The Assessment Toolbox

1. The Assessment Toolbox Linda Suskie Middle States Commission on Higher Education AB Tech February 2005

2. Today... • What is assessment? • The assessment toolbox • Rubrics (scoring guides) • Prompts (assignments) • Multiple-choice tests • Reflective writing • Using assessment results to improve teaching

3. What is Assessment? • Deciding what we want our students to learn • Making sure they learn it! --Jane Wolfson, Director, Environmental Science & Studies Program, Towson University

4. The Teaching-Learning-Assessment Cycle Learning Goals Using Results Learning Opportunities Assessment

5. 1. Learning Goals • What is a good learning goal? • Outcomes – what students should be able to do AFTER they pass the course • Observable – action words • Clear – no fuzzy terms • Skills – thinking, performance • Important - meet student/employer needs

6. 2. Aligning Assignments with Goals

7. 3. The Assessment Toolbox

8. Rubrics • A list of things you’re looking forwhen you’re grading tests, papers, or projects • Often with guidelines or standardsfor evaluating them

9. Rating Scale Rubrics • A scale showing the degree to which the things you’re looking for are present.

10. Descriptive Rubrics • More detailed descriptions of each possible rating.

11. Holistic Scoring Guides • A single score that reflects an overall impression of performance • Scores are defined by • descriptions or • model answers

12. Write a Rubric!

13. Prompts: Creating Effective Assignments

14. Creating Effective Multiple Choice Tests Start with a test blueprint.

15. Definitions • Objective test • Stem • Alternatives/ responses/ options

16. Advantages Efficient Fast and easy to score Options can diagnose difficulties Disadvantages Hard to write Often requires reading skills Guessing Can’t measure some thinking skills Multiple Choice

17. Use Multiple Choice Items for... • Conceptual understanding • Application • Identify correct application or example • Analysis • Identify correct cause, effect, or element • Identify why something occurs or is best

18. Interpretive Exercise = context-dependent item = enhanced multiple choice item One new stimulus (paragraph, chart) that students must read or examine to be able to answer all the objective items that follow

19. Reading passage they haven’t seen Description of lab experiment Material from historical period (letter, document) Description of patient’s symptoms Chart, diagram, drawing Any scenario (“You are...”) Examples of Interpretive Material

20. Use Interpretive Exercises to... • Apply knowledge and understanding to new material or novel situations. • Identify correct generalization, inference, or conclusion. • Use problem-solving and analysis skills. • Prepare for standardized tests.

21. Writing Good Multiple Choice Items

22. More Ways to Make Multiple Choice Tests Effective • Open-book, open-note • Throw out items that half your students get wrong. • Review only items that many students got wrong. • Ask them WHY they got them wrong.

23. Reflective Writing

24. 4. Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching Goals Curriculum Pedagogy Assessments

25. Look at your learning goals. • Do you have too many goals? • Do your goals need to be clarified? • Are your goals inappropriate or overly ambitious?

26. Look at your curriculum. • Including placement and developmental education. • Does the curriculum adequately address each learning goal?

27. Look at your teaching methods. • How do students learn best?

28. Look at your assessments. • Are they poorly written and misinterpreted? • Do they match your key learning goals? • Are they too difficult for most responsible students?

29. Isn’t Poor Performance the Student’s Fault? • Sometimes, but usually a minority • Suskie’s “50% rule”

30. Time to Reflect!