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"Assessing assessment" seems painfully meta, but we spend enough energy on our departmental reviews that we should ensure the process is useful. This article asks 14 questions in order to help guide thinking about whether an assessment plan is currently successful. The questions asked focus more on the students' learning outcomes rather than indirect measures of institutional efficiency.

"Assessing assessment" seems painfully meta, but we spend enough energy on our departmental reviews that we should ensure the process is useful. This article asks 14 questions in order to help guide thinking about whether an assessment plan is currently successful. The questions asked focus more on the students' learning outcomes rather than indirect measures of institutional efficiency.

Classroom participation is difficult to track and assess equitably. Why not have the students contribute regular self-assessment to the process?

A free ebook from the Teagle Foundation addressing the humanities' approach to learning assessment. "What happens when the disciplines make themselves heard in the discussions of learning outcomes assessment that are ubiquitous in higher education today? What do disciplinary perspectives and methodologies have to bring to the table? This volume engages these questions from the perspective of literary study, with essays by education leaders, faculty from English and foreign language departments, and assessment experts that offer a wide range of perspectives."

Fascinating, challenging episode of this podcast looking at the way writing assessment can replicate systems of white supremacy. The "labor-based grading" process sounds like an interesting way to get students to be reflective about their work.

What do classes look like as you move from infrequent, high-stakes assignments and exams to frequent grading of low-stakes activities? Warnock makes a number of claims, backed up by the literature - students become more confident and motivated, there's less incentive to cheat, the dialogue between students and faculty improves. I particularly like the last half of the article, where he talks about the practical elements of increasing informal writing or quizzing in a course.

This "stoplight" method for end of class assessment is an interesting take on the "minute paper" or having students identify the "muddiest point".

This chapter explores the challenges of assessing multicultural learning in a service-learning course and offers a variety of strategies for measuring student development.

"So the solution may be in having a well defined rubric but being able to apply it with discretion and sensitivity to individual learner differences." Rubrics seem to have garnered quite a bit of attention as a teaching and grading tool, and reflecting on their design and appropriate use seems important.

The authors describe a simple two-stage exam method used in the physics department at the University of British Columbia. Two-stage exams provide an engaging collaborative learning opportunity which very effectively increases student mastery of the material.

How many points should you give students for first drafts, project reports, and other assignments which show the student's progress toward an end goal? Andrew Miller argues for zero - he cleaves summative grading from formative assessments. (Mostly.)

"Our businesslike efforts to measure and improve quality are now blocking the altruism, indeed the love, that motivates people to enter the helping professions." How can we make sure our assessments are focused on the most important things - inside the classroom and of the classroom?

"based on the collective experience, over many years, of CUR members who have engaged undergraduate students in research, .... Roger Rowlett, Linda Blockus, and Susan Larson have drawn on this extensive knowledge base to design an instrument to assist institutions to self- assess the maturity of their undergraduate research programs. The instrument aspires to present the best practices in undergraduate research."

Conversations about portfolios often suggest them as a solution to one problem at a time, whether that problem is integrative learning, student self-representation outside the college, or institutional (and departmental) assessment. This article tries to juggle 4 very different ways of looking at portfolios at the same time. Such a view might help us understand how many benefits might flow from a pedagogy which includes portfolio construction.

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Big issues on this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. The MLA is opening a new repository for scholarship in the humanities. Would you be more likely to use it, or Digital Kenyon, to preserve and distribute your work? The AHA has issues some guidelines about assessing digital work in history; the panelists debate what they're good for and where they don't go far enough.

Did you know that grades weren't widespread in American education until midway through the 20th Century? This article features a literature review of the history of grading, discusses some of the ways in which grading doesn't work as well for learning as we'd like, and suggests alternative approaches to assignments and assessment.

This excerpt from Dee Fink's book "Creating Significant Learning Experiences" argues for using both "scoreboards" - clear and reliable grading criteria - and "applause" - praise for accomplishments - to motivate students. I was particularly taken with the exercise at the end of the section in which students and a professor collaborate on a letter to thank the student's previous teacher for contributing to the student's development.

Rubrics covering a variety of learning outcomes, including a number of skills we have discussed in relation to the Essentials project. These were created as part of the Association of American Colleges and Universities' project "Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education."

People learn best when they are forced to retrieve the information and concepts repeatedly over time but most people haven't learned to study in ways that do this. Consequently, it may be more effective to move from the common practice of giving a few, high-stakes tests to giving numerous low stakes quizzes to assess and improve learning.

Course evaluations - everyone does them and nobody is happy with them. A Berkeley statistics professor writes a thorough and readable run-down of why student course evaluations are mostly worthless at measuring what they purport to measure - teaching effectiveness. He also offers useful suggestions for better methods of assessing courses, but they are time consuming.

Interesting ideas here about the value of requiring students to annotate their own work and the sources they consult. Note the point that these professors actually dedicate regular class time to the exercise.