Using Embedded Assessment to Collect Evidence of Student Learning

1. Using Embedded Assessment to Collect Evidence of Student Learning

2. Presentation Overview • What is Embedded Assessment? • Advantages of Embedded Assessment • Disadvantages of Embedded Assessment • Types of Course-Embedded Assessment • Process of Embedding Assessment • Creating and Designing Course-Embedded Assessments

3. What is Embedded Assessment? • Take place in a class or a group of classes  • Determines whether students are learning pre-established learning outcomes • Take advantage of pre-existing student motivation to perform well • Assess what is actually taught

4. Advantages of Embedded Assessment • Student motivation is high because the assessment activity is part of a course activity • Costs are reduced because incentives are unnecessary • It usually does not require additional student time as it is part of the curriculum • It is faculty-driven and thus, more likely, to be used for improvement • Because it’s linked to the curriculum, it’s more likely to identify specific curricular needs/deficiencies • Feedback to faculty is usually quick

5. Disadvantages of Embedded Assessment • Faculty commitment is absolutely essential, but can be hard to get • Faculty resistance to the process may be substantial • Achieving agreement among faculty on an assessment approach across courses is a challenge • Usually there are no comparable data

6. Types of Course-Embedded Assessment • Exams • Quizzes • Research Papers • Projects • Field Experiences • Lab Reports • Internships • Pre/Post Comparisons • Student Portfolios • Capstone Evaluations

7. Process of Embedding Assessment • All faculty involved must identify specific learning goals for course(s) • The goals should be succinct and central to the overall objectives of the course • For multiple sections, all faculty must agree to the goals and commit to teaching to the goals • Assessment methods must be agreed upon, including when and what will be used, e.g. pre/post, final exam, etc. Rubrics, exam questions, prompts, etc. • Standards must be agreed upon • Results must be analyzed and then interpreted • Information must be shared with all relevant faculty • Where appropriate, the course should be improved or the assessment technique modified

8. Creating and Designing Course-Embedded Assessments • Select the course SLO to be assessed; or select some aspect of that existing assignment that aligns with the course SLO • Evaluate and review course assignments which could be used for assessment; • Decide which course elements would best serve as assessment tools and which elements will need to be modified to be modified to meet the needs of assessing course objectives; • Integrate the embedded assessments elements into the course;

9. Creating and Designing Course-Embedded Assessments • Collect the results of the assessment tools; Analyze that aspect, across all students, to see how successfully achieved it was by all students. • Determine the level of student achievement as a result of the assessment tools and evaluate the achievement of course SLO; • Make appropriate changes to the course content or curriculum if this is indicated by the assessment results. • Using the example below, let’s say you wanted to analyze punctuation across the entire class; you would see that punctuation fared pretty well…while spelling seemed to miss the mark. • You can make this process as straightforward, or as rigorous as you want!

10. SLOs Assessment vs. Grades • Assessment isn’t the same as assigning grades. • Grading standards might be vague, while assessment information is very specific. • Grades do not provide: • Specific information about students’ performance on discrete tasks • Meaningful data across sections • Objective student data which can be used for improvement of student learning or recognition of student achievement • Grades alone do not give enough information on specific strengths and weaknesses of students.

11. Considerations for Using Embedded Assessment • Political considerations if selecting samples, e.g. Why me or my class? • Incentives for faculty to be involved? • Incentives for students? • Course-embedded assessment can be labor intensive • It is the most likely to produce real improvement in the classroom.

12. Lets go and Embedded Some Assessment