Student assessment can take on many forms in graduate higher education courses. Five learning assessment realms provide frameworks for these learning environments: Achieving Consensus, Building Learning Community, Grounded Learning, Navigating Contested Terrain, and Work Artifacts (Kerl, Noffs, & Wilson, 2019). As an instructor you can utilize one realm exclusively or design a course that uses components of different realms.
As you create or modify courses, match course activities to the kind of student assessment you want. The course description and learning objectives guide you to your version of this assessment.
Achieving Consensus
Use activities to gain certain understandings of topics, argue certain positions, and reach common conclusions.
| Assessment | Activity |
|---|---|
| Student branding | Students develop professional identity that makes them standout i.e. use of LinkedIn |
| Making choices | Give students a list of topics to choose; consider pros and cons of choice |
| Positioning | Paper or presentation that allows student a "deep dive" into a certain perspective |
| Debate | Facilitate structured arguments where students prove opposing positions on a certain topic |
| Group decision-making | Student group-led lectures or problem-based learning that small groups must resolve as one voice. |
Building a Learning Community
Use activities to build a community, set expectations, and give students a voice.
| Assessment | Activity |
|---|---|
| Group Charters | Solicit student goals for the course on Day 1. Assess goals mid-term and on last day. What do students expect? |
| Brainstorming and Ideation | Allow class time to brainstorm project topics. |
| Identify each other's learning styles | Have students identify their preferred learning styles. Encourage students to share their learning styles with small-group projects. How do these learning styles complement each other? |
| Creative student introductions | Flipgrid (video introductions) or fun icebreakers |
| Group Work and Peer Review | Peer reflection helps students realize they're in it together. |
| Assess prior learning | Use student resumes that gauge types of experiences students bring to the classroom. |
Grounded Learning
Use activities to establish academic practice of analysis, synthesis, and establishment of new theoretical ideas and theses. Many may identify this as a set of “traditional course assessments.”
| Assessment | Activity |
|---|---|
| Annotated bibliography | Research-forward, students identify, review, and summarize literature in a given topic. First step toward literature review. |
| Demonstrate mastery | Manifested through reading reflections, quizzes, and tests. Provide proof that students retain new knowledge. |
| Quizzes | Brief weekly or bi-weekly reflections of readings and lectures. Frequent checks on students' retention of concepts and perspectives. |
| Outcomes checklist | Develop a list of items students should accomplish in this course. |
| Literature Review | Students build from their annotated bibliography--synthesize literature into themes, identify gaps in literature that inspire further research. |
| Mid-Term Exam | A check on students' retention of readings, lecture, and discussion accumulated through Week 4 or Week 5. |
| Research Paper | Students build on the literature review to investigate a topic of further research. Items like an outline, due earlier in the quarter, help shape the final research paper. |
| Final Exam | Final check of students' retention of readings, lectures, and discussions accumulated through the entire quarter; typically given at last class session. Format could be a combination of multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, and essay questions. |
Navigating Contested Terrain
Use activities to engage in debate, gender/race/political, ethical decision-making. This realm builds on “Achieving Consensus” whereas students challenge established ideas and perspectives.
| Assessment | Activity |
|---|---|
| Passion project | This course-long project allows students to explore new knowledge and practice in an area they are personally excited about. |
| Journaling | Require students to keep a notebook of all their experiences related to the course. The compilation of these journal notes give students a fresh perspective on concepts. |
| Position paper | Require students to develop a paper, video, or presentation on a position different from their personal preference. Exposing them to different perspectives gives them a critical understanding of concepts. |
| Leadership practice | Students demonstrate leadership -- the ability to guide a group in a direction it has yet to face. This could be a small-group activity, where students take turns assuming a leadership role. |
| Diversity and inclusion | Clearly define how students use diversity and inclusion. Is it diversity and inclusion of thought, consideration of the protected classes, or something else? Integrate this understanding in class activities and assignments. |
| Reflection | Students must first understand themselves and their perspectives before contesting new knowledge. Demonstrate this through a brief reflection paper or through peer-to-peer discussions in class. |
| Case studies | Develop background of a given scenario, the problem occurring in the scenario, and questions for students to consider. Include a question about what the case study does not address. |
| Ethical decision-making | As students discover knowledge, integrate discussions about what decisions are appropriate. This guides them to make sound, repeatable conclusions as they face similar circumstances in their careers. |
| Role playing | Institute in-class improv or design a final project that assigns students to specific perspectives. Highlight the importance of empathy, which is effective in professional communication. |
Work Artifacts
Authentic assessments emulate a workplace genre or task. Experiential learning has a public audience or interacts with the world outside of the classroom.
| Assessment | Activity |
|---|---|
| Run your code | Technical application in a research class, like running statistics. Evidence of this is a good portfolio piece. |
| Blog post | Facilitate a weekly reading reflection. Allow students to post links and respond to each other's posts. |
| News article review | Facilitate a weekly summarization of a current news article. This allows students to apply course concepts to events and information they read outside of the classroom. |
| Mapping | Utilize this planning technique to organize a paper or project. Good for visual learners to connect concepts to original ideas and to build a narrative. |
| Social media | Suggest students create a social media profile for professional use. Posting and sharing industry trends, own work, and work of others helps students build a professional persona online. |
| Connecting with scholars | Go beyond the guest lecture -- Invite industry representatives as mentors to students. MSHE Meetups is one example of a mentoring program. No need for much formality--you could simply introduce scholars to students and encourage personal meetings in ways that respect scholars' time. |
| Final Project/Capstone | Consider a project that requires a student to work with a real client. This project addresses a real need the client must fulfill. In this approach you bridge classwork to real-world problem solving. The client witnesses the students' professional performance first-hand, which encourages the client to guide students to employment opportunities (or at least make them stand out). |
Source
Kerl, J., Noffs, D., & Wilson, K. (2019). High impact online assessment strategies. Session at TeachX Conference. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, May 22, 2019.