Evaluation for Learning

Knowing how well students are learning course material is crucial to the decisions teachers make to help learners succeed.

Unfortunately, grades often obscure evaluation for learning. Evaluation can be one of the most stressful aspects of college teaching. Teachers search for fair instruments to collect accurate data easily. Students look for ways to assure good results. Yet, both may be diverting energy and emotion from learning to playing the grading game.

Alfie Kohn and Grant Wiggins have written insightfully about the fundamental issues involved in this dilemma. We can share excerpts from their work. The tips below are based on the belief that evaluation should be feedback for improving the teaching and learning process in your classroom.

Know Where You're Going

Good evaluation begins with a clear vision of meaningful learning goals. Many teachers have a general idea of why they ask questions on a test. Good evaluators make sure that everyone understands what and why these questions are being asked. Some activities that may help your assessments become clear and meaningful.

Goals Inventory. The CIRT has a Goals Inventory that you can use to rate 52 possible instructional goals in a college classroom. Use this inventory to sort out your most important goals.

"Givens". Teachers can begin a unit by listing the "givens" -- the objectives of the unit -- and discussing with students their current knowledge, its importance, minimum competency levels, etc.

Attributes. Alverno College builds its entire evaluation system (each courses and programs) around a careful discussion of how each part contributes to developing specific attributes in their students. A list of these attributes and an outline of how it guides their evaluation system is available at the CIRT.

Goal Setting Conferences. Cooperative Learning experts recommend goal setting conferences with students. We can share with you the steps of the process to use with various groups. Help students define meaningful goals they want to use to measure their progress.

Getting What You Want

Tests usually work for general, content-oriented feedback. Getting more precise feedback related to goals requires more rich data collection methods. Here are a few starters.

Classroom Assessment Techniques. Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) provide specific techniques to measure progress along the 50 items in the Goals Inventory (above). Read how to use this feedback to improve your classroom in Angelo & Cross's book.

Identify key points. Identify key points in the process of performing academic tasks. Use a flow chart, concept map, or fishbone diagram to illustrate steps of an analysis or application.  Locate assessment points in your diagram and develop evaluation instruments connected to these points (mastery should prepare students for the next step). We'll be glad to show you some examples.

Learning style. Learning style research suggests that accurate assessments allow students to work in different ways. Varying ways students demonstrate knowledge helps more students gain confident measures of their ability. The best guide to appropriate methods is to design assessments similar to real world situations in which students might demonstrate expertise in this subject. We'll be glad to discuss a range of options with you.

The work at Alverno College has outlined a generic model for designing assessment activities. We'll include a diagram with the information mentioned above. Read more details in the CIRT library.

Making it Manageable

Finding time to develop, conduct, and assess evaluations can be difficult, especially when trying to keep a close eye on improving learning performances. Teachers need to find a balance between the need to evaluate and time available for evaluation. The following tips offer some suggestions.

Involve students in the evaluation process. Let students edit each others' work and allow an opportunity to re-write before submitting. Quizzes can be marked in class to save teacher time. Provide clear criteria and directions.

Use reflective moments. Pose a question to the class about their opinions on their progress. Be specific. Your goals and/or your diagram (above) can focus their responses. How well do they understand or use the material at this evaluation point?

Use computers to process simpler data. Internet programs, like WEST, can grade multiple choice and short answer responses immediately (and send scores to the teacher). Share class results with students and develop suggestions for improvement. The CIRT can help introduce you to options for your class.

Final Word

In high performance groups, the goal of instructional assessment is to improve educational performance. A systematic approach that identifies small steps toward improvement has proven to be the most effective approach. Well designed assessment is crucial to these improvement cycles. Focus on an area where you want to assure success and use an evaluation-for-learning process to guide your efforts.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on February 10, 1997.