How do you know your assignments are effective?
There are many techniques to determining assignment effectiveness, but first it is necessary to have a set of criteria in mind against which to measure effectiveness.
For the purposes of the toolkit model, we like to refer to the criteria set out in Step One of the toolkit. These are:
- communicates expectations clearly by articulating the learning outcomes expected
- gives students clear criteria for assessing their performance
- integrates technical and foundation skills/competencies into courses and programs
- maintains a congruency between competencies, activities, and assessments
- focuses on the demonstration of skills and application of knowledge (i.e., performance-based)
- incorporates work-simulated activities and projects whenever possible and
- provides hands-on experience in the form of projects, scenario based tasks, labs and other activities
- meets market needs
- is frequently updated
Two of our master teachers have provided us case studies that demonstrate different kinds of classroom research into assignment effectiveness.
Case Study A takes into consideration criteria 1, 2 and 4 and looks at one assignment only.
Case Study B takes into consideration criteria 1-9 and shows how a number of changes were made to an entire course. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that assessing the effectiveness of an assignment should involve a measure of student learning in a longitudinal fashion.
Make your curriculum updates a regular practice: Go to Step 8!
Q: What are the goals of assessing assignment effectiveness?
A: Assessing the effectiveness of an assignment answers the following questions:
- Were the learning objectives met by students?
- Did students master the desired skill(s) and can they apply what they learned?
- How did student perceive the assignment?
- Are there improvements that could be made to the assignment?
- Were the teaching strategies effective and appropriate?
Q: What are some ways to assess assignment effectiveness?
A: Evaluation of assignments can be done as a formative process or as a summative process or both. Formative evaluation involves gathering information during the course of an assignment to find out whether the assignment is proceeding as planned and making any adjustments or corrections along the way. Summative evaluation involves collecting data about the effectiveness of the learning materials, student attainment of the skill objectives as well as student perceptions about the assignment.
For a rich listing of internet resources aimed at helping educators with evaluation, see Eduref.org.
Q: Are there ready made tools for assessing assignment effectiveness?
A: There is no one tool or technique for assessment. Nor is one better than others. It depends on your time and scheduling constraints as well as how much information you can actually respond to. Remember, if you gather student feedback, it's important to respond to it. Students' learning experience may be negatively impacted if they feel that you gathered input and ignored it.
Skill-based objectives can be evaluated in several ways including: observation, presentations, performance, portfolios, demonstrations or application of knowledge to a new situation.
In addition, use CATs. Tom Angelo and Patricia Cross have coined the term "CAT" which stands for "classroom assessment techniques." CATs include things like a "One Minute Paper". The One Minute Paper works like this: Shortly before the end of a class period, the instructor asks students to write brief answers to these two questions: (1) What is the most important thing that you learned in class today? and (2) What is the main, unanswered question you leave class with today?"
[Cross, K. Patricia. (2005). Teaching and Learning in the Next Century retrieved January 20, 2005 from <http://www.ntlf.com/html/sf/teaching.htm>]
The CATs range from simple, like the One Minute Paper, to the more complex as in the example of a Diagnostic Learning Log (DLL). Dr. Cross describes the DLL below:
"This CAT asks students, usually as part of a homework assignment, to analyze their own learning process by answering a few questions such as these about the homework assignment:
- Briefly describe the assignment you just completed. What do you think was the purpose of this assignment?
- Give an example of one or two of your most successful responses. Explain what you did that made them successful.
- Provide an example of where you made an error or where your responses were less complete. Why were these items incorrect or less successful?
- What can you do differently when preparing next week's assignment?
(Cross & Steadman, 1996, p. 69)
The teacher might then prepare a tabulation of the responses, and together teacher and students would analyze the data. How well was the purpose of the assignment understood? Where did misunderstandings occur? What did students consider successful responses and why? Are there some common themes in the successful responses? Where were errors made? Are they common errors? To the extent that the assignment is typical or recurring, students will be interested in knowing how others are responding, and the project itself is both a learning experience and a descriptive study of the processes that are being used by students in the class."
(Cross, Teaching and Learning in the Next Century.)
The Classroom Assessment Techniques handbook (Angelo and Cross, 1993) is perhaps the most well known resource for CATs:
"The book describes each of the 50 CATs in some detail, giving examples, step-by-step procedures, pros, cons, and caveats, and ideas for analyzing and using the data collected. While we tried hard to make the CATs simple and useful across the wide span of academic disciplines, we still think that the best CATs are invented or adapted by individual teachers to tell them what they want to know about their own teaching and their students' learning." (Cross, Teaching and Learning in the Next Century)
League for Innovation stocks a set of shorter papers authored by Dr. Cross and others, and available for relatively low cost. Visit their bookstore.
