Body
Overview
Assessments should serve as tools for both instructors and students to gauge the extent of the students' understanding of the intended learning outcomes. The desired student competencies should influence the selection and creation of assessments. There are two primary reasons to align assessments with learning objectives.
1. Such alignment ensures that students are given adequate opportunities to acquire and practice the skills and knowledge that will be evaluated through these assessments.
2. When there is a strong correspondence between assessments and objectives, high grades are more likely to reflect meaningful learning. Conversely, if there is a mismatch between objectives and assessments, students may prioritize tasks that yield higher grades over those that are truly significant, potentially skewing the learning focus.
Different Kinds of Assessments
There are many different types of activities that can be used to assess students’ proficiency on a given learning objective, and the same activity can be used to assess different objectives. To ensure more accurate assessment of student proficiencies, it is recommended that you use different kinds of activities so that students have multiple ways to practice and demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
When deciding on what kind of assessment activities to use, it is helpful to keep in mind the following questions:
- What will the student’s work on the activity (multiple choice answers, essays, project, presentation, etc) tell me about their level of competence on the targeted learning objectives?
- How will my assessment of their work help guide students’ practice and improve the quality of their work?
- How will the assessment outcomes for the class guide my teaching practice?
Examples of Activities That Can Be Used to Assess Learning Objectives
This table presents examples of the kinds of activities that can be used to assess different types of learning objectives, and the ways that we can analyze or measure performance to produce useful feedback for teaching and learning. The categorization of learning objectives is taken from the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
| Type of Learning Objective |
Examples of Types of Assessment |
How to Measure |
Remember
Students will be able to:
|
- Objective Test items that require students to recall or recognize information:
- Fill-in the Blank
- Multiple Choice items with question stems such as, “what is a…”, or “which of the following is the definition of)
- Labeling diagrams
- Reciting (orally, musically, or in writing)
|
- Accuracy – correct vs number of errors
- Item Analysis (at the class level, are there items that had higher error rates? Did some items result in the same errors?)
|
Understand
Students will be able to:
- interpret
- exemplify
- classify
- summarize
- infer
- compare
- explain
|
Papers, oral/written exam questions, problems, class discussions, concept maps, homework assignments that require (oral or written):
- Summarizing readings, films, speeches, etc.
- Comparing and/or contrasting two or more theories, events, processes, etc.
- Classifying or categorizing cases, elements, events, etc., using established criteria
- Paraphrasing documents or speeches
- Finding or identifying examples or illustrations of a concept, principle
|
Scoring or performance rubrics that identify critical components of the work and discriminates between differing levels of proficiency in addressing the components |
Apply
Students will be able to:
|
Activities that require students to use procedures to solve or complete familiar or unfamiliar tasks; may also require students to determine which procedure(s) are most appropriate for a given task. Activities include:
Problem sets, performances, labs, Prototyping, Simulations |
Accuracy scores, Check lists, Rubrics, Primary Trait Analysis |
Analyze
Students will be able to:
- differentiate
- organize
- attribute
|
Activities that require students to discriminate or select relevant from irrelevant parts, determine how elements function together, or determine bias, values or underlying intent in presented materials. These might include:
Case studies, Critiques, Labs, Papers, Projects, Debates, Concept Maps, |
- Rubrics, scored by instructor, juries, external clients, employers, internship supervisor, etc.
- Primary Trait Analysis
|
Evaluate
Students will be able to:
|
A range of activities that require students to test, monitor, judge or critique readings, performances, or products against established criteria or standards. These activities might include:
Journals, Diaries, Critiques, Problem Sets, Product Reviews, Case Studies. |
- Rubrics, scored by instructor, juries, external clients, employers, internship supervisor, etc.
- Primary Trait Analysis
|
Create
Students will be able to:
|
Research projects, musical compositions, performances, essays, business plans, website designs, prototyping, set designs |
- Rubrics, scored by instructor, juries, external clients, employers, internship supervisor, etc.
- Primary Trait Analysis
|