CPAD Shares

CPAD Shares Issue #6: Summative Assessment

cad256Leave a comment

C-PAD Shares #6, February 2023

Featured Theme: Summative Assessment

If we think of formative assessments as “low stakes”, then we should think of summative assessments as “high stakes.” Summative assessments serve to evaluate a student’s acquired capabilities over time in relation to specific learning goals.

The three articles that follow offer practical advice for faculty looking to measure student capability and growth more effectively. Taken together, they cover essential considerations, convey some surprising findings on student preference, and identify factors that make some assessments superior to others.

Summative Assessment

Baylor University Academy for Teaching and Learning

Article reading time: 5 minutes

This brief teaching guide does a lovely job of quickly highlighting summative assessment design concerns, while also taking an enlightened perspective regarding the interrelationship of formative and summative assessment (see Shares #5 for a treatment of formative assessment).

While multiple choice and short answer question-based tests, essays, and research projects are common assessments, a much wider array is available. Depending on your students’ learning goals, less familiar approaches like instructor observations, portfolios, or peer/self-evaluation may be appropriate (see the second article below for revealing findings about popular and effective assessment options).

Read on to learn the three factors driving assessment choice, the critically important aspects of validity and reliability, the role of feedback, and suggested options for orchestrating formative and summative assessment to best effect.

 

Which Assessment Strategies Do Students Prefer?

Faculty Focus, October 27, 2017

By Dr. John Orlando, educational technology speaker and consultant

Article reading time: 5 minutes

The author summarizes a research article published in the Journal of Interactive Online Learning in 2015. The researchers experimented with different assessment strategies in two online courses in educational leadership, then surveyed students, having them rank each according to three factors: enjoyment, engagement with the material, and knowledge creation likely to transfer to real world practice.

Two key findings emerged: 1) the three factors correlated consistently, boding well for highly-rated types, and 2) traditional assessments rated very low in all respects. Quizzes came in dead last, largely because students see no transfer value beyond the material tested. Interestingly, the most popular strategy was written analysis to documentary videos.

Read on to learn why the 12 assessment types scored as they did, and near the end of the article note the principles that account for the most effective types.

 

 

Alternatives to Traditional Exams and Papers

Indiana University Bloomington, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

Article reading time: 4 minutes

If you are considering non-traditional approaches to assessment, you may find this decision guide useful. The first part of the guide poses questions you should answer to clarify the specific knowledge, skills, or abilities you are looking to assess.

The second part of the guide lists alternatives to multiple-choice exams that can be used in many disciplines and contexts. Note that the organization is based on the kind of cognitive processes or skills required:

  • Those that assess student creativity
  • Those that require analysis or evaluation
  • Those that require similar work as a term paper, but in a much shorter document
  • Those that demonstrate deep understanding of course material
  • Those that require the integration of skills and knowledge

What assessment approaches do you use? C-PAD welcomes any comments you care to make regarding this resource or topic.

CPAD Shares Issue #5: Formative Assessment

cad256Leave a comment

C-PAD Shares #5, January 2023 

Featured Theme: Formative Assessment 

 

 

Right about now, you are probably wondering “what on earth is formative assessment?” This bit of educational jargon refers to “a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course.”1 Formative assessment is contrasted with the more familiar summative assessment, which evaluates student achievement (exams, research papers, major assignments, etc.). The two types differ by purpose: formative assessment aims to inform in-process teaching and learning modifications to help students improve their learning. 

 

Daydreaming or Deep in Thought? Using Formative Assessment to Evaluate Student Participation 

 

By Carolyn Ives, curriculum planning and development coordinator for the Centre for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence at MacEwan University, Canada 

 

Reading length—4 minutes 

 

In this Faculty Focus article from 2014, Ives points to the dilemma many instructors face in trying to increase student participation in their classes: on the one hand, anything that serves to heighten student engagement seems desirable, but on the other hand, observable activity does not necessarily correlate with stronger engagement. Furthermore, some students may be genuinely engaged, but in a less overt way. 

 

How do you “observe” active engagement? How do you foster it? How do you measure it? While several strategies used in concert provide the best answer, Ives states that “the most useful method I have found to evaluate student participation is the inclusion of formative assessment techniques in my classes.”2 

 

Read on to learn what these techniques are, how they are graded, and what benefits they provide to both students and instructor.
 

Harnessing the Student Voice: Why Student-centered Teaching and Learning Starts with Formative Assessment 

 

Juli S. Charkes, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Mercy College 

 

Reading length—4 minutes 

 

Perhaps you can relate to the lament of an experienced faculty member who seemingly had tried everything to stimulate increased enthusiasm and engagement in her students: “If only I knew what they needed.” Mercy College’s Center for Teaching and Learning had a ready reply: ask the students directly about their learning experience by applying a formative assessment tool. 

 

The Center’s formative assessment initiative has succeeded in increasing faculty adoption of formative assessment techniques, which emphasize inclusion, enhance metacognition, and support faculty satisfaction. Asked to evaluate the impact of the initiative, 88% of participating faculty reported that they found it helpful or very helpful to have access to student formative assessment data. More than 80% indicated their intent to implement new teaching techniques based on formative assessment feedback. 

 

20 Formative Assessment Examples To Use In Your College Classroom 

 

Written by Top Hat staff for the Top Hat Teaching Tips blog 

 

Reminder: Penn State does license Top Hat, which integrates with Canvas or may be used separately. See our Top Hat site for more information. 

 

These assessment approaches are not Top Hat-specific, though Top Hat may be used for several of them (see the “tools you can use to run formative assessments” section). The twenty examples are organized under the following categories: 

  • Assessing course-related skills and knowledge 
  • Developing critical thinking and analysis skills 
  • Encouraging students to think creatively 
  • Enhancing problem-solving skills 
  • Assessing student performance and application abilities 
  • Understanding student self-awareness, attitudes and values 
  • Understanding student learning behaviors, strategies and skills 
  • Assessing student reactions to learning 

 

 

Next month, we will share the flip side of the assessment coin: summative assessment.  

 

 

  1. Formative Assessment (4/29/2014) The Glossary of Education Reform. Available at: https://www.edglossary.org/formative-assessment/ (Accessed: December 14, 2022).
     
  1. Daydreaming or Deep in Thought? Using Formative Assessment to Evaluate Student Participation (3/24/2014) Faculty Focus. Available at: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/daydreaming-deep-thought-using-formative-assessment-evaluate-student-participation/ (Accessed: December 14, 2022). 

 

 

CPAD Shares Issue 4: EDUCAUSE and Open Education

cad256Leave a comment

C-PAD Shares #4, December 2022

Featured Theme: EDUCAUSE and Open Education

 

classroom with books on desk

 

 

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. EDUCAUSE is a highly regarded professional association providing programs, services, and thought leadership to the higher ed information technology community.

 

One popular and quite useful service they provide is the “7 Things You Should Know About” series of briefings, which serve as primers dealing with the most pressing challenges, significant technology developments, and key issues confronting higher education.

 

Each “7 Things” publication answers seven questions in a mere two pages:

 

  1. What is it?
  2. How does it work?
  3. Who’s doing it?
  4. Why is it significant?
  5. What are the downsides?
  6. Where is it going?
  7. What are the implications for higher education?

 

The Open Educational Consortium defines Open Education as an approach that “encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.”1 In 2018, EDUCAUSE published a three-part series structured around the main components of Open Education: content, practices, and policies.

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Content

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

EDUCAUSE defines OER (Open Educational Resources) as “teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or that have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others. OER includes textbooks, curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, video, audio, simulations, assessments, and any other content used in education.”2

 

Read on to see why OER adoption is on the rise in higher education, and what the implications may be for you and your students.

 

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Practices

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

While advocates of Open Education are often initially motivated by maximized access to curricular materials and the reduced cost of resources, they soon discover more significant reasons to continue the practice. They observe powerful and unexpected student learning that invites reflection regarding the potential of new teaching approaches not previously possible.

 

Students evidence learning that is more authentic, participatory, and engaged, demonstrating deeper and more complete understanding of what they are learning. Over time, faculty develop greater agency and autonomy. What begins as simply another means to teach becomes a catalyst for a very different kind of teaching.

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Policies

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

This article addresses the dilemma OEP practitioners face when their college or university has not articulated an institutional commitment to OER or OEP, compounded by the lack of a comprehensive open education policy statement. Key questions include:

 

  • How can interested faculty be clear regarding whether (and specifically how) they may use OER?
  • What is expressly permitted in the development, adoption, and sharing of OER and the integration of OEP into courses?
  • How does adoption of OER or incorporating OEP impact promotion and tenure?
  • Who holds copyright to work produced with university funding? Are faculty legally free to openly license work produced through Open Education processes?

 

 

If Open Education is unfamiliar to you, we hope these 21 things you should know will leave you better informed and maybe a little intrigued.

 

 

  1. About The Open Education Consortium (no date) The Open Education Consortium. Available at: https://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/ (Accessed: November 30, 2022).
  2. Contributions by: Green, C., Illowsky, B., Wiley, D., Ernst, D., Young, L. (2018) 7 things you should know about open education: Content, EDUCAUSE. Available at: https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/6/7-things-you-should-know-about-open-education-content (Accessed: November 30, 2022).