Educational Assessment

Concept Mapping Improves Student Learning

Donna Saulsberry was in a bind. As an associate professor of computer and information technology at Doña Ana Community College, one of her jobs is to prepare her networking students for the Microsoft® Certified Systems Engineer certification test. Having survived a Microsoft certification boot camp herself, she began instructing her students in much the same way as she was taught: lecture, practice, and multiple choice tests.

Mary Bart February 2, 2009

Tips on Creating an Accreditation Review Timeline

The accreditation review process may never be stress-free, but with proper preparation you can at least minimize the stress that so often accompanies it. So just how far ahead should you start preparing for your accreditation review?

Mary Bart January 28, 2009

Rethinking Multiple Choice Tests for Assessing Student Learning

If you think multiple choice tests are only good to assess how well students memorized facts, it may be time to rethink your testing strategy. Although they are not appropriate for every situation, when properly developed, multiple choice tests can used to assess higher levels of thinking, including application and analysis.

Mary Bart January 14, 2009

What You Need to Know When Evaluating Assessment Instruments

MAPP, CAAP, C-BASE, CLA, NSSE, to name just a few. With so many published assessment instruments available, how do you know the best one for assessing student learning at your school?

Mary Bart January 12, 2009

Four Tips for Acing Your Accreditation Site Visit

With state and federal governments putting more and more emphasis on assessment and learning outcomes, these new-style accreditation processes can be grueling, to say the least. Here are a few valuable tips to help ensure a successful accreditation visit.

Chuck Wight PhD January 7, 2009

Student Learning Assessment in Higher Education: Understanding Where to Begin

For some educators, student learning assessment is a little like exercise. Yes, we know it’s important, we feel better when we do it, and we can even see the results of our efforts, but it sure is a hassle to get started. […]

Mary Bart December 15, 2008

Teaching Strategies: Frequent Exams = Better Results for Students

It’s not a new finding — in general, more exams lead to better grades—but it’s always nice when research confirms some of our best practices in teaching. In the educational assessment study referenced below […]

Maryellen Weimer, PhD December 3, 2008

A Useful Strategy for Assessing Class Participation

One of the changes we have seen in academia in the last 30 years or so is the shift from lecture-based classes to courses that encourage a student-centered approach. Few instructors would quibble with the notion that promoting active participation helps students to think critically and to argue more effectively. However, even the most savvy instructors are still confounded about how to best evaluate participation, particularly when it is graded along with more traditional assessment measures, such as essays, exams, and oral presentations…

Denise D. Knight September 14, 2008

Developing an Alternate Assessment Exercise for an Introductory Chemistry Course

In recent years, my desire to teach students more than chemistry content has increased considerably. I now want my students (even those in nonmajor, introductory courses) to learn how chemistry connects to their daily lives. Learning the nomenclature rules for monosubstituted amides helps students in the introductory course on their content-based standardized exam at the end of the semester, but it does not help them appreciate the relevance of chemistry across various disciplines. I have also struggled with…

Ricky Cox August 31, 2008

Educational Assessment: A Different Kind of Feedback

worked in a small education studies department that used a wonderfully simple, three-part conceptual framework for responding to student work — whether oral presentations, written papers, or even student teaching. First, we modeled active listening by succinctly summarizing what we understood to be the students’ theses or main points in their presentation, paper, or lesson. Next, we detailed…

Ron Byrnes August 28, 2008

Educational Assessment

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