Assessment & Feedback

On this page, you will find resources about assessment and feedback. You will discover quick and easy tips in the form of Teaching Tools in a Flash, links and recordings from our Past Events, and opportunities to engage more deeply with a Workshop in a Flash. If you find something you want to try out, consider scheduling a consultation or applying for a Teaching Recognition Award. 

Teaching Tools in a Flash
Related to Assessment & Feedback
Rubrics

Rubrics are tools that lay out expectations of an assignment for students. It can prompt students to self-evaluate and can help with those questions "why did I get this grade" and decrease subjectivity that is apparent in grading.

Rubrics for Minimal Assessment

The efficient rubric is designed to facilitate rapid and holistic assessment of assignments without the use of written feedback. It was inspired by the “minimalist grading” perspective that suggests extensive written responses to assignments is not a useful or necessary practice. 

Reflections

Meaningful, critical reflection encourages students to think about their learning rather than just passively experience it; thereby generating, deepening and documenting learning, which allows for personal growth, civic learning and/or academic enhancement (Ash and Clayton, 2009).

Student Questionnaires

A student questionnaire is an easy, effective tool you can create and implement in your class that can transform your interactions with your class, decrease student anxiety, and yield insights into the needs and backgrounds of the students in your section. 

Student Response Systems

Student Response Systems (SRS) allow you to receive immediate feedback on your teaching and their learning. It could take 10 seconds or 10 minutes of your class time but works well in small or large classrooms.

Group Testing

Group testing is an instructional tool that incorporates a group component to traditional individual testing to assess student learning. After an individual test, students form groups to retake the exam or part of the exam. Grades from these exams are a combination of the individual and group scores.  

Fact Sheets

A fact sheet is a short document that contains the most relevant information about a particular subject in the least amount of space. Students must decide what is most important, organize it, and communicate it in their own words.

Simulations

Engaging an audience in active learning where participants learn from each other, not just from the “sage on the stage”

Effective Multiple Choice Questions

Creating multiple choice questions that align with what we want to assess can be challenging. This evidence-based teaching tool provides you with some tips for developing questions and evaluating them to ensure they are assessing what you intend.

Critiques

Critiques can range from information feedback involving peers to a formal graded process led by the instructor. 

Past Events
Related to Assessment & Feedback

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AI for Educators

In this workshop, we discuss some foundational knowledge related to artificial intelligence, share research findings about KSU instructor perception and usage of AI, and explore strategies to make your role as an educator more efficient, engaging, and creative through the use of AI.

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The CATS Meow: Classroom Assessment Techniques

Classroom assessment techniques (CATS) offer a real-time way for you to gauge student preparedness, comprehension, skills, and attitudes.  In addition to exploring quick, easy strategies like minute papers or exit-tickets, this session explores more summative strategies including alternatives and helpful modifications to essay writing and multiple-choice examples.

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Steps and Tools for Equitable and Effective Assessment

This workshop draws upon the experiences and recommendations of various KSU instructors alongside recent research in order to see what practical, realistic steps we can all implement toward more equitable and effective assessment in our classes.

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Taking Learning to the Next Level with Metacognition

Have you ever wanted to help your students become more effective/skillful learners?  Whether it is a minute question or a more in-depth exercise, metacognitive strategies can help transform student learning. 

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Workshops in a Flash
Related to Assessment & Feedback

Workshops in a Flash are 15 minute mobile mini-workshops, facilitated by CTL staff.  They are designed to be delivered to groups of instructors during informal gatherings or departmental meetings. Workshops in a Flash are meant to start exploration of a chosen topic with continued support from the Center as requested.

Click here to learn more about Workshops in a Flash.

Using Testing as a Learning Experience: Group Quizzes

Group quizzes are one way to use testing simultaneously as a learning experience and a mechanism for evaluation. Students are individually held accountable for their mastery of the concepts but learn with their peers as they continue through the quiz. Studies have shown reduced exam anxiety and both lower and higher achieving students benefiting from this practice. Request this workshop to learn more about how you could structure group quizzes and help students develop interpersonal communication skills and positive relationship with their peers.

 

Using Testing as a Learning Experience: Exam Wrappers & Post-Exam Analysis

This workshop will briefly review what post-exam analysis is, the importance of post-exam analysis and gives you an opportunity to think
about how the concept might work in your course. Point deduction disputes aren’t the only reason for students to review exams! Post-exam analysis includes identifying challenges related to study skills, content errors, and/or test taking skills. This analysis helps students learn from their exam, identify what their challenges were, and make plans to overcome those challenges.

Knowing What Your Students Know & Don’t know – Admission & Exit Tickets

Do you ever wonder if your students came prepared, or took away the main points you’d hoped from a lecture? Admission and exit slips are quick tools you can use in any classroom to check to see what your students came away with whether it is pre-class or during class work. It is also another way to provide feedback to students, increase students’ participation and increase their metacognitive skills. We will discuss the different purposes of these tickets, example prompts you may use, and design some prompts that will work for your classroom. 

Knowing What Your Students Know & Don’t know – Retrieval Practice

Students predict they will do well on an exam after reviewing notes, slides and other materials; everything is memorized – or so they think. By incorporating retrieval practice in your class, you can reap the same benefits as others; significantly improving students’ scores and ability to recall information at a later date. Whether you want your students to understand simple concepts and definitions or complex concepts and applications, retrieval practice can work for them. We will discuss how you can help students help themselves while easily and seamlessly incorporating retrieval practice into your course.

Decrease Grading Time: Using Rubrics to Communicate Expectations

Rubrics can help students understand the evaluation criteria while decreasing the amount of time you spend grading. By making criteria for grading explicit, there will be less subjectivity in grading and hopefully more assignments you will enjoy grading. This workshop will discuss not only key elements of rubrics, but how implementation can make or break the effectiveness of the rubric. 

Helping Students to Become Critical Thinkers: Problem-Solving with Metacognition Prompts

A key component in critical thinking is metacognition. Research has shown that students who are more metacognitively aware tend to be more successful in their classes. These metacognition prompts are based in “self-questioning” and used while students solve problems. The self questioning process has been shown to improve students’ reasoning skills, deepen discussion and increase confidence in their ability to solve problems.

Getting Students to Come Prepared: Readiness Assessments

Before diving deeper or moving on, we want to be sure students are not already falling behind. Readiness assurance quizzes can be used at the beginning of class to assess pre-class readings and video takeaways, or at the beginning of a new unit to assess prior knowledge. Readiness Assurance is a part of team-based learning and combines evidence-based strategies like collaborative learning, group testing and retrieval practice. Readiness Assurance Process checks whether or not students have gained the knowledge you hope so everyone can be more successful.

 

Getting Students to Come Prepared: Pre-Class Reading Prompts

How many times are students required to read but seem to forget what they read or remember something that was minimally important? Guiding questions help focus students during the reading, and help prepare them to make connections between their reading and the upcoming class discussions and activities. They can be written for entry-level topics as well as higher-order thinking like application and evaluation. We will discuss question design, mechanisms for implementation and the necessity (or not) for incentives. 

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