Course Design: University Assessment Essentials
Course Design: University Assessment Essentials
Assessments are an integral part of course writing; they serve as ways to evaluate whether the goals of the course have been met, as well as to determine the success of student learning in specific areas. The following details some of the different assessment types you can employ in your courses and how to implement them effectively. Remember that there’s no one right approach to assess your students; rather, you should use assessments that allow you to measure what you want to measure and let students know what they need to learn most from your class.
Example #1: Grading Rubric
In a grading rubric, you describe exactly what you are looking for in students’ work. This is useful for learners because it helps them determine how well they will perform on your assessment based on their previous experiences. Example #2: Grading Rubric: For example, if your grading scale goes from 1 to 4 (with 1 being worst and 4 being best), with each subsequent grade having more weight than its predecessor, then use a five-point scale to create intervals within each grade. For example, let’s say I assign all essays a number between 0 and 100, with 0 representing an essay that does not meet my expectations and 100 representing an essay that meets every expectation beyond what I could possibly ask for.
Example #2: Special Considerations
Your Specialty and Audience. Let’s say you want to write a post on course development and assessment. What is your speciality? Are you an educator with a focus on mathematics, history, or art? Or are you a distance education specialist who works with online learners? Does your audience primarily consist of undergraduate students, or do they include K-12 teachers or working professionals as well? These are all important questions because they help determine which areas will be most relevant to your readers. Once you have established these foundational points, you can move forward with writing your topic in a way that speaks specifically to those groups.
Example #3: Final Exam
When you get to a final exam, there’s no doubt that it can be stressful. It’s one of those moments when you feel like your entire semester rests on your shoulders. But here are some things you can do to ease your mind