- Assessing Student Learning: this link, from Carnegie Mellon, has many additional links to rubrics, assessment techniques, etc.
- Authentic Assessment and Rubrics: Scroll down to see the many links to samples. Assessment methods based as closely as possible to real world experiences are called authentic assessment.
- Reframing Your Approach to Grading and Feedback: three specific lessons that have made a big impact on how this author approaches responding to student writing.
- University of Wisconsin/Stout-Designing Outstanding Rubrics: Consider how to creatively-design rubrics, enhance assessment and performance and view examples of outstanding rubrics. There are tons of additional pages and links on this page.
- Student reflection is an exercise that I personally feel does not get enough ‘air-time’ in online courses [or F2F courses, usually due to lack of time]. I think that thinking about our thinking = metacognition is underrated and that makes me sad that we lose opportunities to learn because we are so busy moving forward, we do not take the time to stop and actively reflect. Rena states, in her book, “The reflection process transforms a participant in an online course from a student to a reflective practitioner and ideally, sets in motion the potential for lifelong reflective learning,” (Palloff and Pratt. Pg. 41). In order to become a reflective practitioner, students have to –well, practice.I believe we reflect and evaluate in order to determine what and where we are doing well and what and where we might be able to grow and improve. It is by employing these metacognition skills that we are able to take some control of our learning. We might want to focus on some [or all] of a variety of reflective formats such as:
- description,
- analysis,
- synthesis/judgment
- goal setting.
In an online class student reflections- might be shared only with the instructor and/or shared publicly. In any case they might look like:
- a journal entry,
- an exit ticket,
- checklists with annotations,
- portfolio examples,
- blog posts including annotations,
- contemplations of strategies used in solving problems.
Carol Dweck, a long-time proponent of metacognition, was trying to determine why some people achieve their potential while equally talented others do not. Dweck found that, “The key isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated or as something that can be developed,” (2007). Broadly speaking, by implementing reflective practices students can move toward a highly developed mindset and hopefully realize their potential.
This is a nice 10 minute TedTalk with Carol Dweck talking about “The power of believing you can improve.” Perhaps with self-reflection, students might begin to pinpoint how they can grow their mindset, (Pink). Give yourself 10 minutes to see if you agree 😉
An example of two types of course evaluations are: formative and summative. Our text reminds us that formative is ongoing and can happen any time during the course while summative occurs at the end of a course [Palloff and Pratt. Pg 205]. So, a mid-course evaluation [which surprisingly was missing from this course*] would be a formative evaluation. While an end-of course evaluation would be summative.
A way I keep these straight, in my head, is to think of formative as to be done while something isforming. A mid-course evaluation allows an instructor to re-direct the course. A summative is done at the end and evaluates [or summarizes] the entire process.
*Note: one could consider the Faculty ToolKit Check-In as a type of formative assessment of the process of creating our toolkits.
Course evaluations are normally standardized across the institution and I feel tend to be very general in nature. Also remember they are a piece of the accreditation requirement of any higher education institution i.e. BPU is accredited by NEASC (Links to an external site.).
Personally, I take issue with these types of evaluations [the end-of-course-evals], as they are usually too vague to be of much more than either a raving review or full of complaints. I do not believe that much overall good comes from the current course evaluations-other than full-filling accreditation requirements. It is a lot like a doctor evaluating a patient on a single test. No, doctors relies upon a single test, they do batteries of tests when evaluating a patient and in fact, patients often get second opinions from other doctors = more evaluation. I hope I am wrong with my opinion of course evaluations.
Mid course formative evaluations can assist an online instructor in determining how make adjustments to their course-while the course is in process. Summative evaluations could help to make corrections or adjustments in both the course and/or the program of studies.
Karkovsky, M. (2007. March/April). The Effort Effect. Stanford Alumni. Retrieved from: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=32124 (Links to an external site.)
Klein, S. (2003). What is an ePortfolio?. Reflection. University of Wisconsin/Stout. Retrieved from: http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/art/artedportfolios/reflection/index.html (Links to an external site.)
Metacognition. (2014. March, 7). EduTech Wiki. Retrieved from:http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Metacognition (Links to an external site.)
Palloff, R and Pratt, K. (2013). Lessons from the Virtual Classroom. The Realities of Online Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint.
The 3 Rules of Mindset. (n.d.) Daniel H. Pink: Dan’s Bookshelf. Retrieved from: http://www.danpink.com/2010/11/the-3-rules-of-mindsets/
- As wonderful as Carol Dweck is, I would also like you to listen to Elon Musk. You might have heard about him, he invented the Tesla electric car. In this Ted Talk, he discusses that, along with solar power and a rocket he is building….what I ask you to do, is fast-forward to the 18 minute mark and listen to the 2-3 minutes and hear what Elon has to say about ‘thinking’.
Do you want to come up with more imaginative ideas? Do you stumble with complicated problems? Do you want to find new ways to confront challenges? Read about Edward Burger and Michael Starbird’s 5 Elements of Effective Thinking. (Links to an external site.)You can also read about Shane Parrish’s What Matters More in Decisions: Analysis or Process? (Links to an external site.) Be careful, you can fall down the rabbit hole of thinking about thinking….it’s fascinating stuff…I think.
- I came across a couple of good articles further explaining the whys and hows of assessment. These are from the Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation.
- Why should assessments learning objectives and instructional strategies be aligned? This includes a chart on what well-aligned assessments look like. Look at the chart below [click on the image for a larger view] with my favorite version of Blooms Taxonomy
- What is the difference between formative and summative assessment. Basic info nicely explained.
