Course Design: Assessment Strategies

Ideally, you should create a plan for assessment at the same time that you craft the initial course design. A well-designed course will include assessment strategies that are fully-integrated into the course’s goals, so that you are certain that you are measuring exactly those learning outcomes you identified as important goals from the outset.

Definitions

ASSESSMENT: A systematic and ongoing method of gathering, analyzing and utilizing information from measured outcomes for the purpose of improving student performance.

Formative: When assessment is used to monitor progress and provide corrective feedback toward meeting an objective, it is formative in nature. Faculty interventions are non-threatening, provided throughout the learning process to indicate how well students are doing and include providing alternative learning methods as needed prior to final evaluation.

Summative: When assessment is used to validate or certify an objective has or has not been met by using a final evaluation instrument, it is summative in nature.

9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning
(American Association of Higher Education)

1. The assessment of student learning begins with educational values.
2. Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time.
3. Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes.
4. Assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes.
5. Assessment works best when it is ongoing not episodic.
6. Assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved.
7. Assessment makes a difference when it begins with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about.
8. Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change.
9. Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public.

Why Assess? We assess to answer questions...

Institution
How does our University compare with other similar institutions? Does it meet the needs of the communities it serves? How can it improve? Does it meet or exceed standards for SACS and other accrediting agencies?

Program
What content, skills and values do students learn through program activities? Is the program design effective? Does the program meet the needs of potential employers?

Course
Do the courses and prescribed experiences in the program address all the competencies students need to be successful in their lives and careers?

Classroom
What content, skills, and values do students learn through class activities?
What are my students learning and how well are they learning it?

For more information on assessment, see the UCF website on Assessment for Optimal Learning: http://www.fctl.ucf.edu/TeachingAndLearningResources/CourseDesign/Assessment/