Assessing Student Learning Using Exams, Projects, and Paper
This instructional guide will provide an opportunity for you to create your plan for a major summative assessment in your particular course delivery format. You may be asking your student to do presentations or other demonstrations, write literature reviews or position papers, create a portfolio, or complete objective exams as summative assessments in your course. Regardless of the specific assessment task, student performance on the task should map to the overarching course learning outcomes.
This instructional guide is designed to help you ensure all of your students, even those with limited technology, unstable internet, or other challenges, have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their learning successfully and are graded fairly.
What to do
You will create your assessment plan in two parts:
- Part 1: Complete the Course Assessment Planner for a major summative assessment in your course.
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- The Course Assessment Planner is a systematic guide to developing or adapting a major summative assessment in your course to be effective, well-structured, and student-centered.
- Download the planner (a Word document) and complete all the five sections. You can use your recorded responses to revise your assessments.
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Part 2: Build your selected assessment in Canvas and complete the
Implementing Assessments in Canvas Checklist.
- The Checklist has four sections. You will complete section A, B, or C depending on your selected assessment. If the assessment involves group work, complete section D in addition to section B or C.
- Download the Checklist and complete the appropriate sections. Check the boxes as you review your content.
To think about. . .
If you typically administer an objective exam, consider replacing it with a paper or project. Asking students to produce a piece of writing or other media means that each artifact will be unique. Students are also likely to deepen their understanding of the subject because they will have to use higher-order thinking to synthesize the content in order to complete the assessment.