Educational Assessment

Student Internships: An Effective Assessment Model

Internships are integral parts of many professional degree programs. Potentially, they make significant contributions to an educational experience. “Well-organized and carefully supervised programs enhance the student’s ability to integrate academic knowledge with practical application, improve job/career opportunities after graduation, create relevance for past and future classroom learning, develop work place social and human relations skills, and provide the opportunity for students to apply communication and problem-solving skills.” (p. 208) Deborah F. Beard identifies these contributions in an article on assessing internship experiences in the field of accounting.

Maryellen Weimer, PhD June 3, 2010

Learning Outcome Assessment: Creating a Systematic and Transparent Program

Faculty usually hold a set of beliefs that make the whole topic of learning outcome assessment seem boring, useless, or both.

Gary A. Gigliotti PhD May 11, 2010

Giving Students Multiple Attempts to Improve Test Scores Provides a Powerful Learning Opportunity

Using multiple test trials was something I had never considered until found myself in a newly assigned course with an old syllabus. The previous course, which consisted of 310 total points, included 140 (45 percent) testing-based points. In addition to a 100-point final exam, there were four 10-point quizzes. I was intrigued by the quiz design format that allowed students to take the quiz up to three times over the course of a week, with the average score added to the grade book.

Aimee Luebben EdD. April 22, 2010

Online Grade Books Provide Transparency, Accountability

I started using an online grade book as a convenience for myself. Here, finally, was a grade book that couldn’t get lost or stolen, and it would be automatically backed up by the IT department every night. The accumulated scores could also be downloaded directly into a spreadsheet for calculation of grades, a shortcut that reduced the possibility of errors.

Tom Schrand PhD March 16, 2010

Extra Credit Assignments: An Innovative Approach

My students are always asking for opportunities to earn bonus points. I offer a variety of assignments during the semester, but they still want bonus points, which they seem to think are easier to obtain than the required points. Generally, I’m opposed to bonus options because I feel that if students are struggling with the current assignments, they do not need an “extra” assignment for extra credit. In addition, the word “bonus” seems to suggest something for nothing. I want my students to realize that grades are earned, not given. However, I recently tried a bonus activity that benefited my students and also met my expectations for a substantive learning experience.

Tena Long Golding, PhD February 3, 2010

Are Your Students Career-Ready? Create a Rubric to Find out

Have you ever wondered if what you teach and how you teach it results in career-ready students? Have you ever wondered if your expectations for student learning outcomes match what the real world requires? In the Public Relations Studies program at Columbia College Chicago, we wondered, too. So, we set out to answer our own questions about the most basic skills professionals expect of entry-level candidates.

Sandra Allen MA MBA January 12, 2010

Improving Your Assessment Processes: Q&A with Linda Suskie

It’s a new year, but the same old challenges exist. Given today’s financial challenges, colleges and universities are all working harder than ever to be careful stewards of limited resources and to demonstrate their effectiveness to stakeholders, constituents, and the public.

Rob Kelly January 4, 2010

A New Approach to Grading Student Essays

As a very young teacher, I remember pulling all-nighters to get my students’ essays back within the one-week limit I set for myself. Even in those days this “cram grading” was miserable and exhausting; but now at 50—especially with the added responsibilities of husband, father, and homeowner—this style of grading papers is all but impossible.

Matt Birkenhauer November 16, 2009

Using Self-Check Exercises to Assess Online Learning

The intermediate statistics class I took quite a number of years ago had two types of learners at the outset—those who were worried about passing the course and those who were sure they couldn’t pass it. The professor clearly understood the “fear-of-stats” phenomenon and used a number of instructional techniques to help learners gain confidence and skills.

Patti Shank PhD CPT October 9, 2009

Educational Assessment

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