BLOG POSTS (Due September 28):
First post: Here you will begin to think about assessment and tying it in to your learning outcomes. You have already thought about and written what your goals and outcomes may be, as well as considered a needs assessment for your learners. Here, you will start to plan how to provide effective feedback to your students. Read pages 13-14 of Fink's Guide and post your answers to the questions on page 15 in your blog.
Procedures for Educative Assessment
1. Forward-Looking Assessment
Formulate one or two ideas for forward-looking assessment. Identify a situation in which students are likely to use what they have learned, and try to replicate that situation with a question, problem, or issue.
My students will be expected to find high-quality, reliable resources throughout their time in college. A possible situation could be, "You are writing a paper on x for y class - identify 2-3 discipline-specific databases to use while working on your literature review."
My students will also need to evaluate sources of information throughout their life. A possible situation could be, "You are planning to purchase your first home and need to learn more about credit scores and mortgage rates. Find three sources on this topic and evaluate them for accuracy, authority, timeliness, etc."
2. Criteria & Standards
Select one of your main learning goals, and identify at least two criteria that would distinguish exceptional achievement from poor performance. Then write two or three levels of standards for each of these criteria.
Criteria: “What are the general traits or characteristics of high quality work in this area?”
Standards: "How good does the work have to be, to be acceptably good or exceptionally good?"
For my main application goal from Week 1 (having students develop their critical thinking skills and evaluate their resources), I could plan a brief bibliography assignment. Criteria for the sources in the bibliography would involve whether the bibliography contained 1) peer-reviewed sources and 2) appropriately recent sources. Standards might be based on the number of sources that fit these criteria. For example, including 0 sources that are peer-reviewed would be "unacceptable," 1-2 sources would be "adequate," 3-5 sources would be "good," and 6-10 sources would be "excellent."
3. Self-Assessment
What opportunities can you create for students to engage in self-assessment of their performance?
I think I would ask the students to get into small groups to rate each others' bibliographies. They could ask each other about the quality of the sources each student in the group chose (if they're peer-reviewed, recent, etc.), and this discussion would help them learn to self-assess their own bibliographies in the future.
4. “FIDeLity” Feedback
What procedures can you develop that will allow you to give students feedback that is:
- Frequent
- Immediate
- Discriminating, i.e., based on clear criteria and standards
- Lovingly delivered
If I asked students to prepare a draft before our class meeting, I'd include clear criteria and standards with the details of the assignment (which I'd ask the First Year Seminar instructor to share with the class a few days before our library session). This would cover the discriminating part.
To be empathetic in delivering feedback, I'd include contextualizing comments and suggestions for improvement, rather than demands. This part of the feedback process is simplified since I am not grading these students, and am meeting with them as a provider of academic support.
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