Issues of Assessment and Aligning Goals and Assessment.

1. Issues of Assessment and Aligning Goals and Assessment. • Aligning goals and assessment. • Forms and purposes of assessment.

2. At the end of this session… You will have: • Specified up to six learning outcomes for one of your classes. • Set out assessment tasks associated with those learning outcomes. • Know six reasons for assessment. • Be acquainted with characteristics of good assessment practices. • Be able to distinguish between formative and summative assessment; norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessment. • Forms and purposes of assessment

3. Overall objective of teaching is to ….? help students learn.

4. GoalsWhat do you want students to learn? Assessment Three important learning issues to consider in course planning. How will students learn what you intend them to learn? How will you, students, and others know that students have learned? (and hence your objective as a teacher has been met)

5. Aligning goals and assessment tasks – a task for you. • What learning outcomes have you specified for your class? That is, what specific skills and knowledge do you want your students to develop?

6. J.W. Harrington UW 2001 ‘Geography of International Trade’ Be able to: • argue in favor of liberalized trade, to argue its pitfalls, and to explain who benefits and whose interests are harmed. • define "globalization" and be able to critique the various ways in which the word is used. • identify current, and to propose alternative, institutional arrangements toward international economic integration. • read arguments about trade policy, understanding the major instruments and organizations of trade policy.

7. Lucy Jarosz UW 2003 ‘World Hunger and Resource Development’ Be able to: • make a good argument, expressed in effective written expression. • analyze a national economy, and carry out sector analysis. • critique concepts of development/ agrarian development & reform. • identify and assess efficacy of local solutions to global food problems. • explain ways in which food consumption is politically determined and socially constructed.

8. Geography for the New Undergraduate (GNU), Liverpool Hope University. At the end of this course you will be able to: • interpret and compare data presented in a variety of formats; identify trends and comment upon these; • critically evaluate data and other material; • critically discuss issues arising from the study of information; • develop an effective argument in order to present your ideas; and • reflect upon your contribution to the discussion and evolve strategies to develop this ability.

9. GLOOP. • You might think seriously about looking at the University of Washington’s Geography Learning Objectives and Outcomes Project (GLOOP) at: • http://nalu.geog.washington.edu/gloop/examplespage.html • This site includes links to several courses with full and carefully considered learning objectives.

10. Aligning goals and assessment tasks. • What learning outcomes have you specified for your class? What specificskills and knowledge do you want students to develop? • Try setting out no more than six outcomes for your class, beginning with the phrase: “At the end of this course students will be able to: ….”

11. What kind of assessment? • Now, for each outcome, think about how will you know that students have achieved the learning outcomes you have specified? • To do this, specify the kinds of exercises or tests you plan to use that will allow students to practise and to demonstrate to you their skills/knowledge.

12. Exam. Essay. Practical work. Laboratory report. Field report. Poster presentation. Flyer production. Media release. Article review. Group work. Log book. Map production. Role play. Spoken presentation….. See Angelo & Cross (1993) for a wide variety of others. Some examples of assessment task.

13. Question. • What are the purposes of assessment – other than ‘measuring’ learning?

14. Why assess? • Capture student attention and effort. • Generate appropriate learning activity. • Provide feedback to students. • Develop in students ability to monitor own learning standards. • Allocate marks. • Ensure accountability (to show outsiders that standards are satisfactory). Gibbs (1999)

15. Types of assessment. • Formative assessment - teachers feed information back to students in ways that enable the student to learn better. May carry a grade. • Summative assessment - attempt to summarize student learning at some point in time, say the end of a course. May be formative in context of overall program. • Both should align with intended outcomes and with teaching content.

16. Norm-referenced assessment. • Criterion-referenced assessment. • Increasingly ‘combined’.

17. Norm-referenced assessment. • ‘Grading the curve’. • Set proportion of students receive set grades. • Work assessed relative to other students in class.

18. Criterion-referenced assessment. • Direct link between extent to which specified criteria fulfilled and result achieved. • All students can pass or fail… • Does have some problems (see Hay 1995).

19. Another Question. • What are the characteristics of good assessment?

20. Assessment should be … • Timely so that students can use it for subsequent learning and work to be submitted. • Prompt so that students can recall what they did and thought at the time. • Supportive of learning so students have clear indications of how to improve their performance. • Focused on achievement, not effort. The work should be assessed, not the student • Specific to the learning outcomes. • Fostering of independence leading students to being capable of assessing their own work • Efficient for staff to do.

21. What kind of assessment? Now revisit the course you are planning: • What forms of assessment will best allow as many of these ends to be achieved as possible?

22. Useful references. • Angelo, T.A. & Cross, K.P. 1993, Classroom Assessment Techniques. A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edn, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. • Flinders University 2003, Teaching for Learning Website, Available: http://www.flinders.edu.au/teach/ (13 May 2004). • Hay, I. 2002, Communicating in Geography and the Environmental Sciences, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne. • Kearns, R.A. 2003, ‘Understanding assessment criteria’, in N.J. Clifford & G. Valentine (eds), Key Methods in Geography, Sage, London, pp. 533-549. • Nightingale, P., Te Wiata, I. et al. (eds), 1996 Assessing Learning in Universities, Professional Development Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Work/GFDA/assessment IH/ih 13 May 2004