There are two elements of assessment that are important at this stage in planning a mini-course. Assessment should serve two broad purposes:
1. To answer questions and provide feedback with regard to student learning; and2. To provide data with respect to the effectiveness of instructional plans.
Your mini-course should contain elements of both in the assessment plan that you develop.
The most common or traditional approach this step is to prepare a post evaluation instrument (a quiz or test) that would be administered when the students complete the mini-unit. The instrument can be used to provide feedback on student learning and provide additional feedback from the students about the effectiveness of the unit.
The assessment instrument should be designed to evaluate each type of learning outcome that you included in the unit. You should then develop measures to evaluate:
1. Cognitions2. Cognitive skills
3. Affects
4. Psychomotor skills
Refer to the section ahead on evaluation for specific suggestions for items, problems, questions, checklists and questionnaires that you could use to evaluate student learning.
You should also ask the students for feedback on how they reacted to the mini-unit. One approach is to use the format you used in reflective teaching (see chapter 7). Thus you could include a separate form allowing students to complete these questions anonymously:
1. During the mini-unit how
satisfied were you as a learner? _________very
satisfied _________satisfied _________unsatisfied _________very
unsatisfied 2. What could your teacher
have done to increase your satisfaction? 3. What were your favorite
activities? Why? 4. What were your least
favorite activities? Why
Assessment can also include other items and approaches. Informal and semiformal methods, as well as having students develop portfolios of their work can be incorporated into an assessment plan.
Look ahead to the section on assessment, and prepare an assessment plan for your mini-unit.