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Assessment as A Catalyst to Deepen Student Learning
Keynote Address: General Education and Assessment: Creating Shared Responsibility
for Learning Across the Curriculum
AAC & U’s Network for Academic Renewal Conference, February, 2005
Peggy [email protected]
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• Chronology of learning
• Collaborative mapping of vertical themes in the curricular-co-curricular fabric that contribute to students’ learning along the continuum of their learning
Foci
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• Assessment methods that shape and chronicle how well students make meaning
• Ways to position students to construct meaning and solve problems based on their General Education program of study
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Chronology of Learning
• Students bring a learning chronology with them—understanding, abilities, habits of mind, as well as misunderstandings
• Students learn differently—at different times, places, and through different pedagogies, strategies, instructional design, and educational tools such as technology
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As a result of GE courses and educational experiences, we want students to:
• Integrate• Apply • Synthesize• Transfer• Analyze• Interpret• Reflect
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Collaborative Mapping of Vertical Themes
• Map vertical themes across GE and other contributing educational experiences such as :– nature of evidence
– modes of inquiry and discourse
– Interdependence
– ethical decision making and problem solving
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Mapping a Vertical Theme
Evidence that counts?
Content/context of learning, such as in mathematics
historysociology, etc.
Teachingand learning
methods
Assessmentmethods
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Assessment Methods that Shape and Chronicle Student Learning:
“Every assessment is also based on a set of beliefs about the kinds of tasks or situations that will prompt students to say, do, or create something that demonstrates important knowledge and skills. The tasks to which students are asked to respond on an assessment are not arbitrary.“
National Research Council., p. 47.
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“What and how students learn depends to a major extent on how they think they will be assessed.’’ Biggs, J., p. 141.
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Characteristics of GE Assessment Methods:
• Integrated along the continuum of students’ learning to routinely prompt students to draw on their GE courses and related learning experiences
• Designed to position students to see learning as relevant, emerging, subject to change or revision based on new knowledge, perspectives, and understanding
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• Focused on complex as opposed to simple problems/issues: rich, dynamic, muddy, interdisciplinary
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Methods Position Students:
– Reuse and reconfigure what they have learned, leading to deeper or even new understanding, perspectives, ways of problem-solving
– Value interdependence among courses and experiences
– Self-reflect on their emerging learning
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Possible Methods:
• A case study or case studies over time as students move through courses and educational experiences
• Virtual simulations or scenarios• Computer modeling• Storyboarding
• Logbook or journal tasks that explore a complex problem over time
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• Mind mapping, concept mapping, or other visual representation (3-D)
• Critical events/situations along the
continuum of learning
• Self-directed group projects (personal and annotated websites)
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• Mining and interpreting learning objects (artifacts)
• Development of a model that is then executed (artists’ maquettes)
• Problems with solutions. Are there other solutions?
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• Shifted perspectives on a problem/issue—fine tuned view versus maco-view ( a la Lewis Thomas)
• Lab work/field work/service learning projects
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• Chronological task that challenges students to construct meaning over time--from remembering set solutions to applying to a new situation—
•Magic box
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Positioning Students to Construct Meaning and Solve Problems
o Orientation of new students to the continuum of learning and vertical theme maps
o Identification of assessment methods along the continuum of learning
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o Incorporation of self-reflection, analysis of frameworks, perspectives, ways of knowing and problem solving, and actions or decisions as part of assessment methods.
o Creation of interdisciplinary teams that periodically work on a complex
problem from orientation to graduation and track their chronological approaches to solving a problem.
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R.W. Emerson, “Intellect,” Essays (1841)
“How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone is. Its vision is not like the vision of the eye, but is union with the things known.”
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Works Cited
• Biggs, J. (1999). Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What The Student Does. Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, 1999, p. 141.
• Marton, F., & Saljo, R. (1976). On Qualitative Differences in Learning: I—Outcome and Process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 4-11.
• Marton, F., & Saljo, R. (1976). On Qualitative Differences in Learning: II—Outcome and Process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46, 115-127.
• National Research Council. (2001). Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 47.
