Assessment is the process of determining what students have learned, how well they have learned it, and what they need to learn next. Typical assessment practices and topics include quizzing, testing, projects, grading, peer review and feedback, group member evaluation, rubrics, self-assessment, and evidence-based teaching.
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Assessment Resources
Aligning Assessment with Outcomes
How do we know if students are learning what we think they’re learning? When designing your course, it’s helpful to think about the alignment between your Course Learning Outcomes, aka objectives, and your activities, assignments, and exams. Need outcomes? Check out some of the resources at right for developing effective, clear, and measurable outcomes. For…
Student Self-Assessment and Reflection
Stop. And think. Reflection is an important component of learning. This can take the form of assessing one’s own skills or experiences. When designing or revising your course, consider ways to include reflection and self-assessment.
Using Rubrics
A rubric is a set of criteria used to assess a student’s work. Rubrics provide feedback to students, and they make grading transparent and consistent. By providing a rubric to students along with an assignment description, you can indicate which parts of the project, paper, or other response are most important. Rubrics may be holistic…
Using Formative and Summative Assessment
You may have heard the words “formative” and “summative” assessment. An easy way to remember the difference is that formative assessment is for learning. Summative assessment creates a summary of learning. Summative assessments tend to be high-stakes, longer assessments that cover a larger amount of material and contribute to a final grade. These might be…
Protecting Student Privacy
As an instructor, you have the responsibility to comply with FERPA, the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Under FERPA, students (current and former) have the right to inspect and review their education records, the right to seek to have those records amended, and the right to control disclosure of certain portions of…