Classroom assessment

ABSRACT

Classroom assessment is conducted for the specific purpose of improving teaching and learning within a specific class. It completes a short-term feedback loop in which the measure and feedback occur almost continuously. Curricula with strong assessment plans will contain classroom assessment components. Five examples of classroom assessment are discussed. It is seen that these methods can be used in conjunction with cooperative learning exercises and the development of higher-level thinking skills. The result of using classroom assessment is improved teaching, improved learning, and a higher-quality graduate.

I. INTRODUCTION

Assessment plans have three components. First is a statement of goals. Second are multiple measures of achievement of these goals. Third is the use of the results to improve the educational process. Taken together, these three components form a feedback loop. The goal statement is a definition of the set point, the multiple measures indicate the output from the process, and the use of the results to improve the education process closes the feedback loop. A high-quality assessment plan will have nested feedback loops (analogous to cascade control) in which measures are made at various points in the education process and feedback occurs to different points in the curriculum. Figure 1 illustrates these nested feedback loops. For comparison, Figure 2 illustrates the traditional feed forward process of higher education where the output is assumed based upon the content of the curriculum, but in which no measures of the output are made to assess the validity of the curriculum as a model for learning.

Consider a questionnaire sent to alumni or to employers of alumni. Information obtained and applied from this assessment measure create a feedback loop from the end of the formal education process to within the education process. An exit questionnaire or exit interview results in a feedback loop nested within the previous loop. A questionnaire given to juniors or any similar assessment information obtained during the education process results in another nested feedback loop between two points within the education process. With more nested feedback loops, the time scale between measure and feedback decreases. The practical limit approaching continuous assessment and feedback results in classroom assessment. Classroom assessment is conducted for the specific purpose of improving teaching and learning within a given class. It involves frequent (more often than traditional testing), often informal assessment of student learning (not for a grade) such that the measurement point and feedback point are within the same course, often the same class period.

Classroom assessment is a type of formative assessment. The goal is to improve student learning, and the process continues as the learning process proceeds. The audience for this formative assessment is the instructor in a particular class or faculty within a curriculum. At the other extreme is summative assessment, in which a judgment is made regarding the success of the educational process as a whole. The first (largest time scale) feedback loop described above should be close to pure summative assessment.

The audience for summative assessment is external to the department and university. The intermediate feedback time scales represent a hybrid between summative and formative assessment. Quality assessment plans should have both summative and formative components. They should have multiple nested feedback loops which satisfy both the demands of external constituents and the needs of students and instructors. It is likely that a characteristic of assessment plans satisfying ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 will be multiple, nested feedback loops as described above and as illustrated in Figure 1.

Much of what has been written and presented in the recent engineering literature regarding assessment mostly involves summative assessment.'-3 This paper focuses on classroom assessment and classroom assessment methods used successfully by the author. The goal is to introduce classroom assessment as a formative evaluation method that will complement the more summative components being developed to satisfy external constituencies.

II. CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES Classroom assessment is not new, and the definitive work on the subject contains 50 classroom assessment techniques.4 These include methods for assessing recall and understanding, critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, synthesis and creativity skills, and student attitudes. The purpose of classroom assessment is to obtain information on the success of the learning process, and classroom assessment exercises are not used in the grading process.

Perhaps the most widely-known classroom assessment technique is the "minute paper," in which students take the last minute of a lecture to write down what they learned in that class, and the instructor uses this informal feedback to assess the success of that lecture period.5 A variation of this is the "muddiest point," in which students write down the item they found the most confusing in a given lecture.6 Another variation of these, called the "attention quiz," has been developed and tested in an engineering context7.8, Here, the class ends with a short, multiple-choice quiz on material discussed in the just completed lecture. If the goal of a class period is for students to learn something instead of only being note takers, these classroom assessment techniques may allow the instructor to evaluate what was learned.