Assessing for Success

While it is nice to know whether students enjoyed our courses, it is more important to know if our course contained the ingredients that enhance learning. A generation of research on the factors involved in the learning processes has sharpened our ideas about what we need to know. Assessing how well we, and our students, are doing in these areas can help us improve success in learning in our courses.

This tip highlights 14 areas that research on college teaching claims will affect learning. Assessments can be designed for each one. The points are necessarily brief.The list is taken from the work of Thomas A. Angelo.

Areas to Assess Learning Success

  1. Are students actively engaged in academic work? It is when students think actively -- when they "process" ideas -- that students best learn material. Teachers can assess the kinds of active engagement that occur in their class.
  2. Do teachers and students have high, realistic expectations? When students are encouraged to reach for achievable success, they work in the most productive zone of development. Knowing your students' expectations are keys to teaching success.
  3. How effectively does feedback contribute to learning? Learners improve when feedback increases their understanding of what they need to learn next. How well this kind of feedback is integrated into your lessons will impact on student achievement.
  4. Is the focus on what matters most? Good learning environments organize and prioritize a lot of information. Good students use this organization. Good teachers make sure that learners understand the order provided.
  5. How well do learners know how they are learning? Students who are aware of how they go about learning -- and can self-monitor their own efforts -- can make themselves more successful. What habits of mind do they use in your class? Are these likely to produce success?
  6. Is there a balance between challenge and support? Learning requires that we challenge old ideas; learners require academic and social support. Are the academic supports in your class adequate to the challenges you pose?
  7. Do learners know how they contribute to or interfere with their own learning? Current attitudes, values, or preconceptions may keep students from comprehending your concepts. What are your students' conceptual starters and stoppers?
  8. How is new knowledge connected to old? All learners understand new ideas through the lens provided by their old worldview. Prior beliefs may confirm or confuse your lessons. How well does your material connect to their ideas.
  9. Are lessons meaningful and academic? Lessons that turn academic ideas or skills into something that students see as meaningful -- better ways to understand or accomplish worthwhile goals -- engender the kind of motivation needed to be successful. The question, then, is how well are the academic and personal integrated in your course?
  10. Do students see the real-world applications of what they are doing? Knowledge becomes more permanent when it is moved from abstraction to application. Students can be said to know a concept when they can apply it to new, real-life settings. How do students see the applications of your course material?
  11. Do evaluations relate to most important matters? Are they clear? Students do focus on learning what they will be tested on. The teacher needs to make sure that the assessment system is connected to the initial learning goals.
  12. Do students work regularly and productively with instructors? How well do teacher and student work together? How do you know what you can do to help students out? How do they know how to help you?
  13. Do students know how to work regularly and productively with other students? Social skills are crucial to the small group work that is so powerful in classes. Teachers need to know just what skills there students have (or need to have) so that they can help the groups work well.
  14. How much time and effort are students putting in on quality work? Good work and lots of it are crucial ingredients to academic success. Knowing how much time students have and how it is spent is invaluable in designing educational success.

Final Comments

Good teachers try to collect information about the success of their course. Too often, this data provides a generic sense of whether students "like" you or the course. This is only an indirect indicator of whether or not your course is academically successful. Use learning principles to assess factors that relate to success.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on December 1, 1997