📄️ Assessment Opportunity Basics
We recently helped an instructor transform a traditionally graded course into one that uses mastery grading. Our word choice was careful there. The course was designed with a traditional grading (fixed mindset) lean. We mean no offense -- the course was creative and involved many active learning pedagogies -- but the assessment opportunities were designed with a focus on behavioral outcomes rather than course objectives.
📄️ Designing Project & Presentation Assessments
Here, we define a project as a summative assessment that allows students to apply the skills from multiple objectives. Generally, students have weeks or months to complete a project, differentiating it from homework or other types of assessments.
📄️ Designing Homework Assessments
In this section, we're going to talk about homework. We know, homework is a hot-button issue for most everyone in the education sphere. Instructors love/hate it in equal parts, students see it as forced labor (or some other insensitive exaggeration), and administrators see it as a way to keep kids off the streets (or at least they did when we were in school). Homework is a touchy subject, but we're feeling brave. Let's go.
📄️ Designing Exam Assessments
Let's think about where you are and how far you've come. You're thinking about making the switch to mastery grading (or you're actually making the switch!). You've written your objectives, considered your grading scheme, converted your assignments and projects, and you're really excited. This is going to be the best term ever!
📄️ Designing Participation Assessments
Like homework, the question of whether to give students "credit" for their participation in course activities is hotly contested. One camp says that assessing students for participation is inequitable because diverse populations of students can't be expected to be present in class every single day. The other camp says that assessing participation (peer instruction and the like) is beneficial because it actually improves student performance overall.