Assessing Student Learning

Assignment Prompt

This project was completed for EDU250, Teaching in the Community Colleges. The assignment for this project was:

This week you reviewed chapters 28-31, exploring techniques for assessing our students knowledge of the learning outcomes.

You read that there are a number of strategies that we can use to assess student learning including test construction and grading, student preparedness for tests, and formative assessment techniques. In the eTech challenge you learned about student polling which you also learned about in chapters 27 and 28.

Please review this website created by Laura Ballard formerly of GateWay Community College, and now at Mesa Community College. The site provides a number of ways that student learning can be assessed using technology. Please note that technology should only be used if it adds value, not for digital bling.

So for this project, you will continue to work with the 1-3 learning objectives for the class that you identified in the the prior projects.

Using the techniques and information that you learned in the readings, create a summative assessment and a formative assessment that you can use to assess student learning of each outcome. Include a grading rubric for the summative assessment.

For each learning objective, you should submit:

• The learning objectives to be covered
• An assessment for each objective (this could be a project assignment, a test, etc.)
• A description of a formative assessment and what you would like to glean from the information obtained
• A description of why you chose the assessment technique and how they relate to your learning outcomes/objectives.

Learning Objectives

1. Know what questions Deaf people are likely to ask you when you first meet them, and know how to respond appropriately
2. Ask and respond affirmatively or negatively to yes/no questions
3. Engage in a first-meeting conversation

1. Know what questions Deaf people are likely to ask you when you first meet them, and know how to respond appropriately

Formative Assessment

Lead the class in a conversation about what people ask each other when they first meet. This gets them talking about what they know, so they can connect the new with the known. Then get them to talk about the questions Deaf people ask ASL students, and why. I hope to glean whether they are aware of the discourse routines in their everyday conversations and if they know the difference between conversations they have had when meeting hearing people for the first time and the conversations they will have when they meet Deaf people for the first time. Make mental notes, notes on a tablet only I can see, and/or notes on the board capturing common insights and misperceptions.  Clarify any confusion the students may have, and dispel any misconceptions they seem to have.

Summative Assessment

Have the students write a one-minute paper listing the questions a Deaf person will probably ask them when they first meet. Have the students turn in these papers, and give them a few points for a good faith effort. The only “rubric” would be that they responded to the prompt by listing relevant questions, at least half of which are correct.

Rationale and Relevance

I chose this formative assessment because the nature of the class, an ASL class, is immediate and interactive; conversation needs to be continuous, and very little time can be taken up with pauses for notating assessment. I chose this summative assessment because it allows them to memorize their knowledge by committing it to writing, and it shows me what they know. Both of these assessment relate to the learning objective because they directly assess the students’ knowledge.

2. Ask and respond affirmatively or negatively to yes/no questions

Formative Assessment

Demonstrate to the students how to nod your head when answering yes and shake your head when answering no to a yes/no question. Show them the ASL equivalent of “No, I am hearing” and “Yes, I am a student.” Have them pair up and practice asking and answering “Are you Deaf?” “No, I am hearing.” “Are you a student”? “Yes, I am a student.” Walk around the classroom and watch students practice the conversation in pairs. Correct some errors and make mental notes of common errors; also note patterns in individual students’ progress. After a few minutes, give feedback to the class on what most of them showed they comprehended and didn’t comprehend.

Summative Assessment

The summative assessment for this learning objective will be subsumed in the summative assessment for “engage in a first-meeting conversation”

Rationale and Relevance

Responding to yes/no questions lives within the broader scope of a conversation, and the applicable conversation at this stage in the class (beginning of the term) is a first-meeting conversation. Therefore, it will be assessed within the next summative assessment.

3. Engage in a first-meeting conversation

Formative Assessment

Walk around the classroom and watch students practice the conversation in pairs. Correct some errors and make mental notes of common errors; also note patterns in individual students’ progress.

Summative Assessment

Have pairs of students perform the conversation in front of the class, and give them a grade on the accuracy and naturalness of their performance. Make this assessment count as a quiz, a small percentage of their overall grade. See rubric below.

Rationale and Relevance

I chose this formative assessment because it gives students a chance to develop confidence in working toward the learning objective, and it shows me how far they are coming along in their progress; I chose this summative assessment because it encompasses the first two learning objectives. In order to have a first-meeting conversation with a Deaf person, the students need to understand the questions Deaf people will ask them, and know how to respond appropriately. The first part of this conversational skill is knowledge. The next part, as a foundation to the rest, is to know how to grammatically ask and answer a yes/no question; the last part is combining all three to “apply the ability to initiate, conduct, and terminate a short specific conversation in ASL” (official course competency XII).

Rubric for Summative Assessment

Resources

MCCCD Program Description, American Sign Language I. Center for Curriculum & Transfer Articulation, Division of Academic and Student Affairs. Retrieved from https://aztransmac2.asu.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/acres.woa/wa/freeForm2?id=56062

Nilson, L. B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. Wiley. Kindle Edition.