On assessment…



I’ve always wondered about the best way to find out what our students know. How do I know what I know they know they know?

Over the course of this blog I hope we’ll talk a lot about assessment. But as I’m putting up my syllabus I’ve decided on a strategy to make sure they do the weekly reading: homework. On the one hand, I treat my students like complete adults–I don’t take roll, I call the cops not their parents if I have trouble with them, etc. But at a school where I lecture on Monday and Wednesday, the send the students to sections taught by TAs on Friday, I think it’s only fair to everyone involved to make sure they do the reading.

What I’ve done, then, is this: give them a few bye weeks, but have as a rule that every week they are to do some of the online primary source reading found in the textbook. Usually these are followed up by a few basic questions–at least they are with the textbook I use (ahem…). Then I have the students email those responses to my TAs. The first year this was a disaster–the poor TAs got hundreds of unwanted emails a week. So now I’ve created an email address that students send their responses to. Using filters, the TAs can check who has done what, what discussion will be like, and, perhaps most usefully, have a way to say to that complaining student, “well, I see here you handed in your homework only twice, so you completely deserve the grade you earned…”

So far so good, but how do you assess?

5 thoughts on “On assessment…

  1. First, thanks for starting this useful blog! For the past two years, I have required all my survey students to fill out a short (3-5 question) online multiple choice reading quiz before coming to every class session. I ran these through my campus CMS and set them to disappear right before class. The questions are very easy (if you even skimmed the reading the answer should be obvious). Numerous students have commented in their evaluations that they appreciated the quizzes because they forced them to keep up with the reading. I also like how the quizzes rewarded students for steady, consistent work throughout the semester.

  2. The first semester I taught the U.S. survey, I encouraged my TAs to give students a quiz at the beginning of section discussion. I now believe this method of assessment was quite unproductive. Many students generally fared poorly on the quizzes. Moreover it didn’t assist them in learning how to read a text for argument and evidence.

    I like the post from anonymous above of setting up Blackboard (or any other online course management system) to administer quizzes that students need to take before they come to class. Personally, I have yet to explore that online option. Instead, the system I used involved posting question sheets on Blackboard that were due at the beginning of class. I tied this assessment to their section attendance grade and made it a policy that no late assignments would be accepted.

    I think that either method is more useful than an in-class quiz for teaching students how to think analytically.

  3. of course i’ll post more on this shortly, but I plan on having students comment here week in and week out for their participation grade: I’m going to have them comment on the Major Problems documents to make sure they’re reading them, to see what they found difficult (so that I can make the discussions/lectures answer those questions), and hopefully generate some discussion debate.

  4. When I teach smaller sections of the survey (of about 25) I’ve gone to open-note oral reading quizzes. On Monday of each week, I put up on the screen about 8 questions on the chapter and give them a couple of minutes to review their reading notes (assuming they took any). Then I randomly call on students to answer them (the random order has been pre-assigned for the entire semester beforehand to assure everyone equal opportunity). This scares the bejeezus out of them (thus they read) and gives them an opportunity to practice expressing ideas orally in class. Plus, no grading paper quizzes for me. The whole thing takes about 15 minutes, but I also use it as an opportunity to review the textbook chapter as we discuss the answers to each question, and clarify anything they were confused about. Obviously this is unworkable for larger classes, but may also work in TA sessions.

  5. that’s a fantastic idea … I wish there was a way I could design this for bigger classes. I can’t think of one, but I could definitely do this with TAs for the break-out sections in future terms. Thanks!

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