In this educational assessment guide, we’ll answer questions such as:
What is the purpose of educational assessment?
What are the benefits of assessments?
What are the main types of assessment?
What is the difference between evaluation and assessment?
Formative assessment can be any assessment that first and foremost promotes students’ learning. Many refer to this type of assessment as assessment “for” learning. In contrast, summative assessment, or assessment “of” learning, looks at grades or scores that give a final judgment or evaluation of proficiency. Assessment “for” learning is usually more informal and includes aspects of teaching. It is formative because it gathers evidence that helps teachers better meet the learning needs of students as well as empowering students to be change agents in their achievement. A host of studies have shown that when formative assessment is implemented effectively, it can greatly enhance, or even double, the speed of student learning. This guide provides specific examples of educational assessment tools, why assessment is important in gauging student comprehension, and how you can implement assessment techniques into your own course.
The importance of educational assessment
Educational assessment is one of the most talked about topics in higher education today. Despite the admirable goal of improving student learning, the trend toward greater accountability through increased academic testing carries with it a diverse range of educational assessment tools, methodologies, perspectives, and stakeholders.
If today’s mandates for educational testing has you searching for answers, take a dive into the following articles and products that cover topics such as forms of assessment, cognitive demand levels, formative and summative assessments, alternative assessment methods, and evaluative assessment.
Free articles
- Assessment for Learning: It Just Makes Sense
- Four Reasons Assessment Doesn’t Work and What We Can Do About It
- Re-envisioning Online Course Revision
- Educational Assessment: A Different Kind of Feedback
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- The Link Between Self-assessment and Examination Performance
- Does Self- and Peer Assessment Improve Learning in Groups?
- What Fitness Bands Can Teach Us about Classroom Assessment
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Types of educational assessment
While most faculty stick with the tried-and-true quiz and paper assessment strategies for their online courses, the wide range of technologies available today offers a variety of assessment options beyond the traditional forms. But what do students think of these different forms? And more importantly, what types of educational assessment work best for your course and your students?
A few educational assessments that we will cover:
- A learning assessment technique (LAT) is a three-part integrated structure that helps teachers to first identify significant learning goals, then to implement effectively the kinds of learning activities that help achieve those goals, and finally—and perhaps most importantly—to analyze and report on the learning outcomes that have been achieved from those learning activities.
- Word Clouds. Word clouds are images composed of words associated with concepts, questions, or reactions sought by an instructor; they are fast, engaging, and can provide an emotional connection for students. Think of the powerful insights a facilitator gains by simply asking students to report a single word describing how they feel about their progress on a project? choice?”). Wordle and TagCloud are two popular choices for creating word clouds.
- Focused Listing. Focused listing can be used before, during, or after a lesson. This method helps you to gauge student learning.
- Elevator Pitch. As a review activity, ask students to summarize main ideas or key topics in fewer than 60 seconds. A fun variation of this approach is to have students present to a classmate acting as a well-known personality or theorist who works in your discipline.
Browse the articles and products below to find what educational assessments will work best for your course!
Free articles
- This Semester, Don’t Forget Participation Feedback!
- Assessments by Design: Rethinking Assessment for Learner Variability
- Reimagining Classroom Community, Assessment, and Our Own Self-care
- Which Assessment Strategies Do Students Prefer?
- Using Interview to Assess and Mentor Students
- Using Screencasts for Formative and Summative Assessment
- Formative Assessment: The Secret Sauce of Blended Success
- Students as Formative Assessment Partners
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- Formative Assessment Techniques for Online Learning
- Writing Questions about the Reading: A Formative Assessment Technique
- Three Learning Assessment Techniques to Gauge Student Learning
- Which Assessment Strategies Do Students Prefer?
- Informal Assessment Activities for Blended and Online Courses
- Five Classroom Assessment Techniques for the Online Classroom
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Each 20-Minute Mentor is $19 for individual, on-demand, one-week access, and each Magna Online Seminar is $39 for individual, on-demand, one-week access.
Educational assessment tools
Most conventional assessment strategies provide limited opportunities for instructors to realign teaching methods and revisit topics that students have not understood well. Teachers can communicate with students individually, but time constraints may prevent multiple individual conversations. Some students in the classroom are reluctant to ask questions and admit confusion. Find out how to overcome these difficulties with specific educational assessment tools. Below are just a few assessment tools that you’ll find within the articles and products.
- Continuous and Rapid Testing (CaRT): Improves communication between teachers and students
- C.A.P Model : Offers students diverse possibilities to express their understandings of course content, though the explicit aim of the creative component was to center non-dominant cultural ways of knowing, being, and making sense of the world
- Pre-formative assessment: This refers to assessments given while students are learning new material independently, before any group interaction has taken place
Free articles
- An Anti-racist Form of Assessment: The CAP Model: Creative. Academic. Practical.
- Grading Exams: How Gradescope Revealed Deeper Insights into Our Teaching
- Now More Than Ever: Why Collaborative Grading Works, Even Online
- Leveraging Bloom’s Taxonomy to Elevate Discussion Boards in Online Courses
- Keeping Students Engaged: How to Rethink Your Assessments Amidst the Shift to Online Learning
- But What If They Cheat? Giving Non-proctored Online Assessments
Teaching Professor articles (paid subscription)
- Four Strategies for Effective Assessment in a Flipped Learning Environment
- Continuous and Rapid Testing (CaRT): A Simple Tool for Assessment and Communication
- Self-Grading: The Ultimate Self-Assessment
Related Products
Each 20-Minute Mentor is $19 for individual, on-demand, one-week access, and each Magna Online Seminar is $39 for individual, on-demand, one-week access.