Assessment Principles and Methods for the Course - Essay Example

Assessment Principles and Methods Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) Introduction The word assessment has taken many meanings in the context of the higher education: this term can be referred to the way faculty uses to grade students course assignments; methods of standardized testing implied on the institutions as a kind of increased pressure on the success of the program; a course or curriculum of university. The assessment creates a link between the ways students perform and the results they show so as to get useful feedback on the way students are successfully meeting this result. Every course is the work of creation implied by the college instructor to play many roles like as an artist, planner, manager, role model and performer among others. Each course is intended to make sure that teachers are able to understand and evaluate their roles as course creators, and able to manage their goals and objectives in the most effective way. They are also able to judge how in the most efficient way their teaching objectives are achieved day in and day out and from class to class. These objectives also help students to understand expectations of the teachers and instructors and how well the performance is evaluated. “An assessment is an iterative, four-stage, information feedback process for setting intended learning goals and objectives and then gathering, analyzing, and interpreting outcomes evidence from actual student work in your course to see how well your intended objectives have actually been met, and using those findings to improve student learning been met, and using those findings to improve student learning.” (Frye, McKinney & Trimble, 2007, p. 23) The two main assessment criteria like that of testing and grading sometimes are considered as essential evils which never aim to provide goals for higher education but regarded as a potential conflict with students. Tests and grading system may not give very effective results as it depend on several other factors too but assessment is one of the greatest teaching tools and an effective way to feel connected with students. The course material should have specific objective like what is the criterion behind our preparation, and what is there that I am preparing students to do? But once the learning goals are identified, the next question is the way can I create opportunities to prepare, practice and demonstrate. The answer to this question will be the best guiding tool to prepare for a particular course learning objective, suitable pedagogy, assessment strategies and the particular classroom activities that would help students for developing learning abilities. The practice adopted at RMIT is that of formative and summative assessment, which is criteria referenced. To this extent, assessment design should follow the suitable criteria that could meet the learning outcome concerned with the assessment task and the particular course. Careful designing of the criteria should be formed so that students get opportunity to show their level of understanding and comments on the design. Performance of students should be judged as regards the standards expected for each criterion. Making these standards clear to students and teachers in the teaching team is good practice, which should be followed with letter and spirit. Assessing work of students by making use of the rubrics also permits students to visualize clearly how well they have performed in relation to the criteria. Evaluation of the Course The course is designed to meet requirements of the participants within all the education sectors and training. During the course students will be able to study the theoretical perspectives of the studies and various assumptions that underline variety of these approaches. When the course is over, it is expected that students would be able to make analysis of the various theories and principles that may be adopted, contemporary approaches towards assessment and reporting and evaluating in the education and training sector of their interest. They would be able to design and implement various kinds of assessment techniques, its ways of reporting and evaluation methods, comply with administrative and regulatory requirements of assessment, reporting and evaluation in the education and training sector of their interest and can engage in a contemporary discussions about assessment, reporting and evaluation. According to the Fink model of the educative assessment method, the solution lies in being amply clear about any criteria or standard that could be used to meet learning objective. It implies the fact that course material takes into account the target audience, the language of the course material is chosen with great care and is very persuasive. It could be either have rational and emotional responses. These standards help instructors to have a clear idea of what actually students need to learn in the case providing clear framework of approaching the project. The criteria and standards help students to direct their efforts towards meaningful learning process, by highlighting on the most important aspect. Method In simple words assessment’s main criteria is to make judgment of what students could learn from their course. It also offers the opportunities for the students to show their skill level, knowledge, professional attitudes, competencies, capabilities and other goals. The RMIT Learning and Teaching Strategy 2007-2010 at RMIT makes the use of the capability or competency approaches required in discipline and profession activities and secondly it is conducive to the learning outcome with other learning activities along with the formative and summative assessment. Broadly two kinds of assessment methods are used- Formative and Submissive assessment. Hereby formative assessment is most widely used in RMIT Learning and Teaching Strategy, but it is said that for setting of standard assessment practices there is a need to adopt both formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment helps the students to identify themselves the way they are learning, the way they meet the standards expected, and any problems or issues they are facing to overcome their learning needs or to comprehend any incorrect learning knowledge or skills. Tools For Assessment Providing information to the instructors on the kind of learning taking place in the class is the main objective of the assessment process and monitoring the development of the students in their main abilities is very important in deciding whether the students are really attaining most fundamental concepts or just making a move through the course with superficiality in understanding. There are many tools for making the assessment of the course and some of them are. A tool, which is useful in assisting you in formulating the standard criterion, is the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) Taxonomy. Making assessment of the students work by making use of rubics also makes easy for students to immediately see their performance level as per criteria. Moderation is yet one more way to make sure that standards have been set and is applied in a most consistent form within a course. Finding of the results Here I have made the main use of the as a SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) Taxonomy tool to analyze. Here I used the score system on the basis of the 5 levels of understanding in this tool. The minimum score of 8 is considered as poor and maximum total score of 30 is considered as excellent. I found that in this, students gave the score 15, which means students were giving mixed responses on this kind of the course material. It means for them, this course material did not give full hundred percent results which was expected earlier. The SOLO in this manner could give more authenticate results and is very useful for tracking of results for long term use. SOLO rubrics could be very easily quantifiable and can provide data on the progress of students across the key areas. Then each and every result is mentioned in the SOLO worksheet. Analysis of result In many cases, the main purpose of the assessment is to use your own edification process. To analyze the results, report should be formed which should have main components for assessment methods like the objectives of the results, the assessment methods to choose or design, the way you found the student learning in the classroom. The results can be formulated with the help of the matrix. Though the results came out to be mixed yet they have the potentiality for self-reflection and self-evaluation process. By documenting the assessment process, the instructor can very easily see where the course material is lacking? In the same way, sharing the results also helps the students, which can help them to make evaluation of their own learning process. The process of assessment is valid as it is formative assessment depending on the way it provides formative feedback to students analyzing their progress of working. It depends on learning and is the most important part of learning and teaching helping students to identify the way they are learning, the extent and the way they are meeting the standards expected of them for their intended learning outcomes, or whether they are facing any problems or issues in overcoming these results or outcomes or whether they are adopting any incorrect way of learning. The assessment has been reliable to some extent as guidelines are provided for making consistent decisions with different students over the period of time but at the same time it is lacking the component of flexibility. The assessment can be rightly called fair as candidates are given clear and timely information on assessment, feedback on assessment is provided to students and students are also provided with the information of assessment methods, criteria against which the assessment is conducted, and procedures and mechanism for appeal. Recommendation for improvement There is a mixed response on the part of students therefore the course material is not fully successfully though the method was appropriate. To make students better comprehend the material, it is recommended to make it more practical oriented rather than theoretical. However, the results shown above may not be very effective as students may also give way ward remarks and remarks dependent on their mood therefore it is suggested to have assessment based on the classrooms which has potentialities for self reflection and evaluation both on the parts of teachers and students but there is a need to be taken care that assessment data should be simple and the data collected should be comprehended thoroughly to able to get effective results and make amendments in the course material accordingly. Reference List Armstrong, T. (2000). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Fink, L.Dee. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons. Frye, R., McKinney, G.R. & Trimble, J.E. (2007). Tools and Techniques for Course Improvement: A Handbook for Course Review and Assessment of Student Learning. Retrieved on May 12, 2009 from W.W.W: http://www.wwu.edu/depts/assess/course_handbook.pdf McMillan, J.H. (2008). Assessment Essentials for Standards-Based Education. London: Corwin Press. Stassen, M. L. A., Doherty, K. & Poe, M. (2001). Course-Based Review and Assessment: Methods for Understanding Student Learning. Retrieved on May 12, 2009 from W.W.W: http://www.umass.edu/oapa/oapa/publications/online_handbooks/course_based.pdf Read More