Teaching Tips of the Week: Assessments

The Virtual Learning Task Force has published its report and compiled a list of Teaching Recommendations for winter term 2021. As you prepare your course for winter term, you may consider making some of these changes to help address common challenges identified by students and instructors.  

Over the coming weeks we will share a few “Teaching Tips of the Week” as a helpful reminder of the teaching recommendations and to direct you to additional resources and supports. 

Teaching Tips of the Week #2: Assessments

Students reported feeling there were too many frequent, low-stakes assessments. To help reduce these feelings of being overwhelmed, consider these ideas: 

• Reduce the number of, and provide flexibility in assessments (e.g., if there are weekly quizzes, consider shifting these to bi-weekly, and only count the top five) 

• Ensure all assessments are clearly aligned with intended learning outcomes. Ask yourself if the assessments help reveal whether learners are achieving the learning outcomes you have identified – if they don’t, you may want to consider removing or modifying them. 

• Provide student choice between a heavier-weighted assignment and several smaller ones. 

• Scale back assessments to implement fewer, application-based assignments with moderate stakes for the purpose of giving meaningful feedback about understanding. 

• Provide options for assignment submission formats (written paper, video, recorded audio, graphical representation, presentation slides) to provide student choice and foster universal design for learning. This choice can motivate students to better represent their learning without compromising your outcomes. 

• Remember that while low-stakes (or graded for completion only) quizzes act as learning checkpoints and reduce the stress of high-stakes exams, this strategy should be balanced with considerations for the overall number of assessments in your course. Try to be mindful of the trade-off of increasing workload in exchange for lowering the stakes of your assessments.  

• Consider peer review techniques (should be used carefully as it can increase student workload). One relatively low-barrier example is using the ‘Study Buddy’ method. This is normally optional and involves students pairing up before submitting an assignment to exchange/review their work for feedback, which they can choose to act upon prior to assignment submission. The intended result is higher quality work, but a side benefit is building a supportive peer relationship in the class. For this method to work, the reviewing instructions, expectations and conduct should be clear, and you may also consider offering bonus marks to those who sign up to be “Study Buddies”. 

Looking for additional resources? 

• Learn more about various options for alternative assessments in a virtual environment.  
• Looking to incorporate Peer Review? Peermark is integrated into Avenue to Learn as part of the Turnitin suite. Find out more through these short videos on How to Add and Create a PeerMark Assignment to your Avenue to Learn Course and How to Grade Peer Reviews.  

• Drop-in session with MI Educational Developer, Online Learning Specialists: “Course Clinic: Rethinking your assessments”
  Date: Monday, December 21st 
  Time: 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
  Register here