Ideas for Assessment

Assessments should be part of the learning process integrated within the learning and not thought of as simply a means to reward or punish the students for their understanding of their course material. When we are conducting assessments, we are not only assessing the students but also our teaching and learning methods. This implies we need to clearly define the goals of our T&L and integrate appropriate assessments while doing so. Teaching and Learning as well as assessments should be designed in such a way that allows us to develop not only competency in the subject matter but also focuses on other skills such as team work, leadership, self-learning, curiosity etc. Assessments need to be varied to accommodate various learning styles of the students and also enhance the learning experience. Some students may be good at hands on activity and presenting their work and not too good at exams.

I believe that assessments should be motivating to the students and allow us to give feedback on students learning so the student as well as the teacher can know the progress of the student within the course. There are many examples of collaborative learning and project based learning. While there are many that I have used in various courses, depending on the nature of the course. However not all are suitable for the subject matter. For example, crosswords may be more suitable for theoretical content and not for practical content. 

I have examined the following assessment methods and how they can assist in our students learning:

Real world projects - 
This type of assessment is built upon authentic learning methods with activities that engage students and motivate them as they see their task linked to real life and useful for their workplace. Real world projects help in deeper understanding and learning of the concepts and it's applications. It is very useful for hands on learning where the concepts can be taught to the students however, the implementation of those concepts varies significantly in practice. 

In CIS courses students are often indulged in these types of projects when they are building a software solution, designing a database or analyzing software requirements for an organization. Generally this type of assessment is done in groups. Students collaborate and use critical thinking skills while solving problems. The performance is assessed in an individual basis while taking into account the quality of the product produced, the depth of content understanding demonstrated and the contributions made to the project.

Peer to peer assessment
Students assess each other (under the Instructor supervision) e.g.  A  group of students prepare a work sheet on a particular topic and distribute it to all. Then they solve it and assess it.  
This method of assessment can be engaging in providing feedback to peers (peer evaluation). However, I think using it as a summative assessment may lead to potential issues as students may not be willing to accept critical feedback from their peers whom they see as equal to them or vice versa, where students may not be willing to provide critical feedback.

However, if students are introduced to this method of assessment in a proper way which is accepted by the students, like assigning a low weight to the peer assessment, it can enforce deeper understanding of the assessment criteria which most students don't look at carefully and only focus on the task to be done.

Directed Paraphrasing
I liked this method of assessment suggested in the discussions.“Students paraphrase part of a lesson for a specific audience and purpose, using their own words. Feedback is provided on students’ ability to summarize and restate important information or concepts in their own words; it allows faculty to assess how well students have understood and internalized that learning" 

Although I have not used it my classes, I believe that it can be a good way to re-enforce and understand students thinking of a concepts. Whereby misconceptions can be addressed and students thinking can be redirected. Often we think that students have understood concepts in the same way that we intended for them to understand it. This method of assessment if used, especially as a formative assessment, can help teachers guide students understanding of concepts in the right direction before their formal assessment.

Practical Tasks
This type of assessment is used a lot in CIS courses as most of our courses are practical in nature and are usually time-constrained. Students apply the techniques they have learnt in software design and development, database design, multimedia etc by using software programs. Students are required to demonstrate their knowledge as well as their ability. Often they involve program solving exercises, creating diagrams, simulations, etc. However, the only limitation may be that these assessments done in a controlled environment with hypothetical situations so they may not link directly to realistic work situations, hence they may not generate sufficient evidence to prove competence and ability to solve problems.

Role Play
In a role play each student within a group take the role of a person to explain a concept. This type of assessment is useful mainly for soft skills where by students demonstrate a deeper understanding of the subject matter. I had used this method to assess a students understanding of various types of conflict and conflict resolution strategies in Organizaitonal Behaviour course. Role play makes the content real for the students and transforms the information into experience which is more likely to be retained.