Productive Classroom Assessment in College Courses

Imagine a truly practical guide to the creation and use of assessments in higher ed. classrooms! This is it--a basic, common sense assessment literacy guide that maximized quality, saves time and, turns assessment into a teaching tool. All of this is done by focusing attention on a very few simple and easy-to-apply keys to success: starting with a clear purpose and clear learning targets, building quality items, exercises or task along with proper scoring schemes for that context, and planning to communicate results effectively. But there is one more unique feature of this guide: it shows professors when and how to involve students in a self-assessment process during their learning that causes achievement to skyrocket. This instructional use of assessment, called "assessment FOR learning" has been gaining a strong reputation around the world over the past two decades as an outstanding tool to promote student confidence and strong achievement gains. In short, this book teaches how to use assessment both to support learning and to certify or verify it (as in grading). There has not been a guide like this available in higher ed every before. Be advised that royalties from its sale go directly to an endowment at Michigan State whose mission is to promote quality classroom assessment throughout our educational system--K-12 and postsecondary. In terms of specific content, the presentation addresses how to assess student mastery of content knowledge, the ability to used that knowledge to reason and solve problems, performance skills, and product development capabilities. It does so by providing hands on practice in developing four available assessment methods: selected response, extended written response, performance assessments and direct personal communication with students. In addition, the presentation on effective communication differentiates between the use of feedback to support student learning (formative applications) and to certify it (summative).