Assessing Learning

The efficient rubric I propose below is designed to facilitate rapid and holistic assessment of assignments without the use of written feedback. It was inspired by the “minimalist grading” perspective that suggests extensive written responses to assignments is not a useful or necessary practice.

Group testing is an instructional tool that incorporates a group component to traditional individual testing to assess student learning. After an individual test, students form groups to retake the exam or part of the exam. Grades from these exams are a combination of the individual and group scores.

A fact sheet is a short, typed or hand-written document that contains the most relevant information about a particular subject in the least amount of space. The goal is to provide facts and key points about a topic in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand way. In developing a fact sheet, students must decide what is most important, organize it, and communicate it in their own words. All three of these practices relate to how people learn and are linked to increased retention of information. The fact sheet can then be used for class work and studying.

Reflection is often viewed as an essential component necessary for students to critically interpret course content and service-learning experiences but is often difficult to define. The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (2008) describes reflection as “the process of deriving meaning and knowledge from experience and occurs before, during and after a service-learning project.

Rubrics are tools that layout expectations of an assignment for students. It can prompt students to self-evaluate and can help with those questions "why did I get this grade" and decrease subjectivity that is apparent in grading.

Experiential learning such as simulation has been promoted as a means to challenge student's misconceptions (McClintock, 2000). Experiential learning encourages higher-order learning, which promotes critical thinking abilities and self-directed learning (Kreber, 2001). Hakeem (2001) found that students involved in experiential learning have a greater understanding of their subject matter than students in a traditional lecture-only class.

Student Response Systems (SRS) allow you to receive immediate feedback on your teaching and their learning. It could take 10 seconds or 10 minutes of your class time but works well in small or large classrooms.

Creating multiple choice questions that align with what we want to assess can be challenging. This evidence-based teaching tool provides you with some tips for developing questions and evaluating them to ensure they are assessing what you intend.