An important step in designing or redesigning an assessment is to explore what might be possible. Below is a list of alternative assessment ideas to seed your imagination.
Even if none of them seem like a good fit for your current assessment design needs, we hope that a few pique your interest enough to keep them in mind for future assessments.
Alternative Assessment Ideas
The following section showcases an open educational resource (OER), Beyond the Exam: An Alternative Online Assessment Toolkit. The toolkit was developed collaboratively between Brock University, College Boreal and McMaster University. The team was led by Joanne Kehoe and Samantha Duncan.
In keeping with the conditions of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Share-Alike license, we are releasing the resource with the same Creative Commons license.
A mind map is a visual representation of a subject or topic that allows you to creatively represent key information. A mind map is like a diagram with pictures, words, drawings and links or connections between different ideas. Mind maps let you think through the key areas of your theme or topic. Some people use mind mapping to take notes in class, to brainstorm new ideas and plan projects.
Read more on the eCampusOntario ePub.
A board game assignment, as the name implies, asks learners to design a boardgame that engages creatively with their disciplinary topic. It may help to explore an example of student work to envision the assignment.
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The scavenger hunt assignment is an activity to promote and facilitate students moving beyond skimming towards more meaningful, engaged deep reading. It can be used for a full text or a series of readings. Students create a series of ten quiz questions and an answer key based on the content of reading material for a particular week. Students are responsible for 2 chapters/readings.
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Students design a lesson on a topic related to the course disciplinary topic (either included in the course content or one of their own choosing – it is for the instructor to determine) by curating existing resources from the web. They will decide on a learning goal that they want their (imagined) audience to achieve and then, using a web-based curation tool or practice, create a curated collection from web-based resources that they select to support the goal of their lesson.
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The press release assessment was created for a business course at College Boréal and can be used in any course that includes an outcome related to writing a press release for a company as part of marketing / administrative responsibilities and skill-building. The course example used had the following learning outcome: Write a press release using an objective writing style that is respectful of the Associated Press style and the inverted pyramid style of writing.
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The minute paper takes – well, just about a minute – and while usually used at the end of class, it can be used at the end of any topic discussion. [It] is a formative strategy and participation in the activity is normally not assessed, but it could be considered as part of a participation grade that is supervised in class. Students write a paper or response for one-minute about what was discussed in class (refer to the expanded description of the minute paper in the “Read more” section below for examples of question prompts).
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A multimodal project may also be called a digital media artefact. Multimodal refers to the use of two or more communication modes. In a multimodal project, the modes are typically digital in nature. This could involve the use of images, text, video, audio, webpages, presentation slides, animation, blogs, e-book, etc..
The multimodal project assessment reflects the principles of universal design for learning by giving choice and encouraging diversity around the modes of representation, as well as allowing students to explore the topic through a creative lens.
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Creating an infographic – visual representations of information that can include numbers, text, images, or any combination of the three – enables students to develop skills in graphic design and data visualization. Effective infographics tell a story. Students also gain experience in using a different-than-usual mode to convey findings.
When students create infographics, they are using information, visual, and technology literacies.
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The alternative group presentation is a combination of individual and collaborative work. Used in a class taught by McMaster University instructor Dr. Joanne Wilson, she integrated a twist on an otherwise conventional group project [in an advanced seminar style course].
Students were required to read one research article per week in preparation for a synchronous seminar style lecture led by a guest speaker. To build individual and class understanding of the research topic contained in the article, a group assignment was integrated, which contained three distinct components:
- Group Video Presentations on key topics in the article and Class Discussion Facilitation
- Individual Report
- Individual Annotated Bibliography
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An annotated bibliography is a list of citations – or short, topic-relevant synopses – of sources (books, articles, websites, films, etc.) used to research a topic that includes a summary and evaluation of each source.
Read more on the eCampusOntario ePub.
We realize the list above is daunting in length, so we will stop here. But, if you are interested, you can further investigate:
- Social annotation,
- “Social annotation as a Learning Tool” (Angelique Pearson, Oregon State University)
- “Bibliography for Social Annotation” (hypothes.is AnnotatED community, hypothes.is)
- zines,
- “Zine-making 101: Feminist pedagogy through creative assessments” (Amanda Greer, Teaching for Learning)
- “Zines as Reflective Evaluation Within Interdisciplinary Learning Programmes” (Brown et al., Frontiers in Education)
- experiential and process documentation
- “Assessing Experiential Learning” (Albertus Magnus College)
- “How to assess? Student preferences for methods to assess experiential learning: A best-worst scaling approach” (Melo et al., PLOS One)
- case studies
- “Assessment by Case Studies and Scenarios” (University of New South Wales Sydney)
- “Enhancing Scientific Communication Skills” (Eppler et al., Research in Science Education)
- reflective portfolios
- “A Critical Review of Portfolio Assessment as an Alternative Tool in English Language Teaching Classrooms” (Ravnil Narayan, English Language and Literature Studies)
- Digital Portfolios
- “ePortfolios: A 360-Degree Approach to Assessment in Teacher Education” (Mpho-Entle Puleng Modise and Norman Vaughan, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology)
- “Digital Portfolios as an Alternative to Traditional Assessment,” (Mardonova Gulchehkra Vasliddin kizi, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence)
- other project-based assignments
- Podcasts
- “How to leverage podcasts for learning” (Stanford Graduate School of Education)
- “Producing Podcasts as an Alternative Method of Student Assessment” (Brittany Starkman, Open Library)
- Podcasts
There is no shortage of innovation in teaching and learning, and we hope you might be inspired to add your own example.
If you decided to start your assessment design process by ideating, we encourage you to take a few moments to draft an outline of your new assessment idea and then return to the “Designing” section of the module to help develop your assessment in greater depth.
Otherwise, move on to the final part of the module – Evaluating Authentic Assessments.
References
Duncan, S., & Kehoe, J. (Eds.). (2022). Beyond the exam: An alternative online assessment toolkit. McMaster University. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/beyondtheexam/.