Formative vs. Summative
Formative determines progress, checks understanding, and adjusts midstream
Summative is evaluation of progress at end for students/program/instruction
Traditional vs. Authentic/Performance
Traditional is the tests, quizzes and paper and pencil we are used to
Authentic is situated in the context of learning and/or relevant to future use of material
We can play mix and match… a formal traditional summative assessment would be a test. An informal formative authentic assessment would be evaluating group brainstorming on a real world problem.

18. Questions?
Thank you!!