This is my combined post for the two tasks for Week Two of the Instructional Design Essentials Course:

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.

Below, I’ve generated ideas for two learning activities. During these activities, students will identify sources that meet the information need described and turn in a worksheet describing what sources they found and why they found them to be appropriate for the proposed situation.

Learning Activity 1: Working alone, students can imagine that someone in their family has been diagnosed with a disease.  Ask the student to find three reliable sources of information on that disease to share with their relative so that they can ask their doctor the necessary questions for ongoing care.

Learning Activity 2: Working in pairs, ask students to imagine that they have begun working in the sales department at a local car dealership. Their boss has tasked with gathering information to help identify the towns in their area where people are most likely in the market for new automobiles.  Using some of the research tools learned in the “Business” section of their course, find three reliable sources that would help inform this report.

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.

One of the main learning goals for these learning activities is the ability to “Evaluate information and its sources critically.” For these activities, I would require students to explain their reasoning for selecting sources.  The AACU Information Literacy VALUE Rubric provides excellent criteria for poor to exceptional achievement (used below):

Poor / Fair: Shows an emerging awareness of present assumptions (sometimes labels assertions as assumptions). Begins to identify some contexts when presenting a position.

Questions some assumptions. Identifies several relevant contexts when presenting a position. May be more aware of others' assumptions than one's own (or vice versa).

Identifies own and others' assumptions and several relevant contexts when presenting a position.

Exceptional: Thoroughly (systematically and methodically) analyzes own and others' assumptions and carefully evaluates the relevance of contexts when presenting a position.

3.    Self-Assessment

What opportunities can you create for students to engage in self-assessment of their performance?

In order to allow students to self-assess their work, I will provide the rubric I will be using to give feedback on class activities and other class assignments to students along with the directions on how to complete the activity and assignment. From the Fink document, I really liked the ideas of having students suggest the kinds of feedback they’d like when turning in the assignment, as well as asking them to explain which portions of the task they found to be difficult / that they struggled with.

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

This is tough, just from a time management perspective. I already indicated that I plan to share the rubric for activities and assignments with students before they are due, so that should address the “discriminating” element. The frequent and immediate are going to be difficult – I’m in the process of learning to use the rubric function in Blackboard, and I’ve heard from many people that this does indeed speed up the grading process, so I hope this will help! For the lovingly delivered component, I do try to keep my language positive (while using the feedback sandwich – always opening and closing with positive feedback, with the negative/constructive criticism in the middle). Honestly, I want to know if others have tricks for encouraging students to read the feedback – I always get the feeling (and sometimes the proof) that they don’t.

Situational Factors

Assuming you have done a careful, thorough job of reviewing the situational factors, how well are these factors reflected in the decisions you made about learning goals, feedback and assessment, learning activities? What potential conflicts can you identify that may cause problems? Are there any disconnects between your beliefs and values, the student characteristics, the specific or general context, or the nature of the subject in relation to the way you propose to run the course?

In reflecting on what I have written about so far for this class, I think the number one issue or problem that I may run into, in terms of the course and the student characteristics, is that most students already believe they are efficient researchers, and many come into the class with the attitude that it is a waste of time. With the “forward looking” assessment and learning activities I hope to show students that the skills they are learning and applying in the course will benefit them in both their personal and professional lives after they leave college.  In addition to providing many real world examples / activities, I plan to intersperse the class time with fun and humor – to not have everything they’re doing in class be serious (or “boring.”)

Learning Goals and Feedback & Assessment

Issues to address include: How well do your assessment procedures address the full range of learning goals? Is the feedback giving students information about all the learning goals? Do the learning goals include helping the students learn how to assess their own performance?

I will use and/or develop rubrics that relate to the student learning outcomes for the course and tie those to individual activities/ assignments so that students know what I am looking for and exactly how their work will be evaluated. Those rubrics will be shared with students in advance so they can check their own work prior to submitting it for grading.

Learning Goals and Teaching/Learning Activities

Do the learning activities effectively support all your learning goals? Are there extraneous activities that do not serve any major learning goal?

As I work further on mapping on my plans for activities and assignments throughout the course, I will be able to eliminate activities that are “extraneous” or don’t serve a major learning goal. For those activities I plan to include to increase the “fun” factor in class, I will make sure those activities are also tied to the main learning goals of the course.

4. Teaching/Learning Activities and Feedback & Assessment

How well does the feedback loop work to prepare students for understanding the criteria and standards that will be used to assess their performance? How well do the practice learning activities and the associated feedback opportunities prepare students for the eventual assessment activities?

Again, the sharing of the rubrics with students in advance and the application of the rubric feature in Blackboard will allow students to see exactly how their work was assessed within the parameters of the rubric. I think the suggestions in the Fink document to have students receive feedback on either a low-stakes assignment or a non-graded assignment prior to the first graded work would be helpful to demonstrate to students how grading/assessment will be performed in the course, so they can see the “rubric in action” if they haven’t already seen it in previous courses.