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, and/or simply out of an interest in improving 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 tools and resources listed may provide you with a framework for conducting effective assessment. The documents are adapted from an assessment workbook developed by Dr. Jenny Bergeron while at the University of Richmond, in order to assist faculty and staff with their assessment efforts as part of the University of Richmond’s re-accreditation efforts.
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 wherein teachers who seemingly taught the same class had varying levels of effectiveness, mostly through lack of their planning lessons and not designing assessments together, nor collecting data on a regular basis.
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.
In-class assessment techniques – Formative in-class assessment and frequent feedback about the quality of student learning helps instructors find out if learning is taking place, what students are learning, and how well they are learning. Through in-class assessment techniques, students can find out the same information. Post-assessment allows instructors to employ the information s/he has gathered in order to change teaching trajectories as well as to assist students in making their learning more efficient and more effective. (Copyright © 2012 Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence.)
Introductory Readings on Assessment – Kansas State University’s Office of Assessment offers a starting point for assessment of students 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.
RubiStar – Is a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics.
Rubrics for Online Instruction – This site is designed to answer the question being asked: What does a high quality online course look like? It is the hope of California State University, Chico that instructors and instructional designers will use this site to learn more about the Rubric for Online Instruction, and be able to view examples of exemplary courses that instructors have done in implementing the different components of the rubric.
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).”
Student Learning Outcomes – Student learning outcomes are the accumulated knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students develop during a course of study. Learning outcomes are a particular category of program outcomes, which may include broader elements such as graduation rates, faculty and graduate students’ publications, and job placement. Provides examples of student learning outcomes.
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.
ThatQuiz – It’s a free online non-commercial resources for teachers and students, there are built in quizzes for math, science, language arts, and social studies, which are adjustable in both difficulty and length. The interface has not been limited by the pre-built and allows educators to make their own tests covering any subject and set of questions. It allows for multiple languages.
Understanding What Our Geoscience Students Are Learning: Observing and Assessing – “Links to assessment tools and techniques along with specific geoscience examples and resources.”