READ | TEACHING @ | EVALUATING STUDENT LEARNING
designing | grading | learningAligning assessment to learning outcomes
The earlier sections on designing assessments discuss the need for tests and assignments to align in content to the desired learning outcomes. This is an important consideration, not only in designing the evaluation tools, but also in reviewing them after the fact. Especially with essay exams, papers, or projects, it is possible to discover that students have done the assignment well, but their work doesn’t demonstrate their achievement of all of the learning outcomes that you had expected it to. If this is the case for only one or two students, it is likely an indication of their individual misunderstanding of the assignment. On the other hand, if many students offer such responses, this should lead to a revision of how those questions are worded or of what you ask that they do.Using evaluation of student learning to assess teaching
Primary Trait Analysis (PTA) is the evaluation method most explicitly structured to offer both evaluation of individual students achievement and the aggregate performance of the class. However, regardless of the system of evaluation, careful review should be made to determine which learning outcomes are met being by most students and which are not met by more than a few. Such analysis can be very useful in focusing effort to revise those parts of a course that are not leading to the level of student achievement that is desired.
No matter how student achievement is evaluated, it is import for instructors to use this process both to determine how well individual students have learned and how they should modify their courses to better support student learning in the future.
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