Classroom Assessment Examples - Throughout the Quarter
|
The Assessment Process
All of the following examples reflect this assessment process. It is important to be aware of where we are in the process, what we need to do to prepare for the next step, and how those decisions and results can be used to improve our future use of classroom assessment. |
| Gather information | Discover what your students already know or believe about the course topic or key concepts. |
| Analyze the information | Identify the common misconceptions most likely to come into conflict with the learning students will do in the class.1 |
| Act on the analysis | When introducing new concepts, be explicit in addressing students’ prior beliefs (e.g. “Half of you agreed with the statement that sound can travel through a vacuum, but in fact . . . .”) |
| Sample 1 | Ask students to complete a short survey covering beliefs and/or knowledge about major concepts. |
| Sample 2 | At the end of the first class, ask students to spend one minute writing about why they enrolled in your course and what they hope to learn from it. |
| Online | Use Blackboard to send a survey to students. |
Resources and Notes
1John Bean offers helpful, concrete strategies for shaking up students’ prior beliefs in his Engaging Ideas. See especially page 27.
Available at the Office for Teaching, Learning and Assessment library.
| Gather information | Assess students’ depth of understanding. |
| Analyze the information | Do students demonstrate flexibility in their understanding of an idea? |
| Act on the analysis | If your results suggest that many students developed only a superficial understanding of a concept, give them more opportunities to apply the idea in contexts. |
| Sample 1 | Working alone or together, ask students to create a concept map that shows the relations among the major ideas covered in the course. |
| Sample 2 | Working alone or in groups, students complete an empty (or mostly empty) outline of a presentation or course unit1 |
Resources and Notes
1For a detailed description and examples of this technique, see Angelo and Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques (p. 138-141).
Available at the Office for Teaching, Learning and Assessment library.
| Gather information | Ask your students to identify and explain the most significant things they learned in the course. |
| Analyze the information | |
| Act on the analysis | Consider sharing these reflections with students in future classes. |
| Sample 1 | Ask students to write a formal reflection paper exploring how their understanding of the course topic changed and what they would still like to learn. |
| Sample 2 | Ask students to submit anonymous reflections on the assignment that was most/least helpful in strengthening their learning. |
Got a question?