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Effective Assessment Strategies

Link between courses, topics, assessment and learning outcomes

Be sure of the big picture. Remember that while you experience a topic, students experience a course. Students often fail to see the link between an individual topic and the course as a whole. Identify the link between the assessment and the topic, the topic and the course and the topics within the course. This also reduces the necessity for students to be assessed in all relevant skills in each topic. Rather, it allows assessment to be spread through out the course as a whole.

Link the assessment to the "real world"

By anchoring assessment in real life scenarios, students are more likely to understand the relevance of a particular topic and the associated assessment method.

Complexity

Assessment should change throughout the whole course i.e. from first year level through to third year level. It is not necessary to assess all skill levels for every skill needed every year. The assessment demands should help to increase complexity and develop expertise across the whole course.

Formative exam

Having a formative exam at the beginning of a course is an efficient means of knowing what students bring into the course. This establishes what is known and creates a mutual starting point.

Creating Authentic Assessment tasks

Assessment is regarded as authentic if it is representative of students' capacity to perform in a broadly meaningful setting as opposed to students' one-off best performance on a restricted task. Ask the following questions to establish whether the task is valid:

• Will the task support the purpose of the course of learning i.e.the kind of learning that this topic seeks to enable?
• Will the task enable students to demonstrate that they have learned in such a way as to support the purposes of the assessment?

For more tips on examining the authenticity of assessment tasks, read Wiggins' analysis.

Groupwork

Designing group work activities to be performed in class time counteracts the common problems associated with groupwork assessment. It provides time to train in group work skills and allows students common time for communication purposes. Assign specific tasks (such as recorder, coordinator, speaker) to particular individuals. Interact with the groups as they conduct their research and draw their conclusions.

Using Portfolios to Assess Students' Learning

Tips on using portfolios to assess students are available from the following Portfolio Powerpoint presentation.

Make Feedback Consequential

Arguably feedback is one of the most important elements of assessment. Ideally, it should offer students the opportunity to improve subsequent efforts. For more information on this area, visit the Feedback website.

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