Assessment is increasingly critical to the success and continuation of educational programs. Many programs are currently engaged in student assessment as part of accreditation, academic program review, or simply to improve their program. Assessment of Learning are assessment strategies that are designed to confirm what students know. It demonstrates whether curriculum goals or goals of the program are met.
Assessment Tools – The listed tools and resources may provide a framework for conducting effective assessments. The documents are adapted from an assessment workbook developed by Dr. Jenny Bergeron while at the University of Richmond to assist faculty and staff with their assessment efforts as part of the University of Richmond’s re-accreditation.
A Synthesis of Sloan-C Effective Practices – Encouraging continuous improvement in the quality, scale, and breadth of online education, the Sloan Consortium invites practitioners to share effective practices. This report synthesizes effective practices submitted by Sloan-C members to the online collection at https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/issue/archive. The synthesis includes links to detailed postings about practices, including the authors and their institutions.
Designing Assessment Using The Power of Google Forms – Michael Schmoker talks at great length in his book “Results Now“, of how the power of a common curriculum, common assessments and teachers working together can have unprecedented results in student learning. He cites many studies showing that teachers who seemingly taught the same class had varying levels of effectiveness, mostly due to their lack of lesson planning, failure to design assessments together, and lack of regular data collection.
ETS Research– Its goal is to make fundamental contributions to the progress of education worldwide through educational research and analysis, fair and valid assessments, innovative product development, and informative policy studies. Featured research topics: Workforce Readiness, English Language Learning, and Assessment, among others.
Flubaroo – Google Forms – the quizzes can even be self-grading by adding in the proper “if statements” in the underlying spreadsheet. Google Forms allows you to create many different types of questions, automatically collects usernames, sends data to a spreadsheet.
Introductory Readings on Assessment – Kansas State University’s Office of Assessment offers a starting point for assessment of student outcomes. An Assessment Manual is available with great resources.
Objectives Builder – Use this free application to develop instructional objectives for your courses and instructional programs. A tutorial is available to guide the newcomers to this free site from Arizona State University.
Program-Based: Review and Assessment – Tools and Techniques for Program Improvement.
Rubrics for Assessment – A collection of rubrics for assessing portfolios, cooperative learning, research process/ report, PowerPoint, podcast, oral presentation, web page, blog, wiki, and other Web 2.0 projects.
Sourcebook of Assessment Information – “The Sourcebook is an interactive version of Definitions and Assessment Methods for Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Writing, by Dr. T. Dary Erwin, Center for Assessment and Research Studies, James Madison University. It was written for the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative (NPEC).”
SurveyMonkey – Create and send free surveys, polls, questionnaires, customer feedback, and market research. Plus, get access to survey questions and professional templates. For a fee, more features are activated.
Understanding What Our Geoscience Students Are Learning: Observing and Assessing – “Links to assessment tools and techniques along with specific geoscience examples and resources.”