Assessment is an extremely important component of a unit. All assessments need to be strategically placed and have a specific purpose. Many different types of assessment are used throughout this unit such formative and summative assessment as well as different forms of assessment such as creative displays of knowledge, writing assignments used to assess student learning, student completion of a WebQuest specifically geared toward this unit, flipped classroom video assignments, lab worksheets, classroom discussions and “I used to think, but now I know” statements.
The final summative assessment of this unit is one that was created in CI 473 as a group project with Matt Holderly and Anna Wetherholt. We designed this WebQuest with a few important goals in mind. Specifically, based on the topic of the larger unit, we created a task for students to complete through use of provided resources with specific guidelines outlined. This gives students an opportunity to display what they have learned from the larger unit to a comprehensive and meaningful assessment. Students work in groups so that they can bounce ideas off of each other and talk through difficult concepts. Additionally, students will create a visual aid to help them present their findings; this presentation will give students opportunities to develop group collaboration skills and oral presentations in a low stress environment.
Throughout the course of the unit, several formative assessments will be utilized to aid the instructor in reflective teaching techniques. One of my favorite formative assessment techniques is seen in the lesson on Polar Climate Zones. Students will take a few moments at the end of class to write a quick statement essentially stating something that they learned in class that day. This quick and easy activity, if collected and reviewed by the instructor, gives teachers opportunities to see inside the minds of their students and understand some of the important concepts that students may or may not have understood. This activity lets teachers know if there are specific concepts that should be revisited. In the lesson on Polar Climate Zones, which is a three day lesson, the first two days end with statements just like this one. This allows the instructor to get a gauge of student learning. Additionally, over the course of the two days the prompt changes, on the second day the prompt for the statement is related to the technology portion of the class, this helps the instructor to figure out for future lessons what parts of the activity were too difficult or too time consuming for students to maintain a smooth flow throughout the lesson.
Another formative assessment used throughout the unit includes informal class discussions. By asking probing questions (as outlined throughout each of the lessons), the instructor is able to gauge student understanding. It is extremely important to have as much dialogue with students as possible. This is done in such a way that students don’t feel pressure when they are describing their thoughts about course material in a low impact way.