226 Assessment Strategies: Asynchronous Options (04.03.2020)

In this Lab, we discussed challenges and solutions for designing and delivering remote assessments. Looking toward the end of the semester: What plans did you have for final, summative assessment in your course? How will you revise or replace “finals” for remote learning? What concerns do you have about remote assessment? What issues/concerns might your students have? What similar questions do you have?

Top 5 Tips

1. Assign asynchronous qualitative assessments instead of synchronous high-stakes exams so students can apply learning in ways that more meaningfully connect content to their lives. Consider, for example: short answers or essays, projects, case studies, presentations, discussions, and reflective activities.
2. Vary assessments. Use multiple means of online classroom assessment strategies to assess students’ prior knowledge and gauge their comprehension and progress. Provide frequent low-stakes quizzing with immediate question feedback.
3. Create secure and accessible quizzes. Canvas Quizzes offers shuffled questions and answers, allows multiple attempts to promote student learning, can give immediate feedback to their answers, and allows restrictions (Caution: restrict carefully!).
4. Assume students do not intend to “cheat” but may not understand your expectations and what can and cannot be used in a testing environment or what is considered as plagiarism. Provide clear academic integrity policies and clearly explain your expectations.  Also consider using Turnitin to help students learn proper source attribution.
5. Be clear and transparent. Share rubrics so students understand what is expected. Involve them by utilizing peer review to develop key skills such as describing, assessing, criticizing, analyzing — and to improve assignments before you review  — saving time and providing the ability to focus on higher-level feedback.

For digital copies of the activity sheets with active links and access to session notes (at bottom), join our Canvas course and follow the instructions at canvas.wisc.edu/enroll/GPT8NL. Find info from past Labs at bit.ly/ATL-ejournal

The Remote Readiness Active Teaching Labs are a partnership between DoIT-Academic Technology and the Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each 90-minute session is offered from 10am-11:30am through Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and is facilitated by a team composed of staff from both DoIT-Academic Technology and the Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reminder: Your first stop for questions and support is to e-mail: instructionalcontinuity@provost.wisc.edu