User:Carl Boettiger/Notebook/Teaching/2010/04/26

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GTC: Assessment

 * Today I'm facilitating the GTC session discussing Assessment. Here's our VUE map of the activity.



What better way to begin a discussion about assessment than with an assessment? We began with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek quiz about the "right" way to conduct an assessment, modelling some common faults in poor assessments while also serving as a brainstorm to get some ideas out there. We presented some background theory on assessment, drawing from the excellent text: Handelsman, J., Miller, S., & Pfund, C. Scientific Teaching, highlighting three reasons for assessment: Handelsman offers a particular focus on the third with their concept enGauge, tools that both measure performance and motivate engagement with the material, often in real-time setting rather than waiting to the final exam. From here we moved into general discussion that visited various challenges in assessment, particularly in teaching and assessing process rather than factual knowledge. Moss (2001) also has an excellent discussion of this challenge.
 * 1) Quantifying student performance, measure students as learners
 * 2) Measuring our own effectiveness as instructors
 * 3) Motivate students

Supplemental materials

 * VUE map
 * VUE map as pdf
 * Introductory activity: assessment quiz


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