More thoughts on assessment and groupwork

A lot is going on in the world of assessment these days, and many of the changes that are taking place are being forwarded by the increasing reach of online education in the education marketplace. Online teaching and learning are now prevalent, causing schools and instructors to reassess assessment by asking these beginning questions: Are assessment methods in the physical classroom appropriate for the online classroom? Is there a way to align assessment in the physical classroom with assessment in the online classroom? How do we know we are assessing the right things in either mode of delivery? Are our assessment methods preparing our students for the workplace?Essentially, all of these questions together recognize the mission in which teacher and student collude. When teaching and assessing, learning and demonstrating learning, teachers and students can no longer narrowly focus on transferring a subject matter, they must also widely focus on graduating students who are ready for today’s workplace demands.

The idea of readying students for their future jobs has long been a mantra for institutions, but it gets somewhat of a “not in my backyard” response from some instructors who feel that their subject matter is a separate entity from the day to day life students will face in the workplace. The truth is, as assessment matters stand in many classrooms, they are probably right. To promote true educational preparation, schools should not aim for readiness as defined by the government’s current directives to the public school systems and which is often echoed in traditional undergraduate teaching methods. Readiness today is defined, by the government and by many schools, as a student who performs well in an assessment environment that does not exist in the workplace. Today’s students need and will demand an ongoing, thorough educational preparation that leaves them familiar with and therefore less daunted by the performance requirements they will encounter on the job. It is one thing to graduate students who know a subject area, or even a breadth of subject areas as promoted by the traditional university system’s requirement of a renaissance-style sampling of subject matter across the humanities, natural and social sciences curriculum. It is quite another thing to graduate students who can do something with this knowledge. This ability is the product of practice. Every class a student takes should contain learning and assessment activities that promote the necessary skills for being successful members of a workplace team in a workplace environment.

Aligning assessment with workplace activities is good for the students, and it is good for schools and instructors. Students who segue smoothly into the working world upon graduation are going to appreciate the thoroughness of their preparation, and they will send others to the school for the same educational preparation. The esoteric may find the idea of education as a business to be crass, but the practical define repeat students and word of mouth advertising as important for job security.

So how do we begin to make a transition from traditional, assessment-in-a-vacuum testing to more relevant evaluation tasks that can be carried out on a continual basis rather than as a culminating event? Think about making at least one of your assessments an iterative group project so that students bring each of their strengths to bear and learn to function as a member of a group. Though being a member of a group is natural to students in the elementary years, the competition created in high school and college can create individualists who have a very hard time working as part of a group. In most workplaces, however, group work is the foundation of most activities and processes, and the ability to be a good team member is highly valued and rewarded. A good resource for further discussion of authentic assessment derived from acquired knowledge is Grant Wiggins 1999 article: The Case for Authentic Assessment.

Wiggins states that the “debate [about assessment] is not “either-or,” there is “virtue in an array of assessment instruments.” The transition here is also not one of “out with the old and in with the new” so much as a recognition that, in today’s world, educators have to be very nimble in their assessment planning because the students have two equally primary needs. Students certainly must engage with and master the subject matter of any class they take. While doing this, they need to gain and to build upon practical experience that they can take to their jobs. Sometimes the subject matter is part and parcel of this direct take-away, and sometimes it is not. Even if a subject matter can not be said to relate directly to what a student plans to do professionally, an instructor  can help students in the future by emulating workplace activities. A focused and well thought out discussion is similar to the workplace brainstorming sessions in which ideas are brought before a group and examined for application. A writing assignment will help a student to understand process—using a rubric to describe expectations for this assignment will emulate a workplace project “kick-off,” and using the same rubric to evaluate the assignment will model the end-stage assessment of how successful the project was in meeting a client’s or company’s goals. A presentation using audio or video will sharpen the student’s speaking skills—this could be turned into a debate to add the groupwork component. Keep in mind that the construct of online learning is, in and of itself, a preparation for the workplace as students need to learn to learn online in order build skill sets and to stay current in many professions—they must be active learners, and they must be able to self-organize and to recognize skill gaps in order to ask the right questions of their teachers and team leaders. A careful review and adjustment of our assessment techniques is key to setting students up for success—not only in the subject area in which we are experts, but also in whatever students decide to do after they’ve left our classes and schools.

Vicki Galloway Harsh, MA
Sr Academic Training Consultant

Back to school

Well, it’s back to school time. The stores are filled with back to school specials, I see parents dropping off their school children on my way to work, and I have an overwhelming urge to purchase some Trapper Keeper folders and a box of crayons. But as much as I want those crayons, they aren’t really what I need right now to prepare myself for the practical and intellectual aspects of my back to school journey.

Practically, the past few weeks have found me preparing my online course shells for the fall term. To help move that process along, I created a check-off list of places to update and schedule in my courses each term: assignments, exams, discussions, units, syllabus, schedule, announcements, etc. I fine-tune the list each term and it helps ensure that I don’t leave out something important. When working with new online instructors this is something I usually recommend that they create, as it helps them feel more confident that they can get their course up and running.

In addition to the practical aspects of getting my classes ready, I’m also thinking through many larger picture questions about my teaching... how can I make my classes better? Can I tweak my assignments or exams to be more effective? How can I increase student engagement with the material and make it more relevant in their lives? And how can I increase my own instructor presence and personality in the course? I don’t always know the best answers to these questions, but I know that asking them is a vital part of my back to school preparation.

Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D.
Senior Academic Trainer & Consultant