Assessment is not always the same thing as evaluation. It’s a way to provide feedback.

1. Assessment FOR Learning fosters the journey of learning

It is separate from testing and evaluation: it is initially judgment free because it aims to establish a learning baseline and encourage honest answers to determine students’ prior knowledge. (See more at Formative Assessment below.)

2. Assessment AS Learning creates conditions where the assessment tool itself leads to learning achieved through metacognition and recognition of learning gains.

• Metacognition – assessing how I learn best: What does this assigned task require me to do? How should I begin? What do I do when I study? How could I adjust my habits to learn better?
• Recognition of own learning gains – what have I experienced here? What have I learned from this experience? How will I move forward from here?

3. Assessment OF Learning creates proof or evidence of learning for others (usually called Evaluation. It is for accreditors/governing bodies, parents, employers, public, etc.) (See Summative Assessment below.)

• Traditionally achieved through grades, credits, certifications, etc.
• Requires common standards and criteria, established targets, qualitative or (usually) ‘quantitative’ evidence

Formative Assessment and Feedback

Formative assessment, assessment is the informal gathering of data for feedback to students and instructor. No marks or grades are attached to assessment methods. Formative assessment has a huge impact on student learning, and research has shown that frequent and varied formative assessment benefits students, and instructors, greatly.

The following are some examples of formative assessment techniques:

Learning Wrappers

Learning Wrappers are a set of questions for students to answer before handing in an assignment or after a test about how they undertook the assignment, what went well, what they learned, etc. Learning wrappers build metacognition and self-regulated learning in students by forcing them to think about not just the outcome but the process of learning. They can be used for assignments, lesson, tests, or exams. Give students marks for completing a learning wrapper.

For more information, ideas and examples visit this link on Assessment refer to the Teach Anywhere website.

Examples of questions you can use in Learning Wrappers

Assess the Demands of the Assignment 

1. What is the instructor’s goal in having me do this task?
2. What are all the things I need to do to successfully accomplish this assignment?
3. How much time do I need to complete the task?
4. What skills are required of me to complete the assignment?  i.e., research, technology

Evaluate Your Own Skills/Knowledge 

1. How effective are my skills that are required to complete the assignment?
2. If I have done something like this before, how could I do a better job this time?

Plan Assignment Approach 

1. How much time do I plan on working on the assignment?
2. Over what period of time and for how long each time do I need to work on my assignment?
3. What are the major steps to completing this assignment?
4. What strategies will I use to complete the assignment?
5. What resources do I need to complete the task? How will I make sure I have them?

Monitoring Your Assignment Progress 

1. What strategies am I using that are working well or not working well to help me learn?
2. What other resources could I be using to complete this task? What action should I take to get these?
3. What is most challenging for me about this task? Most confusing?

Adjust Strategies to Strengthen this Assignment 

1. What could I do differently mid-assignment to address these challenges and confusions?

Self-Evaluate Your Assignment 

1. To what extent did I successfully accomplish the goals of the task?
2. To what extent did I use resources available to me?
3. If I were the instructor, what would I identify as strengths of my work and flaws in my work?

Self-Reflect on Instructor Graded Assignment 

To be completed after receiving the graded assignment.

1. Approximately how much time did I spend on the assignment?
2. Did I monitor MY assignment progress as time got closer to the assignment due date?
3. When I had difficulties with any aspect of the assignment I tried alternative strategies?
4. Now that I have looked over my graded assignment, what were the top three areas I lost the most marks on?

Adjust Strategies for Next Assignment 

1. When I do an assignment or task like this again, what do I want to remember to do differently?
2. What worked well for me that I should use next time?

Summative Assessment and Grading

Evaluation, sometimes called summative assessment, the assessment of learning (with a purpose of reporting and making decisions) that involves a formal gathering of data for feedback to students and instructors. Evaluation results in the giving of grades, marks, levels, etc. that provides a value to the learning that has been demonstrated.

Strategies for Fair Grading

Each department or faculty may have specific guidelines surrounding marks, assignments, grading practices, grading scales, norm or criterion referenced evaluation and communication of marks/grades to students. Ensure that you have checked your department and university policies to ensure that your expectations of students are congruent with the system wide policies.

Once you are familiar with your departments grading policies there are a few ways that you can keep grading fair, one is to institute rubrics for written assignments. Rubrics layout the expectations for an assignment and allow an instructor to tell the students how they will be graded for an assignment based on what the student includes in their paper. Not only does this let the student know what is expected but it also allows the faculty member to control any subjective bias they may have. With specific outcomes required to achieve specific grades laid out beforehand, students are not guessing at what they need to do to get a certain grade and faculty are able to follow a prescribed formula to come up with a final grade.

Other strategies you may want to try are:

• Blind grading where you collect all papers and hide the cover pages so you are unaware of whose paper you are marking
• Marking everyone’s first question, then move on to everyone’s second question, etc. This way you can maintain a singular thought pattern and maintain a clear picture of what you are looking for in an answer, this also helps you avoid getting to the end of your marking and the final few assignments you mark get short-changed with comments as you just want to get done.

What are Rubrics?

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. It divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments including papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.

Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria that is designed to reflect the weighted importance of the objectives of the assignment helps ensure that the instructor’s grading standards don’t change over time. Furthermore, rubrics can reduce the time spent grading by reducing uncertainty and by allowing instructors to refer to the rubric description associated with a score rather than having to write long comments.

Used formatively, rubrics can help instructors get a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their class. By recording the component scores and tallying up the number of students scoring below an acceptable level on each component, instructors can identify those skills or concepts that need more instructional time and student effort.

Grading rubrics are also valuable to students. When rubrics are given to students with the assignment description, they can help students monitor and assess their progress as they work toward clearly indicated goals. When assignments are scored and returned with the rubric, students can more easily recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their work and direct their efforts accordingly.

Testing

When designing tests, the primary objectives of the course are what need to be forefront in your mind, and the test should be based on all components (videos, lectures, labs, and readings) of the course. Tests can also be used to provide an opportunity for more learning to take place; students can think about what they learned in a new way.

Make sure your students know what kind of exam questions you will be asking, and as old exams may be available to some students it may be in your best interest to provide an old exam to everyone. If your exam is based more on rote memorization and not a deeper understanding of the material your students will prepare accordingly, and deeper learning may not occur.

Be prepared for the volume of marking your exam will require. While essay questions allow students more of an opportunity to organize their thoughts and show a deeper learning, they also require more time to grade so if you have deadlines to meet with your course grades be prepared.

EXAM CHECKLIST

Here are some things to think about as your exam date approaches:

• Are your students prepared?
• Have your students been exposed to similar styles of questions that they will have on the exam? Throughout the term, ensure you have exposed your students to many question types.
• Have they seen a practice exam?
• Does the exam reflect the goals for the course?
• Have the students covered everything that they will see on the exam?
• Will the students realistically be able to complete the exam in the allotted time?
• Are your instructions clear and concise? Students will waste time trying to understand a question if you have unclear instructions.
• How much is each question worth?
• If a student were to have to choose due to time constraints would be they be able to choose the question that is worth the most value to their final mark.
• Does the structure of the questions themselves allow the students to build confidence? Easier questions at the beginning of a test can help with test anxiety.

Making the Most of Multiple-Choice Questions: Getting Beyond Remembering

David DiBattista’s article is fully accessed at https://celt.uwindsor.ca/index.php/CELT/article/view/3190

Several strategies are presented in this article for generating multiple-choice questions that can effectively assess students’ ability to understand, apply, analyze, and evaluate information.

Below is a brief summary of one of those ideas:

Multiple-choice questions are widely used in higher education and have some important advantages over constructed-response test questions. It seems, however, that many teachers underestimate the value of multiple-choice questions, believing them to be useful only for assessing how well students can memorize information, but not for assessing higher-order cognitive skills.

Consider a typical question from multiple-choice test bank accompanying an introductory psychology textbook:

This question asks students to do nothing more than remember a fact – namely, that an unconditioned stimulus elicits a particular response without any prior training. Students do not have to know anything at all about the details of classical conditioning or how it works…Indeed, students who cram the night before the test might very well memorize the definition for unconditioned stimulus, answer correctly, and then promptly forget the information immediately afterward. Unfortunately, low-level items like Question 1 are often encountered in test banks, but the good news is that we can use this item as a starting point to generate a question that requires students to have learned something important about classical conditioning.

Question Revised

Notice that the four alternatives that are provided have not changed at all, and the correct answer is still alternative B. However, the revised question requires students to understand the concepts underlying classical conditioning, and furthermore to be able to classify the role of Drug X in this research setting that they are seeing for the first time.

Grading Assignments

Two weeks from the time the assignment was submitted is suggested as a reasonable “turnaround” time for marking or providing feedback on assignments.

With reference to student retention and engagement, withdrawal from a course, is often related to a student’s perception of how they are doing. Best practices in teaching often require that students receive some formative feedback three (3) weeks into a course. It need not be a cumbersome process, e.g., quiz asking students to list the five (5) main principles of a particular approach. Reasons for withdrawal from a course are varied and it is incumbent upon instructors to be aware of student behaviours or course outcomes that may present as warning signs. Informal (and formal) methods of checking the status of such students is important. Preventing unnecessary withdrawals and understanding the reasons for course/program withdrawals is important for NIC evaluation processes.

Extensions on assignments, within the confines of the end of term dates, are up to the instructor to negotiate. You should outline your extension policy on the course outline.

Incomplete grades should be formally contracted for as per the calendar description and proof of the need for such action can be required of the student. An incomplete grade automatically converts to an F if it is not changed by the end of the following term. To prevent this, the instructor MUST submit a change form (withdrawal form) to the Registration Center. If this is not done, a grade of “F” (Grade Point 00) will be assigned.

Efficient Marking Practices

Marking! Many instructors spend long hours into the evenings and weekend marking written assignments. Many report that they are honoring the hard work of their students by putting a significant amount of time into marking, and that the longer the marking takes the more student learning takes place. Many of these same instructors also feel exhausted and deflated after hours of marking, and new instructors often fall into this “grading trap.” Is it really the case that more marking equals more learning? There are ways we can be focused and efficient in our marking practices to both maximize student learning and free up instructor time to focus on planning and preparing for engaged and quality student learning in our classes. With the right planning, strategies, and techniques instructors can provide students with frequent, focused, and useful feedback.

Grading Group Work

Adapted from Eberley Center, Carnegie Mellon https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/groupprojects/assess.html

All the principles of assessment that apply to individual work apply to group work as well. Assessing group work has added challenges, however.

First, depending on the objectives of the assignment, the instructor might want to assess the team’s final product (e.g., design, report, presentation), their group processes (e.g., ability to meet deadlines, contribute fairly, communicate effectively), or both. Second, group performance must be translated into individual grades – which raises issues of fairness and equity.

Assess Individual, As Well As Group, Learning and Performance

Diligent students can be profoundly demotivated by group projects if they feel that their own success is dependent on team members who don’t do their share. One way to counteract the motivational hazards of group projects is to assess individual students’ learning and performance in addition to the group’s output. This strategy gives diligent students a greater sense of fairness and control and discourages free ridership.

Individual learning and performance can be assessed in any number of ways. Some instructors add an individual component to group projects (e.g., a short essay, journal entries); some combine a group project with an individual test or quiz. Both group and individual performance are then reflected in the total project grade (e.g., some faculty members make the group grade worth 50% and the individual grade worth 50%; others split it 80%/20%. There’s no perfect breakdown, but the grading scheme should (a) reflect your goals for student learning and (b) seek to motivate the kind of work you want to see.)

Assess Process as Well as Product

If developing teamwork skills is one of your learning objectives for the course, it’s important to assess students’ progress toward that goal. In other words, you should assess process (how students work) as well as product (the work they produce).

Process can be assessed according to a number of dimensions, such as the ability to generate a range of ideas, listen respectfully to disparate perspectives, distribute work fairly, resolve differences, and communicate effectively.

Since instructors don’t always have a direct window into the dynamics of student groups, they often rely on teams to self-report via:

• Team evaluations: each member of the team evaluates the dynamics of the team as a whole
• Peer evaluations: each team member evaluates the contributions of his/her teammates
• Self-evaluations: each team member documents and evaluates his own contributions to the team

Make Your Assessment Criteria and Grading Scheme Clear

It’s always important to articulate your performance criteria so students understand your expectations and standards. This is especially true if you are emphasizing skills that are not usually assessed, such as the ability to resolve conflict, delegate tasks, etc. Criteria for evaluating both product and process can be communicated by giving students a group work rubric before they begin their work and then using it to provide meaningful feedback during and at the end of the project.

It’s also important to think about how you will weigh the various components of group projects in your grading scheme.

Some questions to consider:

• What percentage of the student’s total project grade will be based on the group’s performance vs. individual components?
• What percentage will be based on assessments of product vs. assessments of process?
• How much weight will you give to peer evaluations or self-evaluations?
• Will feedback from external clients also be incorporated into your assessment of the group’s work?

Should You Mark Class Participation

It is tempting to include a class participation mark as a means of encouraging dialogue. There are two problems with this that merit serious consideration: first, can you and will you evaluate participation fairly, and second, does a mark (i.e. a threat) promote the kind of active engagement you are seeking? Students often pay more attention to how you mark them than to the course content, so if you are marking class participation there is risk of it becoming more of a subjective exercise that could potentially be exclusionary to those students who are not as outwardly or naturally participatory. Consequently, if you wish to mark class participation, you need to have an explicit rubric (e.g. 1 point for each question asked in class, 2 points for each correct answer, etc), and to have clear written records of who did what in each class. In other words, you will be spending a significant amount of class time noting who is talking and assigning marks to it.

The second point is perhaps even more important: what kind of classroom atmosphere do you want to promote? Do you want an engaged community of learners who are not afraid to contribute and who are thinking about the course material and what is interesting about it? It is difficult to achieve this when students feel coerced into something that they are not comfortable doing. They may be distracted by the pressure and the tension, and so actually become less engaged with the material. And, of course, the students who are uncomfortable will not participate anyway and will therefore be penalized to no effect.

Professionalism Rubric

Instead of marking attendance or participation consider using a Learner Professionalism Rubric or Checklist. Professionalism Rubrics focus on the behaviour, actions and activities of an academically honest and engaged student. These lists of descriptive phrases are often clustered into themes such as time management, teamwork, respect, preparedness, etc. They can be built in collaboration with students and used as a springboard for discussion on what professional learning looks and feels like. Professionalism Rubrics and Checklists can be used as a reflection exercise part way or multiple times through the term, and then students can assign themselves a final grade at the end of the course.

For more information, ideas and examples visit this link on Assessment and scroll to number 8. https://teachanywhere.opened.ca/course-design/assessment/focused-simple-aligned-ideas/

Ungrading

Often when we provide grades and feedback at the same time students focus on the grade at the expense of learning from the feedback. Ungrading is all about separating grades from feedback to enhance student learning. There is strong evidence showing that grading is NOT essential to the instructional process, and that grades often fail to provide reliable information about student learning (Schinske and Tanner, 2014).

If you are going to do away with grading, you still need to give clear criteria and expectations for student learning. You still need to provide students with multiple opportunities for demonstrating their learning – through assignments, activities, projects, presentations, research, portfolios, and other forms of culminating their knowledge. Providing lots of feedback through a variety of formats is critical for learning. Feedback = “How did the student do?” + “How can they continue to grow and learn, improve work, enhance skills and knowledge and be successful?” Refocus your efforts on more feedback (without grades/marks) for students. Include more dialogue with students about why you are not grading to help them see the value in going ‘gradeless’.

“Because I put myself out of the grading loop, I can focus all my efforts on feedback and encouragement – on teaching not grading.”

– Laura Gibbs, “(Un)grading, it can be done in college”

“But wait, I still need to submit a grade to the college!” Submitting a letter grade is a common requirement for post-secondary educators teaching in colleges and universities. It is often unavoidable because the system still relies on grades for calculating GPAs that are tied to grants, scholarships, and admissions to future studies – as well – other courses / instructors are still using grades. Often using a Pass/Fail (Credit/No Credit) designation for a course removes the course from being calculated in the overall GPA and may cause additional complications for students. So, the million-dollar question: How do you submit a final grade in a gradeless or ungraded course?

There are several possibilities including students assigning themselves a letter grade at the end of the terms, grading contracts, and point systems (Stommel, 2018). To use the simplest method, ask the students to assign themselves a grade (A, B, C etc.) and provide justification for that grade. Have the students hand in their self-evaluation and rationale, and discuss with the students in short consultations. Let students know at the beginning of the course you have the right to make any adjustments to course grades. Whatever method you choose to use to come up with a grade it must be planned, communicated, and engage students in the process.

For more information, ideas, and resources on Ungrading visit the following link:

https://teachanywhere.opened.ca/practices/ungrading/

References

Gibbs, L. (2016). (Un) Grading: It can be done in college. Guest post on Education Week Teacher: Available: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2016/03/ungrading_it_can_be_done_in_co.html

Schinske, J. & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently). CBE Life Sciences Education, 13 (2). pp. 159-166. Available: 10.1187/cbe.CBE-14-03-0054

Stommel, J. (March 11, 2018). How to UnGrade. Personal Blog Post: Jesse Stommel. Available: https://www.jessestommel.com/how-to-ungrade/