Assessment for Meaningful Feedback

Students need and want timely and helpful feedback on their performance in regard to the outcomes of a course. As a COCC instructor, you will want to know:

• What are the basics of effective assessment?
• How can students take more responsibility for their learning through assessment practices?
• Can performance standards become scoring guides that contribute to program outcomes?

Assessment can be defined as a process, integral to learning, that involves observation and judgment of each student's performance, on the basis of explicit criteria with resulting feedback to the student. The way learning outcomes are assessed is critical to their educational value. Assessment of student learning is most effectively conducted when based upon meaningful and relevant criteria that authentically evaluate the achievement of knowledge, skills, and abilities. It should give students a level of control over their own learning and provide for risk-free reflection and feedback.

A positive aspect of student-centered curriculum is that both qualitative and the more standard quantitative assessments can be used, and actually complement one another. Qualitative assessments make it easier for the instructor and outsiders to measure the quality of the course, whereas quantitative assessments allow the student to better determine their strengths and weaknesses.

Since outcome assessment should include activities that would be done by someone with those skills and competencies, standard written tests should be used sparingly and only when they add to the student's ability to attain the outcomes. Since learning is enhanced when students perform hands-on activities, more active assessments are not just a means of evaluation, but also increase learning itself.

Classroom Assessment

The purpose of classroom assessment is to provide information (feedback) to both students and the teacher as to how the individual did in light of what he or she attempted to do. Feedback helps teachers re-focus teaching and helps students make their learning more efficient and effective.

Feedback is:

• Information about how a person did in light of what they attempted (intent and ideal)
• Confirms or disconfirms the correctness of actions

The best feedback is:

• Highly specific, useful evidence of effect relative to intent
• Directly revealing or highly descriptive of what actually resulted
• Clear to the student
• Available or offered in terms of specific targets and standards
• Timely, frequent and ongoing
• Derived from true (real world) models
• Presented to enable students to improve through self-assessment and self-adjustment

At COCC, this means that students should be able to describe how they are doing or performing on the course outcomes at any time during the term. They would have the results of quizzes, exams, homework, and other assignments quickly enough to learn from these to apply to new material and course objectives.

INDICATOR: A behavior or trait that is typical of a particular performance being assessed. It is a concrete sign of a criterion being met. Taken together as a "set of indicators," they specify performance levels for the criterion. For example, when considering an assessment of the outcome, "good speaking," a criterion may be, "student speaks in an engaging manner," and the indicators might include, "makes eye contact," "modulates voice to the room and size of audience," "handles audience questions with accurate information," and "handles audience questions with tact and grace." Indicators are not always appropriate in all contexts and for all tasks.

CRITERIA: The qualities that must be met by learner performances/products for work to be considered up to standard and for the performances to be deemed successful. To ask "What are the criteria?" amounts to asking: "What should we look for in examining students' products or performances to know if they were successful? What kinds of errors diminish the quality of performance?"

An excellent resource for the teacher in classroom assessment can be found in the CAFE's library holdings, located in LIB 023:

Angelo and Cross (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques. A Handbook for College Teachers. SF: John Wiley & Sons

* Adapted from: Grant Wiggins and Jay McTige (1988) Understanding by Design, Alexandria, VA: Association of Curriculum and Development.

Program Assessment

For information about how COCC's instructional assessment works at the program level, visit the Instructional Assessment intranet site (SSO required).