I repeat - this is not a test!

This week’s blog is dedicated to testing and assessments. I have to admit that my prior understanding of testing was directly related to grading. Students take a test, to prove what they have “learned,” and receive a grade to reward their efforts. The two readings for this week gave me a new understanding of testing. I’m still reflecting on my own assessment methods and reasoning, but I have listed a number of important ideas below.

According to What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, 2009), there are two ways most teachers go about assessing and teaching students. The performance-based approach is the more traditional approach. Students are obligated to comply with the instructor’s deadlines, participation standards, general test questions, and other rules, in order to attain a grade. The focus seems to center around grades rather than student learning.

The learning-centered approach, which Bain advocates, is based more on student comprehension and development (p. 152-153). Throughout the article, Bain gives the reader examples of techniques to adhere to the student-centered approach. By moving away from scores, and instructor can concentrate on a student’s long-term intellectual and personal development. This was extremely interesting because he allowed me to think of testing as a means to learn, rather than a means to achieve a grade.

Several techniques are suggested by Bain to adhere to student-centered learning. I am listing two that I found most interesting and useful to implement into my own classroom.

• In lieu of threatening with deadlines, Bain gives an example to help students organize their own time to get all materials done in a timely fashion. One instructor distributed a timesheet that outlined every hour of each day for the semester. Rather than giving deadlines and penalties for late work, he explained the timesheet as a schedule to follow. If students kept on track they would make orderly progress to attain the course’s goals. If they fell behind, their feedback would be reduced because of time constraints.
  
  I want to implement this in my own classroom to give students an idea of the course load from the start. If they understand the effort needed to attain the course’s goals, they will be more likely to stay on track. By using deadlines and consequences for late work, students may feel threatened. I believe this technique will allow the class to concentrate more on learning and less on meeting restricting deadlines.
  

• The other example that Bain gave readers was in regards to testing and grading. He explained that many instructors use grades as a means to motivate students. By disregarding the traditional grading system for tests, students can concentrate on their overall learning and not be stifled by one poor test outcome. To do this one instructor used comprehensive tests that used the final test as the only grade (p. 161).
  
  Because I don’t have the flexibility to change testing structure in my department, I plan on implementing this when I am in charge of my own classroom. I believe it will help students see learning as long-term. Each day should be a learning experience that they can add to their knowledge. For the last test, students can see their overall understanding of the course content. This is more important to me than individual assessment questions throughout the course.
  

In McKeachie’s reading, I found many interesting assessment ideas and techniques. McKeachie’s book is turning into my little classroom companion. The text has given me a lot of information that can be used in planning my own classroom lessons, as well as implementing them into my current course.

• I really enjoyed McKeachie’s suggestion of group testing (p. 78). Students take individual tests and then break into groups to combine, discuss, and streamline their answers. By defending and explaining their answers with peers, students build on the learning process. I have never heard of this, and probably wouldn’t have believed it could be useful. After reading the benefits, it is definitely going to be used in future classes. I think it will encourage students to discuss their reasoning and give them a more practical application to what they have learned.
  

• Portfolio development was another suggestion by McKeachie that I found interesting. Not that a portfolio is a new concept, but I never thought of them as useful outside of their classic atmospheres. The idea of combining student’s work from beginning to end to highlight their improvement and development seemed the most applicable to my class. I want to implement in my courses to provide students a tangible representation of how far they have come. I think it would also be interesting to provide students with a binder of their best speeches to add to and improve on in the future.

There are many other techniques and ideas that I want to implement into my classes:

• Peer assessments. Allowing their peers to assess their work will give students a better understanding of grading criteria. It can also give them an opportunity to evaluate and discuss what other students are turning in. I always believe that any kind of peer work can help students learn from one another.
  

• Online testing. I have found that online tests can be very beneficial, if done correctly. Computers can do things that paper-and-pencil tests cannot. I want to implement computer tests into my classroom to give students more realistic and thought provoking questions. Because I teach public speaking, a test designed with questions evaluating speeches would be quite helpful. Because students work at different paces, it would be helpful if they could watch embedded speeches in their tests and answer questions in their own time.
  

Additional Resources:

Examples of CATs from the National Learning and Teaching Forum. McKeachie briefly mentioned CATs in Chapter 7. This site gives specific examples and their importance.

College Grading Standards. This goes along with what we worked on last week. I've been working on my grade standards since our class last met. This site gives a rather specific explanation to each grade as it applies to universities.

Assessing Student Learning On-line. This is an Australian website that lists benefits and strategies to on-line tests. Some of the information seems a bit dated, but I was able to find a lot of great info.