Methods of Assessment

Formative (Low-Stakes) Assessments

Formative assessment techniques monitor student learning during the learning process. The feedback gathered is used to identify areas where students are struggling so that instructors can adjust their teaching and students can adjust their studying. These are low-stakes assessments (i.e., they have low point values) that happen early and often in the semester. 

INFORMAL TECHNIQUES

Written Reflections. Sometimes referred to as "Minute Papers" or "Muddiest Points," these popular assessment techniques have students reflect immediately following a learning opportunity (e.g., at the end of a class or after completing an out-of-class activity) to answer one or two basic questions like:

“What was the most important thing you learned today?”

“What was the most confusing topic today?”

“What important question remains unanswered?”

Polls/Surveys. Data on student opinions, attitudes, behaviors or confidence in understanding can be gathered either during class (e.g., with a classroom response system) or outside of class. This can illustrate student engagement with the material as well as prior knowledge, misconceptions, and comprehension.
Checks for Understanding. Pausing every few minutes to see whether students are following along with the lesson not only identifies gaps in comprehension, but helps break up lectures (e.g, with Clicker questions) or online lessons (e.g., with embedded quiz questions) into more digestible bites.
Wrappers. "Wrapping" activities, using a set of reflective questions, can help students develop skills to monitor their own learning and adapt as necessary.
FORMAL TECHNIQUES
In-class Activities. Having students work in pairs or small groups to solve problems creates space for powerful peer-to-peer learning and rich class discussion. Instructors and TAs can roam the classroom as students work, helping those who get stuck and guiding those who are headed in the wrong direction.
Quizzes.  Gauge students’ prior knowledge, assess progress midway through a unit, create friendly in-class competition, review before the test -- quizzes can be great tools that don't have to count heavily toward students' grades. Using quizzes to begin units is also a fun way to assess what your students already know, clear up misconceptions, and drive home the point of how much they will learn.  

Online Learning Modules. Canvas and other Learning Management Systems allow students to solve problems or answer questions along the way.  This can provide you with analytic on student responses and class performance so you can tailor your instruction to their particular learning needs.

Purpose of the assessmentHow it is conducted

The purpose of assessment differs according to who is conducting or using the assessment.

• School administrators use assessment as benchmarks for instruction, placement, or exemption in course levels and certification.
• Teachers use assessments as diagnostic tools and feedback for guiding instruction, evidence of progress, and evaluation of teaching or curriculum.
• Researchers use assessment to gather data on knowledge about language learning and language use, and for evaluation or experimentation of programs

Purposes of assessment

It is easy to become so immersed in the job of teaching that we lose sight of the exact purpose of a particular element of assessment. There is then the possibility that we are not achieving that purpose, or that we overlook another form of assessment which might be more appropriate. We actually assess students for quite a range of different reasons - motivation, creating learning opportunities, to give feedback (to both students and staff), to grade, and as a quality assurance mechanism (both for internal and external systems). Because all too often we do not disentangle these functions of assessment, without having really thought it through assessments are frequently trying to do all these things, to varying degrees. In fact it is arguable that while it is desirable for assessments meeting the first three of these functions to be conducted as often as possible, the final two do not need to be done anywhere near so frequently; it is simply important that they are done somewhere. The implications of this are that while an essay question, where all the answers are double marked and the marks count towards the students' final grades, may fulfil all these functions, for all assessments to be this rigorous would be prohibitively expensive in staff time, while a peer-assessed seminar presentation, which does not count towards the students' final grades but is simply a course requirement, could fulfil the first three functions and may not even require a tutor to be present.