Planning Bugs 101: Assessment

This series documents my experiences and thought processes as a first-time university instructor as I develop and implement “Bugs 101.” This week I'm explaining the assessment structure I like to utilize, and setting up the next few weeks where I’ll be developing each of these assessments.

I’m a big fan of assessment series, utilizing several modalities over a stretch of time. Goodbye 100 question multiple choice scantron exams. You won’t be missed. Even my 7th graders were used to Exam weeks at the end of each unit. I like utilizing the “assessment trifecta,” which I’ve totally made up, which consists of three assessment types: something more traditional, something written, and something creative.

Why an Assessment Trifecta?

My main argument for this pedagogical choice is that by providing multiple opportunities for demonstration of skill and content acquisition, students will have a minimum of one optimal chance to show what they can do. We know that there are lots of different learners that experience and communicate information in a variety of ways, and this provides routes for students to shine in an optimal way. Some students would prefer a traditional multiple-choice test, others abhor essays and don’t feel like they communicate most effectively in writing, while others would much rather do something creative or tactile. It’s also possible that students are unaware of the best way for them to demonstrate their learning.

Why not give students the choice?  I’ve thought about this for a long time, because it seems like the logical solution to assessment method would be to let students pick the assessment type they prefer. I’ve opted to require students to still participate in each assessment strategy for a few reasons. First, different assessments are positioned to assess different skills. Traditional assessments are more efficient at capturing student content knowledge but don’t ask students to demonstrate any skills. Writing assessments not only require content substance but also allow students to demonstrate their ability to craft arguments, provide evidence, and explain their reasoning. Writing assignments are my main tool for addressing information literacy and teaching students to write effectively. Creative assessments still require content knowledge to be showcased, along with supporting information literacy, but gives students an opportunity to create, express themselves, and build something visual or tactile to demonstrate their learning. If students had a choice between these, some students would always opt for traditional assessments because they seemingly require less work but don’t showcase the development of their other skills. Traditional assessments also allow content to be assessed at a much greater breadth and can be scored much faster.

Something Traditional

For Bugs 101, I’m calling these traditional assessments Exams. Like I’ve explained, these traditional multiple choice and written response assessments allow me to assess a greater breadth of content knowledge and demonstrate student ability aligned to the ‘Know’ and 'Model' standards. I also like having a portion of the assessment grades be based on these traditional assessments because (i) they’re familiar to students in post-secondary settings, (ii) they are easy to grade and quickly enter, (iii) students tend to get a little grade boost from these assessments because they are less complicated to master, and (iv) retakes are administratively less complicated. Bugs 101 has four units, and each unit ends with an Exam. These Exams are also the only assessment that are timed and given in class, so I feel like this will create a natural tension point on the last day of each unit and will create some finality as we transition into the next unit.

Something Written

Written exams in this course are called Essays, even though they are not traditional five paragraph essays. These assessments will ask a single open-ended question and students will have a full week before the Essay is due to research and write their argument. During the first unit, specific attention will be given to walking students through claim, evidence, reasoning (CER), and providing a formulaic structure for argumentative writing. Essays allow students to demonstrate their mastery of skills associated with the 'Reason,' 'Find,' and 'Expand' standards. I foresee these essays only being one paragraph and as the semester continues the number of cited sources will increase. Again, there are four essays throughout the semester addressing topics from each of the four units.

Something Creative             

Lastly, and the most exciting assessment, are the creative Profiles. These assessments will be much more open-ended and will ask students to find a creative way to connect what we’ve learned in class to local insects. This will also introduce place-based learning as students research the ecological, cultural, and local importance of insects they’ve photographed. These Profiles will give students an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of the 'Find' and 'Design' standards. In my mind, especially for the initial Profile, students will create a faux social media page for an insect, populating the page with content related to something we had discussed in class. This could result in an Instagram page, featuring their photographed local insect in the profile picture, and then a series of Instagram posts from the perspective of that insect related to local ecology and food webs. Students will have free reign over the insect they choose, the platform they spoof, and in-class content they address, and how the information is provided. Profiles can be digitally created or hand-drawn and will require students to submit sources for the evidence they provide. Profiles will be more time-consuming than Essays or Exams but showcase a lower level of content and skill-based understanding. As the semester progresses, and students become more familiar with the skills being assessed, there are a lot of possibilities for students to produce materials that meet the requirements but differ in structure. Putting together the concept of a video game, a movie poster and script for a trailer, DND character, trading card, fictional sports team, etc. There are endless possibilities and this gives students more creative options to showcase their abilities and understanding, and also produces some incredible artifacts for me to be able to showcase as an educator.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on building out the content progression for the course and drafting the exams so that I can start putting together a pacing guide for each class session. As I create these assessments, I’ll spotlight each type and discuss some of the decision making processes.

TL;DR - This week I'm setting myself up to begin designing the different assessments. For this course I'll be assessing different standards with different types of assessments; Exams evaluate content knolwedge and are formatted traditionaly, Essays allow students to demonstrate information literacy using structured writing, and Profiles provide creative expression in demonstration of knowledge.