“Take out your pencils and scantrons.”
If there is a dreaded sentence in any student’s vernacular this one should be in the top five. Another would be the phrase Pop Quiz. If this brought back memories of feelings of anxiety for you, you can relate to your students fear when you utter these words. But how effective is the pop quiz? Are we giving our students a lesson in multiple choice test taking and fear? Is that our goal? Is the only way to assess learning through testing? Is this the only way to get feedback on the effectiveness of our teaching? Does traditional test taking give us the feedback that we need to help our students learn?
There are other ways to assess students, gain insight into our teaching, and it doesn’t have to involve that four letter word-test. Alternative assessment strategies are not a new idea but it is one that you may not be familiar. The aim of this article is to provide you, the faculty, with ideas on how to implement assessment strategies in your courses without a lot of prep time and to illustrate how they can be an effective teaching and learning tool.
What are Alternative Assessment Strategies?
Alternative assessment strategies are formative evaluation methods that serve two purposes. They can help you to assess the degree to which your students understand the course content and they can provide you with information about the effectiveness of your teaching methods.
When alternative assessment strategies are used consistently, they can have the following results:
For faculty
- provide day-to-day feedback
- provide information about what students have learned without a large time investment
- allow you to address students lack of understanding
- help to create good working relationships with students
For students
- help develop learning skills
- increase understanding content
- shows your interest about their success in your course
The Muddiest Point
In this scenario we will focus on an alternative strategy called The Muddiest Point. This strategy focuses on course knowledge and skills and takes almost no prep time.During last few minutes of class period, ask students to use a half-sheet of paper, or pass out index cards, and write down “What I understood least today.”
After collecting the papers from the students review them separating them into related piles. Review before next class meeting and use to clarify, correct, or elaborate. If many students indicated they had the same problem, try clarifying with another approach.
Instructor reactions to activity
Dr. Susan Miletta, tenured Biology faculty member at Hillsborough Community College’s Ybor City Campus, conducted this activity in her Nutrition and Drugs course which meets twice a week for a 3 hour lecture and 2 hour lab. The class session is typically broken into two lecture portions each about 1 hour and 45 minutes long. The remainder of the time is used for a break. This course is designed for the non-science major. These students are those who are typically weaker in science skills then those pursuing a future career in the medical field.
Dr. Miletta, always willing to try new ideas, found the implementation of The Muddiest Point easy however because it was something new to the students they were confused at first as to what expectations were required. She did modify the procedure somewhat and conducted two sessions of the activity; one at the end of the first portion of the lecture before the break and one after the second portion of the lecture before the lab. In the second application of the activity Dr Miletta provided the index cards to the students before starting the lecture and asked them to write down the least clear concept from this portion of the lecture.
In the next class meeting Dr. Miletta used the information gleaned from the student feedback to spend some more time on concepts identified as being the muddiest. She also provided students with additional resources for study on the top three muddiest points.
Student reactions to activity
Through observation and statements by the class it was clear that the students were somewhat uncomfortable with the activity at first. This reaction was not unexpected as none of the students indicated that they had encountered this type of process previously. More responses were collected in the second attempt than the first.In the following class meeting Dr. Miletta opened with the results from the activity explaining the top three concepts again and in more detail. The class was observed as being attentive and taking notes regarding the additional resources.
Overall, Dr. Miletta found the activity to be very useful in helping her hone in on topics or concepts students were having trouble conceptualizing. Dr. Miletta does feel that the students need practice with the activity to become more comfortable with the process.
References
Angelo, T., Cross K. Classroom Assessment Techniques; Retrieved from: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/assess-1.htm on March 1, 2007
