Course Assessment

How are learning goals addressed in the course?

Which activities (within and outside of class) support students in meeting your learning objectives?

Mapping your student learning objectives (SLOs) to the course curriculum will show the extent to which the objectives are addressed in your course and help to structure course content in ways that promote learning.

Take inventory of the learning activities and instructional strategies in your course and determine whether they guide your students to meet course goals.

• How do the learning objectives of each lesson align to the learning goal of the course?
• Do students’ learning experiences build on one another and point directly to course goals?

Use our Learning Objectives Organizer as a framework to communicate the alignment of course goals with assessments and learning experiences. This framework can be used to create your course map, as well as communicate its alignment to colleagues and students.

To learn more about research-based teaching principles like course mapping, we recommend How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (Ambrose et al. Wiley, 2010).

   How will you know what your students are learning?

What tasks / assignments / tests will allow students to demonstrate whether they have achieved a course learning objective?

When learning activities and assessments relate directly to learning goals, your students become more likely to meet them. If course goals, learning activities and assessments are not in alignment, students spend time on activities that do not lead to your intended outcomes, which can undermine both student motivation and learning. Consider these two scenarios:

Your goal is for students to learn to apply analytical skills, but your assessment measures only factual recall. Consequently, students are frustrated that the exam does not measure what they learned.

Your assessments measure students’ ability to compare and critique, but your instructional strategies focus entirely on summarizing. Consequently, students do not practice the skills of comparison and evaluation that will be assessed.

Mapping course goals to assessment methods ensures the effective evaluation of student learning and helps to identify what’s working and not working for students in a course. Make a list of your course goals and objectives and designate assessments as measures (see our Learning Objectives Organizer). Keep in mind that intentionally designed assignments that are transparent about purpose, task, and criteria for evaluation have been found to lead to greater student success (Winkelmes et al., 2016). Finally, consider getting together with other faculty to discuss your learning assessment strategies.

Learning assessments generally fall into one of two categories: Formative and Summative. Click below to learn more.

Formative assessments are informal, ungraded activities. Their aim is to (1) help students identify their strengths and weaknesses to better target areas that need work; and (2) help faculty recognize where students are struggling at the current moment.

Formative assessments help instructors meet the emerging needs of the class by answering questions such as, “Do I need to re-explain that concept differently?” or “Do I need to change my pedagogical approach to engage this group of students?”  Formative assessments also encourage students to monitor their own learning and signal to students that we are interested in their learning, which can positively affect student motivation.

Some examples include:

One-Minute Paper: Check students’ understanding by asking them to take out a sheet of paper and take one minute to write down an explanation of a concept, solve an equation, or cite the main points from a lecture or assignment.

Muddiest Point Paper: Check students’ understanding by asking them to take out a sheet of paper and take one minute to write down a question about the most confusing aspect of the lesson or course topic.

Polls/Clickers: Data on student learning can be gathered during class via tools such as Poll Everywhere. These data can provide a view of student engagement with the material as well as prior knowledge, misconceptions, and comprehension.

Checks for Understanding: Pausing every few minutes to see whether students are following along not only identifies gaps in comprehension, but helps break up lectures (e.g, with Clicker questions) or online lessons (e.g., with embedded quiz questions) into more digestible bites.

Directed Paraphrase: After working through a topic, ask students to explain the content  in their own words.

Wrappers: “Wrappers” incorporate reflective questions to help students develop self-regulated learning skills, where they monitor their learning and address gaps in learning as necessary.

• • Exam Wrappers include questions about preparation strategies, remaining questions, study goals, and so on. This helps students to reflect on their study strategies and better prepare for future exams.
  • Lecture Wrappers include questions at the end of class about what the key points were. Having students compare their key points can help students develop skills in active listening.

It is equally important to think carefully about how best to implement formative assessments into your course. These guides on in-class activities and active learning can be helpful.

Given what you’ve learned, where can changes be made?

Assessment findings ensure our decisions about changes in course design or instruction are evidence-based and point us to the ways in which we might better support students’ opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge required to achieve a learning goal.

“Closing the Loop” actions might entail spending more or less time on a particular course topic, changing the sequencing of course topics or activities, incorporating metacognitive exercises or providing more opportunities for self-assessment, restructuring assignments, providing more frequent feedback, using different summative assessment methods, or realigning the learning goals of the course to learning activities and assessment methods.

Remember, assessment incorporates the view of teaching as an ongoing process of inquiry, experimentation, reflection, and innovation. When your assessment findings reveal gaps in student learning, consider the following questions:

• Do you have the right learning goals?
• Do you have too many learning goals?
• Do students have enough learning opportunities to develop needed skills?
• Do you need to improve your assessment methods (i.e. quizzes, exams, etc)?

Thinking about the curriculum (course content, sequencing, teaching methods, assignments, etc.) consider:

• How are course tasks related to exams/major assignments?
• How are the exams/major assignments related to each other?
• How do the exams/major assignments address each course learning goal?
• What other forms of assessment can be used as indicators of student learning?
• How is feedback on student work provided to help students improve?
• Are the assessments structured in a way to help students assess their own work and progress?

Finally, if any changes are made, be sure to develop a plan to assess the impact of those changes in the future, keeping in mind that assessment is a cyclical, systematic process.