An Alternative Online Assessment Toolkit
Beyond the Exam by McMaster University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
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This project is a collaboration between three Ontario post-secondary institutions – Brock University, College Boréal and McMaster University – in an effort to provide more flexibility and authenticity in online assessments for our learners. Collectively, we have a deep commitment to higher education, and acknowledge the grounds on which we are privileged to do this work:
An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/beyondtheexam/?p=79#h5p-2
We are also grateful to the following contributors from three Ontario postsecondary institutions (presented in alphabetical order):
We also wish to thank eCampusOntario for their support of our work. This project is made possible with funding by the Government of Ontario and through eCampusOntario’s support of the Virtual Learning Strategy. To learn more about the Virtual Learning Strategy visit: https://vls.ecampusontario.ca.
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Merriam-Webster defines assessment as: the action or an instance of making a judgement about something, with the word coming into use in an educational context after the Second World War. A nice definition for assessment and evaluation comes from Barbara Walvoord, a recognized expert in assessment and professor at University of Notre Dame, Indiana: “Assessment and evaluation is the systematic gathering of information about student learning and the factors that affect learning, undertaken with the resources, time, and expertise available, for the purpose of improving learning” (Walvoord, 2010, p.2). Traditionally in the postsecondary context, assessment and evaluations often consisted of high-stakes events, such as tests and exams, often.
When we probe further, we uncover an effective description for alternative assessments by Jon Mueller, a consultant on the development, review and revision of assessments and standards/outcomes and a professor at North Central College, Illinois: “Alternative assessment is a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills” (Mueller, 2016).
While teaching during the coronavirus pandemic, many educators have discovered that traditional forms of assessment do not always translate well to the online classroom. Educators were forced to quickly identify new approaches to delivering their assessment – an overwhelming task in the midst of the move to remote teaching. Many educators felt forced into using proctoring software and integrity checking tools that convey a lack of trust in the learner-educator relationship and cause high levels of anxiety. Pre-pandemic: skills and knowledge for success was in understanding how students learn and recognizing the relationship between assessment and instruction. This focus has led to a call for a closer match between the skills that students learn in school and the skills they will need upon leaving school (K.O. Oloruntegbe, 2010).
Alternative assessments also called authentic, or performance assessments are either replicas of or analogues to the kinds of problems faced by professionals in the field. Authentic tasks can range from brief activities to elaborate projects spanning several weeks. Multiple-choice questions can be designed to capture some ability to apply or analyze concepts but not all students are assessed effectively using standard testing. Filling in the corresponding circle on a scantron sheet does not begin to have the face validity of asking students to complete engaging tasks that replicate real world ones (Mueller, 2005).
Studies indicated that many educators have mistakenly equated authentic assessment with extensive assignments requiring considerable investment of time and effort for teacher and student alike (Mueller, 2005). But research has indicated that teachers do have positive perceptions on alternative assessment. The research conducted by Nasri et al. (2010) found that teachers agree that alternative assessment can promote active learning and self confidence among students and that alternative assessments are suitable to cultivate critical and creative thinking skills. Alternative assessments do not have to replace traditional assessments entirely but including alternative assessments into the curriculum benefits all students by having the students apply what they have learned in different ways and from different perspectives.
Atifnigar et al. (2020) outlines Brown and Hudson’s twelve characteristics of alternative assessments in that they:
Findings show that students have positive perceptions towards alternative assessments, and they feel innovative, reflective, and communicative which affects their learning quality in the real-world context. The study also found that students prefer formative assessment (Atifnigar et al., 2020). To achieve the outcomes Atifiniger, et al. (2020) mentions, teachers should explicitly articulate standards and goals, which will help them clearly communicate them to their students. Additional findings, in Atifnigar et al. (2020) research found students to be more motivated by alternative assessment types and that they increase students’ understanding of how their work correlated to a final grade.
When considering the use of alternative assessments in curriculum, it is important to know the benefits and the drawbacks. The benefits of alternative assessments include assessing individual students based on course learning objectives , accommodating different ways of demonstrating learning, student choices and aptitudes, and assessing progress over a period of time. Because alternative assessments take a non-standardized approach, students can be assessed in accordance with their own learning objectives, and if we agree it is common practice to include a variety of different learning opportunities in lessons so that all students can reach their potential, then it makes sense to assess them in different ways too.
And finally, when alternative assessments are used there is the opportunity to assess students on concepts and skills that were taught last week, last month, or last year. End of year standardized tests attempt to do this, they place a considerable emphasis on what a student can remember, rather than what they can do. (Classful, n.d.). The ability to assess students on what they have been taught a year later aligns with the Muller (2005), who contends alternative assessments are more likely to address student concerns expressed in the common question “When are we ever going to use this?” Tests offer contrived means of assessment to increase the number of times students can be asked to demonstrate proficiency in a short period of time. More commonly in life, as in alternative assessments, we are asked to demonstrate proficiency by doing something. Students will be able to see the direct application of their learning on an authentic task.
The drawbacks of alternative assessments include a more rigorous process for the teacher because it is harder to evaluate, more effort is required in understanding a student’s work, and alternative assessments are far less economical, because practical applications and project work demand more resources and investments (Kutbiddinova, 2021). If you have decided to rethink your assessment it is important to contemplate the benefits and the drawbacks of alternative assessments. A few elements to consider are determining the purpose, selecting the appropriate assessment task, and setting criteria. And ways to overcome the challenges of alternative assessments such as grading, revising the curriculum, and creating rubrics is introducing peer feedback, for group projects schedule group meetings to assess the group together vs. individual written feedback, and have students contribute to the development of the rubric.
This resource includes a compilation of several types of alternative assessments for instructors to consider for use in their teaching. Each alternative assessment example includes the following:
The resource will soon contain a section on how to facilitate a workshop aimed at guiding educators through the process of reimagining their traditional assessments. The facilitation plan will include a suggested format, content and activities that can be adapted for your use. The proposed “Alternative Online Assessment” workshop will be created using a suggested timeframe of three-hour workshop, which can be offered as one block, divided up, and offered either synchronously, asynchronously, in-person, online or as a blend.
The authors of this resource have started the process of compiling various examples of alternative assessments that can support post-secondary learning and evaluation, however, we recognize there are tons of additional examples of alternative assessment that are not represented here.
In order to continue sharing alternative assessment approaches, we invite you to share your own ideas and suggestion by visiting our website and submitting your ideas of effective alternative assessments. They will be reviewed and added to this resource, and in time, we anticipate there to be dozens of additional suggestions for alternative assessments. Please check back regularly for updates.
Atifnigar, H., Alokozay, W., Takal, G.M., & Zaheer, Z. (2020). Students’ Perception of Alternative Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 3(4), 228-240.
Bakar, K.A., Nasri, N., Puteh, S.N., Roslan, S.N., & Sekuan, M.I. (2010). Teachers’ Perception on Alternative Assessment. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 7(C), 37 – 42.
Kutbiddinova, S. (2021). Advantages and Disadvantages of Alternative Assessment. Integration of Science, Education and Practice. Scientific-Methodical Journal, 110-113.
Mueller, J. (2005). The authentic assessment toolbox: enhancing student learning through online faculty development. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 1(1), 1-7.
Mueller, J. (2016). What is Authentic Assessment? Authentic Assessment Toolkit. http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm
Oloruntegbe, K. O. (2010). Approaches to the assessment of science process skills: A reconceptualist view and option. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC), 7(6).
The Importance of Alternative Assessment. (n.d.) Classful. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://classful.com/the-importance-of-alternative-assessment/
Walvoord, B.E. (2010). Assessment Clear and Simple. A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education, Second Edition. Jossey-Bass.
I
It’s the most dreadful time of the year
With the students’ stress rising
And everyone telling you be of high spirit
It’s the most dreadful time of the year
For most students, the exam period is the most stressful part of the semester. The exam itself is the very manifestation of this stress, but the late-night study sessions at the library, the pressure of figuring out what is testable, memorizing big books, scrolling through hundreds of lecture slides, and at times pulling all-nighters just to feel an ounce more prepared to take an exam is also challenging.
Taking exams has been a big part of many of our college and university experiences, and has remained, for better or worse, the reigning assessment form throughout our education history. Based on assessment efficacy, exams are typically viewed as a good way of testing course knowledge, as they require students to study the same materials to answer the same, or at least similar, questions. Therefore, traditional exams provide us with a uniform, or in better terms, standardized mean, of assessing a large group of individuals, with each being examined on the same basic level of difficulty and understanding. To put it simply, an exam provides an even playing field, hence any disparity in performance or grades would be due to differences in students’ ability or time spent revisiting/studying the course material. While as a recent graduate, with modest social skills, I have yet to come across a single peer who actually enjoys exams, I can see the reason why they have become the dominant assessment form. As a comprehensive test of knowledge, exams are a very good method.
But mind you, when a certain Professaurus Rex, or P-Rex, invented exams as an assessment tool to evaluate his Studentaurus on their ability to hunt and forage, the world was a different place. This is my subtle and arguably humorous way of saying; exams are ancient and should not have survived the mass extinction event. While I am 99.9% sure a glass-wearing T-Rex scoring exams using a red pen with his tiny T-Rex arms didn’t invent exams as an assessment tool, I know that exams have some ancient roots.
Now did you know that at some point in time, being a government official was a matter of great prestige?! Shocking, I know, but almost 2000 years ago in ancient China, being a government official was of such high esteem that the only way of joining this elite band of officials was to pass examinations that were designed under the careful supervision of Emperor Zhang of Hen.
Now going by some other historical sources, the person behind the invention of exams as a torture device, er, I mean assessment tool, was the one and only American businessman, and philanthropist, Henry Fischel, sometime in the late 19th century. However, some other sources accredit the oft-dreaded invention to a man of the same name, Henry Fischel, who was a professor of religious studies at Indiana University during the early 20th century. Besides the historic finger-pointing to identify the tormentor, it’s important to realize that whenever and by whomever exams were designed, they were done during a time when education differed significantly from today.
Today the types of courses taught in colleges and universities cover a limitless range of disciplines, – from math, science, statistics, coding, literature, pop culture, marketing, to fashion – just to name a few. The broad spectrum of courses and kinds of knowledge offered at educational institutions and sought by learners are incredibly broad and cannot all be assessed by the same assessment tool built and offered at a time where few universities existed in the world with an incredibly narrow range of offered subjects. Take the Cambridge hall of exams for example. Cambridge is one of the most widely recognized higher educational institutes in the world, and in the late 19th century, was approached by schools in England to administer a standardized test, which was, at the time, only available to male pupils. Hence, the first mass execution of students’ morale, I mean, The Cambridge assessment took place December 14th, 1958, on the subjects of English, Mathematics, Geography, History, Latin, German, and just a handful of other languages.
It’s important to acknowledge the fact that just like Homo sapiens, education has also evolved, and will continue to do so. Our society, expectations, goals, needs, and values are ever-changing, and untapped markets for work and education are always unfolding. So then why in the name of a round Earth are we still resorting to a historic tool to shape, facilitate, and assess learning? The kinds of skillsets sought, desired, and required by society and employers today are wildly different from that of a year ago, let alone 150 years ago.
Assessments drive instruction and learning. Assessments inform instructors on what students know and don’t know, which sets the direction of a course. The way in which you deliver material and what you emphasize, be it factual knowledge to memorize or a particular skill set is also determined by how you will assess your students. In turn, what and how students learn depends, for the most part, on how they think they will be assessed. Assessments are also meant to inform both the instructor and the student on the progress of their learning. Feedback is essential in facilitating students’ growth, as it provides them with the opportunity to identify their areas of weakness. In this way, assessments must clearly match the content and nature of thinking, and the skills offered by the course and sought by the learner. A good rule of thumb is: if done well, assessments should not be a surprise to students. Aside from supporting student growth, assessments also support your skills as an instructor. Your students’ performance and accomplishments present you with the opportunity to determine how well their learning achieves your outcomes for a lesson. Therefore, in a way, by sticking to just one assessment tool, you are not only limiting your students’ growth, but also that of your own.
If there was ever a time for reflecting, updating, and improving your assessment bag of goodies, it’s now.
With the COVID-19 outbreak, online testing brought on an entirely new level of intensity to exams. Between lockdown browsers, online proctoring, strict time limits, technical difficulties such as computer crashes or Wi-Fi outages, and an array of other issues, online testing became a new playing field.
Testing through exams in an online format is inherently unfair because while some students may complete a test easily from their device and location, we can’t assume all can.
On a more positive note, we have now administered at least a full academic year online in response to remote teaching during the pandemic. Moving forward from the emergency ‘how do I conduct my exam online’, instructors have now had time to choose, implement, and receive feedback on different assessment tools and methods. It has been a time of creativity and innovation in education. In this guide, we have hand-curated a collection of alternative assessment strategies, tools, and examples to help you on your journey to discovering exciting new means of supporting and evaluating your student’s learning!
So put on your best space outfit (rocket print pajama set accepted) and get ready to break with the traditional exam by blasting off Earth towards a galaxy of alternative assessments with your trusty guide in hand.
Sevda Montakhaby Nodeh
MSc Student, McMaster University
‘After week eight, consolidate… ‘
Or ‘When you are three quarters through, no need to add anything new….’
I have adapted my teaching and assessing using a Universal Design for Learning framework and in so doing have made several decisions about how much content is enough (that is, I do less, better) and how, how often, when I engage in assessment. One of the decisions is how much content is enough. The duration of a semester at my university is 12 weeks long. Following the ‘do less better’ mantra, I have shifted to organizing around threshold concepts and to curtailing the introduction of new content to the first eight weeks, or three quarters, of the term. This allows me to use the last four weeks to consolidate the earlier learning through application and real world problem solving and it allows me to plan for early assessment that functions in a formative and scaffolded fashion to support learning, middle of the term assessment that involves both information and digital literacy skills and embedded engagement with the foundational threshold concepts, and later in the term assessment that compels consolidation of threshold concept material, partner and group engagement and proximal learning, as well as peer review and accountability.
I will offer examples below from one course to illustrate how these strategies work and how the assessment unfolds.
Threshold concepts are concepts in a course that are foundational for learning and progressive in the sense that future learning depends on having established the threshold concepts. In my fourth-year course on Adaptive Physical Activity Programming, there are several threshold concepts:
These four threshold concepts contain embedded knowledge that I must present in the form of content-based materials, skills practice, and direct contact with disabled people; my assessment must be ongoing and progressive as well.
I use Participation Posts that are in a Pass/Fail format. These online posts have a prompt that allows students to practice their engagement with content or a process or problem solving that will then occur later in the module for more formalized assessment. If students achieve a B level in their post, then they get the full grade (5/5). If they do not achieve a B level, then they get 0/5. This seems harsh at first, but it takes the pressure off students’ need to be perfect and it allows them to understand what a B grade is. If a student fails, I offer an opportunity to revise and resubmit after they have seen and experienced the zero. I do not offer this option until after they have received their grade. Then they can choose to try again or move on. I usually have four participation posts over the term, @ 5%, so the students have significant control over their destiny in these posts since they are designed to be achievable at a B level for full marks. The last participation post of the term is one that consolidates knowledge from the previous eight weeks. By this time, they have become more proficient in this type of post, and they usually do a 5/5 level post near the end of term.
I schedule the Online Activity (OLA) for each module for the end of the module so that the participation posts can offer practice and feedback that will allow the students to do a better job on the OLA. I usually have three to four of these OLAs @ 10% which allows me to formulate different kinds of prompts, applications and problem solving that I can then assess across three to four modules. For example, an OLA would pose a problem about designing a station for fundamental movement practice, and a Participation post preceding it would ask them to break a skill down into its components.
One culminating assignment is the group-based board game that the students work on from week four onwards with in class facilitation of their ongoing work. The board game consolidates material from all the threshold concepts so that the eventual game functions as both a fun activity and an educative opportunity. Students play each other’s games either in person or online and then do a review of the game they played using a template provided by me, and then post this in addition to their own game for assessment.
The other culminating assignment is done solo, partners, trios or small groups and involves an experiential project. Students have choices among event planning, placement in an activity program or an organization, an accessibility audit, or a design of an accessible home and garden activity circuit. This is also a consolidating assignment and uses all four threshold concepts in application.
These two culminating assignments take up considerable class time in the last module and allow students to integrate their previous eight weeks’ work into two final products that take shape over the term as they build experience and expertise.
Students appreciate the Participation post rehearsal for the OLA, they appreciate the 20% assigned to achieving B level work that makes their planning more manageable. Ironically, their writing in the pass/ fail posts that only require them to work at a B level is usually better than their writing in their OLAs. It seems that when the pressure is off to write at an A level, they relax into their writing more.
They appreciate how the assigned work and content diminishes as the course unfolds, instead of having it build incrementally and still having new learning as late as the last week of classes. This allows for progressive engagement with material, a manageable selection of prioritized content, and the freedom to fail in ways that are not catastrophic or unsalvageable. It also allows me to scaffold the assessment so that early work is more literal, then moves into more interpretive integration and problem solving and finally moves into consolidation and application.
Professor, Kinesiology, Brock University
Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives framework serves as the basis for classifying learning, teaching, and educational achievement in Canada (e.g., Ministry of Education, 2008). It consists of six hierarchical learning categories, and is often depicted in the form of a pyramid. The framework was initiated by Benjamin S. Bloom to facilitate the exchange of assessments among universities (Krathwohl, 2002). By doing so, Bloom hoped to curate a test bank to help minimize the labor of preparing annual comprehensive exams (Krathwohl, 2002). He believed that, beyond its function as a measurement tool, the taxonomy could be used as a common language for clear and honest communication across faculty, subjects, and grade levels (Krathwohl, 2002).
At the heart of Bloom’s taxonomy framework is the ability to create achievable learning goals that both teachers and learners easily understand in order to build a definitive plan to meet them. Using the categorization, educators can more effectively organize objectives and create lesson plans with appropriate content and instruction to lead students up the pyramid of learning.
Educators can also design various assessment tools and strategies to ensure each category is met in turn, and that each part of the course material is in line with the level’s objectives, whether it’s basic knowledge at the beginning of a course (e.g. basic recall), or applying that knowledge towards the middle of a school year (e.g. using the learned information in specific settings by solving problems).
For students, Bloom’s levels bridge the gap between what they know now, and what they need to learn to attain a higher level of knowledge. At the end of the learning process, the goal with Bloom’s taxonomy is that a student has honed a new skill, level of knowledge, and/or developed a different attitude towards the subject. And that teachers can effectively assess this learning on an ongoing basis, as the course moves through each stage of the framework.
We refer to the Bloom’s taxonomy framework to provide you with an organizational structure that will aid your understanding of the objectives classified in its categories and how you may consider and integrate new alternative forms of assessment. We hope that by doing so, we are helping you in your quest for a new and exciting assessment tool that best aligns with your educational goals. We encourage you to read the following overview of the categories prior to looking through the examples.
An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/beyondtheexam/?p=33#h5p-1
Each level of Bloom’s taxonomy should be addressed before moving on to the next. When course planning, bear in mind the implications—how quickly to introduce new concepts, when to reinforce them and how to test them. Something can’t be understood without first remembering it; can’t be applied without understanding it; must be analyzed before evaluating it, and an evaluation needs to have been conducted before making an accurate conclusion.
Due to the increasing demand for online and hybrid delivery of courses, there is an added level of complexity when it comes to the challenge of creating authentic learning experiences in new formats. One important element to consider is students’ abilities and motivation, when integrating digital tools into assessment. An additional challenge with the online format is managing reduced real-time interaction with peers and instructors. As an instructor it is key to consider how to provide meaningful learning experiences for students using tools that are intrinsically motivating.
The revised digitally-focused Bloom’s Taxonomy aims: “To expand upon the skills associated with each level as technology becomes a more ingrained essential part of learning” (Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, 2015). Your use of this adapted version and tools suggested should not focus “on the tools themselves, but rather on how the tools can act as vehicles for transforming student thinking at different levels” (Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, 2015).
Summarized in the infographic below are the levels featured within Bloom’s Revised Digital Taxonomy accompanied by a scale of its relevance and examples of digital tools that connect with this taxonomy framework.
Heick, T. (2021, November 18). What is Bloom’s taxonomy? A definition for teachers. TeachThought. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/what-is-blooms-taxonomy/.
Persaud, C. (2021, February 25). Ultimate Guide to implementing bloom’s taxonomy in your course. Top Hat. Retrieved December 3, 2021, from https://tophat.com/blog/blooms-taxonomy/.
II
1
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating
The board game assignment is best used as a formative, process-driven activity that supports students to complete a culminating final project. Ideally, you should provide students with the choice of working in preferred group size (1, 2. 4). Introduce the assignment criteria at the beginning of term and allocate at least 30min of group time to allow groups to incorporate new learnings from class each week. This can be done in person or online in breakout rooms.
The board game assignment in this exemplar asks learners to consider issues around accessibility, inclusion, and embodiment. These are important considerations for any assignment but, in particular, for this course, they are directly aligned with the course content. Consider how your course content can align with the challenges and activities that a board game can provide. What are the main issues for consideration? How can you fold in consecutive learning outcomes for weekly considerations?
The key part of this assignment is that students will then, in their same groups, play and review each others’ board games. The review process allows opportunities for critical reflection on how their peers addressed key learning outcomes. See the rubric section for the Review Guidelines. The variability in different approaches and types of board games and rules provides a rich opportunity to explore complex topics in an engaging and interactive way.
Students are graded on both their game and their review of other groups’ games.
Grade breakdown: 30%
Construction of BOARD GAME with inclusion and activity modifications and instructions for play 20%
Playing classmates’ GAME and Reviewing the GAME 10%
Students are asked to comment on how the GAME performs based on the criteria below:
Students can use any technology they like to create the board game but old fashioned paper-based can work as well, provided there is a mechanism to play/review the game online in some way.
For synchronous sessions, group work can take place using any web conferencing software (Teams, Zoom, Collaborate, etc)
Sharing of all the resources can be done through the Forum Discussion boards in the learning management system.
This is a great opportunity to reflect deeply about your core learning outcomes for your course. What big ideas do you want students to take away and remember long after they have graduated? Building the opportunity to incorporate sub topics on an ongoing basis through the semester requires you to consider how your weekly sessions are connected.
2
Bloom’s Levels:
Understanding, Analyzing, Evaluating
The scavenger hunt assignment is an activity to promote and facilitate students to move beyond skimming towards more meaningful, engaged deep reading. It can be used for a full text or a series of readings. Students create a series of ten quiz questions and an answer key based on the content of reading material for a particular week. Students are responsible for 2 chapters/readings.
It is recommended to allow students to work solo, in partners, or in groups up to 4. Instructor pairs up question creators with question responders based on group size and week.
Questions must be right or wrong, can be multiple choice or short answer but not essay or interpretive questions.
Quizzes are disseminated in the last 2 weeks of the course as a final exam. Students in groups must work together to collaborate and ensure they agree with each others’ answers.
Questions and answer key are submitted using the assignment tool.
Quizzes are disseminated, answered, and peer graded using forum discussion boards
This activity requires extensive organizational skills and input from the instructor to match the groups, assign readings, and disseminate quizzes, and allocate grades.
It can be resource intensive but students find that this activity does help their learning and encourages them to read more deeply. Since students are grading each other, some time should be given to the importance of feedback as there can be push back on peer grading. This assignment was used in a course with many students who want to become teachers so the construction of assessments is a core skill and desired learning outcome.
3
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating
A mind map is a visual representation of a subject or topic that allows you to creatively represent key information. A mind map is like a diagram with pictures, words, drawings and links or connections between different ideas. Mind maps let you think through the key areas of your theme or topic. Some people use mind mapping to take notes in class, to brainstorm new ideas and plan projects.
Mind maps allow students to:
Mind maps allow instructors to:
Criteria | 0-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | Grade |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Depth of coverage of topic (Research and Knowledge) | Bare minimum of content covered. No extension of ideas is evident. | Shows a basic level of coverage of key ideas only. Attempts extension of a few ideas. | Shows a solid grasp of most of the content. Shows extensions of most key ideas. | Shows a solid grasp of all the content covered. Extensions of the key ideas show a deep understanding of the content. | x 2 = |
Use of Image and Text (Communication) | A little evidence of using images to illustrate key concepts. Has only a few or minimal keywords. | A few images and keywords are evident, some are imprecise. | Images and key words clearly show an understanding of the content. | Images and key words clearly and dynamically show an understanding of the content. (One or more of: use of metaphor, humour, cut-outs from magazines, clipart, illustrations.) | x 2 = |
Use of colour, codes / symbols and links to illustrate connections between ideas
(Thinking / Synthesis) |
A little use of colour, codes or links to illustrate connections between ideas. | Obvious attempt is made to use colour, codes or links to enhance clarity and memory. Still some inconsistency of application. | Clearly uses colour, codes, or links to clarify connections and to assist with memory for most aspects of Mind Map. | Effectively uses colour, codes, or links to meaningfully clarify connections for all aspects of Mind Map. | x 2 = |
Neatness and Presentation | The map is difficult to read and understand. | Most of the map is neatly presented, but some information is difficult to understand. | Most of the map is neatly presented, and information is easy to understand. | The map is well presented and all the information is easy to understand. | x 2 = |
Quality / relevance of academic references | There are fewer than the required 6 references, most resources are not academic. The connection between references and the topic is unclear. | There are 6 references, most are academic. At times the connection between the reference and the topic is unclear. | There are at least 6 academic reference. In most cases the connection between the reference and the topic is clear. | There are at least 6 academic references. The connection between the reference and the topic is clear. | x 1 = |
Spelling, Grammar and APA Style | There are continuous grammar and spelling errors. References are not formatted according to APA style. | There is a pattern of errors in grammar and spelling. References follow some of the style guidelines of APA but with a pattern of errors. | There are a few errors in grammar and spelling but not many. References are formatted according to APA but with minor errors. | Excellent use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Reference list is complete and referenced using APA style. | x 1 = |
Total: 100 |
Students may submit either a digital map (using computer software and saved as a PDF document) or a hand drawn map (scanned or photographed at a high/legible resolution).
Some Learning Management Systems have file size limits. Students will submit a mind map and reference list preferably uploaded as one document. There are many digital programs available that allow you to create a mind map. Here is a link to an article that reviews popular mind mapping software. You may already have access to programs that you know how to use. How you create your mind map is entirely up to you – feel free to use whatever medium that you are most comfortable with.
If you have a look at some of these maps, and other maps online, some have broken away from the format of starting in the centre and working out, and have added other creative ‘frames’ for example having topics or categories take the form of books on an image of a bookshelf, as ideas that stem from an image of a person’s head or that appear as countries or islands on a leisure map of the world.
How to use mind maps to unleash your brain’s creativity and potential
Mind mapping 101: your practical introduction
The complete guide on how to mind map for beginners
The Power of a Mind to Map – Tony Buzan TedTalk
Here are a two of examples where students have used different types of media:
4
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing
Students will work in partners OR in groups of 3, 4, 5 or 6 through a series of prompts based in reading and reflecting on an assigned book. book, will notify the course instructor of the names of your partners or group members in the Forum topic designated for that purpose. Once the partners or groups have submitted their names, the instructor will set up a Response and Comment Rotation. This will be posted in the course hub – likely within a Learning Management System (LMS). Groups will be posting their own response to the prompt and commenting on another group’s post. This ongoing work will keep you on track for timely engagement with the course material.
Each group will submit a FINAL SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS on the book in the form of an 800-1200-word executive summary, which will include:
The Executive Summary will be submitted in the LMS assignment tool following the final week of the term and will be developed from the ongoing response posts and comments that are responses to iterative and recursive prompts from the instructor.
The Book responses will be done on a schedule finalized by the instructor. One example might be to straddle this response window over the period of three weeks, with each week starting with a prompt provided by the instructor. Group responses to this prompt and group comments to all group responses would be due on a staggered basis.
The instructor will construct the comment rotation and post it in the LMS with guidance and deadlines. It is encouraged that group responses have a limit of 800 words and comments have a limit of 500 words.
The LMS Discussion Forum is the platform that will be used – with the typical ‘post and comment’ representing the responses/comments. The responses and comments will represent the work of all the students in the groups, so students must collaborate so that the work represents all of them. To encourage engagement and to prevent claims of ignorance, we will use the declarations templated below in each post and comment. NOTE: THE DECLARATIONS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE WORD COUNT.
Theresponse (to the instructor prompt) post must begin with the following declaration: This post has been prepared and written by PERSON A, PERSON B AND PERSON C after a consultation with the other group members. The post that follows reflects the majority opinion of the group as it pertains to the prompts provided AND includes the minority opinion of group members who did not agree with the majority opinion (if a minority expresses this).
The comment to each group’s response post must begin with the following declaration: This comment has been prepared and written by PERSON A, PERSON B AND PERSON C after a consultation with the other group members. The comment that follows reflects the majority opinion of the group as it pertains to the requirements provided in the prompt AND includes the minority opinion of group members who did not agree with the majority opinion (if a minority expresses this).
Comment on the response by considering the following:
What are the similarities and differences in your group’s response and the response of the group you are commenting on? What insights do you now have about the ways that seemingly reasonable, so-called well-intentioned people can subvert rights-based processes and legislation and make laws and regulations disappear? What connections can you now make about stressed embodiment and peoples’ relationships to the natural, interpersonal, built, and constructed world?
Learning Management System
Discussion Forum
This assignment was used in a course at Brock University, and the book under discussion was Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist. The following describes the prompts and timelines used.
Respond to the following questions about Section One of Being Heumann:
Provide a brief background on Judith Heumann which includes historical, familial, medical, educational and career information. In your background summary include at least two examples of Heumann’s early activism. THEN explain the significance of the butterfly metaphor in Chapter 1 and describe what Heumann did to be considered insubordinate in Chapter 2.
Comment on your classmates’ response by considering the following:
What were the similarities and differences in your group’s response and the group you are commenting on? How do Heumann’s embodied experiences of discrimination prepare her for her future forays into activism? and what insights does this offer you about disability rights activism in general?
Write a response to the following questions about section two of Being Heumann:
The 26 days of protest prior to the signing of the U.S. enabling legislation for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 had numerous significant events. Select THREE events, describe them briefly, and explain what made each event you chose significant. Connect your events to at least TWO course concepts (two total, not two per event).
In your comment write about the following:
Compare your response to the group you commented on in terms of your similarities and differences. What have you learned from reading the other group’s response? What, if anything surprised or frustrated you in the other group’s response? If nothing surprised or frustrated you, what points of agreement do you feel most relieved about? What lingering ambiguities do you have about collective disabled experience and embodied activism?
Respond to the following questions about section three of Being Heumann:
In Section Three, Heumann describes her experiences within several U.S. breakthroughs regarding disability rights (eg, IDEA, Section 504, ADA and the signing (but not ratifying) the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities-UNCRPD). Throughout this section she provides important background on how alliances and processes unfold which both help and hinder progress on disability rights. On page 194 she claims that lack of exposure to and lack of knowledge about disabled people are two of the main impediments to progress. Compare the U.S. breakthroughs to similar Canadian breakthroughs (eg, Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1985; the Ontario Building Code Act, 1992; the AODA, 2005) and comment on the relevance of Heumann’s claims about lack of exposure and knowledge for the Canadian context.
Module 2,3 & 4 weeks: RESPONSE entry by Tuesday; COMMENT by Saturday
Final Report and Analysis due at the end of the course. One submission per group, submitted as PDF.
5
Bloom’s Levels:
Understanding, Analyzing, Creating
An infographic distills information into a digestible, picture-driven format that viewers can easily retain. Infographics are visual representations of information that can include numbers, text, images, or any combination of the three. Infographics use evidence and practice-based data, compelling statistics, easy-to-read fonts, complimentary color schemes, simple charts, bold graphs, and other graphics. Effective infographics tell a story. Note that this assignment should include the option to create an infographic using described video – and, that all student infographics should contain text alternatives. Each infographic should also include a written transcript that provides the same information and a similar experience as the infographic.
To create in an online or hybrid course use PowerPoint, Canva, Piktochart, Infogr.am, Photoshop, Word, or an accessible HTML/CSS tool of a students’ choosing and have them submit the final assignment to the Learning Management System or Email. The infographics can be shared with student peers through a Discussion Forum, Collaborative webspace/blog or via social media.
Criteria |
0 points |
Fair – 1 point |
Good – 2 points |
Great – 3 points |
---|---|---|---|---|
Accuracy of content |
Less than 50% of the content included in the infographic is accurate |
At least 60% of the content included in the infographic is accurate |
At least 75% of the content included in the infographic is accurate |
At least 90% of the content included in the infographic is accurate |
Use of materials |
Materials lack effectiveness and relevance, and don’t add to the content of the infographic. No alternative text provided. |
Materials used and those used add title to the content of the infographic. No alternative text provided. |
Good use of material. Materials used add to the content of the infographic. Visuals are described through audio or alternative text. |
Great use of materials to support information in infographic. Materials add to the content of the infographic. Visuals are described through audio or alternative text. |
Evidence of research |
More thought could be given to the resources used OR only one or two resources used. Most resources used have not been cited |
Some thought given to the type of resources used for research. More than two resources used and have been cited |
Good use of research from varied sources. More than three resources have been cited |
Very good use of research from varied sources. All resources have been cited |
Written Transcript |
The written transcript describing the infographic is missing. |
The written transcript describing the infographic is short and/or misleading. |
The written transcript describing the infographic is complete and gives the reader similar information. |
The written transcript describing the infographic is comprehensive and explains and reproduces the content well. |
Spelling and Grammar |
Many spelling or grammatical errors |
Some spelling or grammatical errors |
Few spelling or grammatical errors |
Almost no spelling or grammatical errors |
To create: PowerPoint, Canva, Piktochart, Infogr.am, Photoshop, Word
To submit: Learning Management System, Email
Share via: LMS discussion forum, blog, collaborative online space, social media
Creating an infographic enables students to develop skills in graphic design and data visualization. Students also gain experience in using a different than usual mode to convey findings.
When students create infographics, they are using information, visual, and technology literacies.
An infographic assignment could be part of a scaffolded series of assignments with a focus on research. Assignments should adequately scaffold students’ progress through the various steps involved in designing an infographic as a final product of the research process. Steps could include creating an annotated bibliography, a draft of the key points, and a sketch of the design
Finding an infographic in your field to analyze together with your class would be helpful for the students’ success.
Through an infographic students may learn how to a digital tool to share knowledge and resources, engage critically and effectively with media and images, find, select, use, and combine information from a range of sources, communicate effectively through visuals and in writing (digital literacy, creation, curation, communication, critical analysis)
Students or teams of students create infographics as a way to teach their peer
“The infographic assignment was a great experience. It allowed me to be creative since there wasn’t anything done on my topic. It allowed me to use a new technological tool and to my surprise, it was easy! The short video tutorials online helped me to explain how it all works. I really liked the canvas online because it was simple and organized. Although this was my first time making an infographic, it didn’t take as much time as I had thought. The best part was sharing my work online and even with my peers.”
“This was scary! I was first introduced to infographics in this class, and it took me a while to understand them. At first, I thought it was just a bunch of pictures and key words and phrases. To my surprise, creating this infographic was hard work; not the actual creation of it, but the amount of research I had to do. Infographics actually contain a lot of information and also intelligently uses the images to prove the point. I was nervous at first because I was used to writing a report. This was a great way to understand the conflicts and I got to learn a new tool. I will definitely use this next year to impress my peers and professors!”
Decide on one health topic as the foundation for creating an infographic. For example, sleep disordered breathing among adolescents, mental health and mental disorders in early life, or vision loss among older adults. Upon selecting a topic, your group will develop an infographic to disseminate the topic in a way that effectively communicates with diverse audiences (i.e., media, scientists, non-scientists, non-disciplinary experts, disciplinary experts, policymakers, voters, etc.).
6
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating
Podcasts, which can include audio, video, PDF and ePub files can be subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. Educational podcasts can be used for those who want to learn through audio lectures, discussion, and interviews.
The Podcast Assignment is done in groups, and is devoted to exploring the portrayal of key concepts in the news media and linking concepts to course material. Students are required to get approval for their topic in advance of commencing the research and recording. Within the first 10 seconds of the podcast, each student in the group is expected to state their name. Introductions should be followed by the title or concept that they will discuss. The remaining time is spent discussing the fundamental concepts, including those covered during lectures. Group members should divide their effort accordingly – be it writing, speaking or production roles. Students are encouraged to interview other experts on the topic, and other content to bring into the podcast. Podcasts are to be about 4-5 minutes long, but can be flexible depending on group size and assignment expectations.
Each of the following criteria is graded between 0 (poorly done) to 5 (excellent) for a total out of 25 points.
To create: Garage Band, Windows Voice Recorder, Audacity, Soundtrap, YouTube
To stream/host: PodBean, Kaltura, SoundCloud, Youtube
To submit: Learning Management System, Email
Environmental Biology: Interactions between organisms and their environment; historical and current perspectives in applied and theoretical population and community ecology. Principles of population dynamics, feedback loops, and population regulation. Development and structure of communities; competition, predation, and food web dynamics. Biodiversity science in theory and practice. The “Ecology Podcast’ was an assignment in this course and was aimed at exploring the portrayal of ecological concepts in the news media and linking concepts to fundamental ecological concepts, including those discussed during lectures.
https://soundcloud.com/chris-buddle/snow-geese
Teaching for Learning @McGill University
Vanderbilt University – Bloom’s Taxonomy
https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
Teaching and Learning at Centralia College – Bloom’s Taxonomy and Verb Wheel
https://elearningcentralia.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/blooms-taxomony-and-the-verb-wheel/
7
Bloom’s Levels:
Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating
While we are advocating for new assessment forms in this guide, it is important to realize that we are not saying that we should completely abandon the good old tradition of exams. It may be the case that a test or exam is the best tool to assess your course material and the kind of learning you expect from your students. Or, perhaps an exam is required for certain professional accreditation or designation. However, this next exemplar, achieved a middle ground between a traditional versus contemporary form of examination.
Imagine a conventional exam. Now make it, semi-take home. This alternative assessment tool was administered in an advanced third year psychology course. The course focused on a select set of themes that have shaped the study of human memory over the past half century. These themes were considered in light of contemporary research that encourage critical analysis of widely held beliefs about human memory. The two main objectives of the course were:
These objectives were addressed in part through synchronous lectures on selected topic articles, and in part through synchronous and asynchronous discussion. In addition, students were required to read a set of original research articles, contribute to discussions, and to either write short position papers or lead oral discussions based on those articles. But the main assessment tool that will be discussed further is the examination method administered in this class.
Both the midterm and final exam accounted for 25% and 35%, respectively, of the entire course grade. They were devised, in part, of short answer questions, worth two marks per question, that tested students’ knowledge of key concepts covered in lectures, the topic articles, or both. The short questions targeted relatively well-covered concepts such that preparation for these questions aimed at understanding concepts and not memorizing detail. Moreover, in the short answers portion, students were asked to apply and connect constructs taught about human memory to real-world experience. This encouraged answers to the short answer questions that are different across students. Ideally, if students attended lectures and read the topic articles, they should be able to readily apply their learning and knowledge of learned constructs to their personal experience.
Furthermore, the second part of the exams posed essay style questions, which were given to students a week ahead of the exam date. Students were provided with four possible essay style test questions, two of which appeared on the exam. Students were encouraged to prepare answers to the essay questions beforehand, and simply submit them at the time of the exam. This strategy would allow students to dedicate almost all of their time to answering the short answer questions.
Importantly, students were told that they may benefit from discussing the essay style questions with colleagues, and in fact such discussions were strongly encouraged to the extent that they helped students to integrate relevant conceptual ideas that were discussed in the course. However, it was made clear that under no circumstances should this collaboration take the form of sharing prepared written answers to the exam questions. All note taking and written preparation for the exam should be a product of students’ own thinking about the study questions, even in cases in which those thoughts have been aided by discussion of conceptual issues with other students.
Note that both short and long answers were not timed, students could move backwards to read previously completed items, and also could read ahead to anticipate and plan ahead. Also, to achieve good marks for the essay questions, students could not simply wrote down a “jumble” of facts related to the question asked. Students should spend their time thinking about how to structure an argument that answers the question clearly and concisely. One answer structure that might be suggested to students is an introductory paragraph that introduced the main issue, followed by one or two paragraphs that contained the body of answer, and a concluding summary paragraph. The target word length for the essay answers was 250-400 words. Any content that exceeded 400 words was not considered for grading.
This is an “open book” exam; students could use their notes, recorded lectures, topic articles, or research articles to aid in answering all questions. Moreover, students were allowed to discuss the essay questions with colleagues and prepare written answers prior to the exam. Those prepared answers to the essay questions can be cut and pasted into this form.
However, under no circumstances could students discuss any exam questions, short answers or essays, with colleagues during the exam. They are to complete all questions on the exam without consulting with colleagues. In addition, answers could not reflect anyone’s writing but their own.
Criteria |
Level 5 (5 marks) |
Level 4 (4 marks) |
Level 3 (3 marks) |
Level 2 (2 marks) |
Level 1 (1 mark) |
Criterion Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Content (5 points) |
Excellent knowledge of core content; shows that they clearly understood the core constructs taught in lecture and covered in the target article. Factually accurate always Superior detail provided (e.g., research question, results, caveats, context, significance…) |
Adequate knowledge of core content and constructs Factually accurate Excellent detail provided (e.g., research question, results, caveats, context, significance…) |
Mentioned core content, but showed only surface level understanding of core constructs covered in lectures and target article. Minor factual errors Very good detail provided (e.g., research question, results, caveats, context, significance…) |
Deficient on core content; shows that they didn’t understand the core constructs A number of factual errors Some detail provided (e.g., research question, results, caveats, context, significance…) |
Missed the mark on core content Frequently erroneous Few details provided (e.g., research question, results, caveats, context, significance…) |
/5 |
Criteria |
Level 5 (3 marks) |
Level 4 (2.5 mark) |
Level 3 (2 mark) |
Level 2 (1.5 mark) |
Level 1 (1 marks) |
Criterion Score |
Critical Thinking, Application, and Implications (3 points) |
Clearly understood and answered the question Implications very well understood and presented Engaged in independent thinking and was able to come up with original ideas and or interpretations of key findings and constructs. Presented well put and logical arguments supporting / challenging their answer Showed clear understanding of core constructs and was able to apply / extend the main findings of the paper to real world experiences or new contexts. |
Understood the question and formulated an adequate response Implications well understood and presented Showed independent thought and was able to come up with original ideas and or interpretations of key findings and constructs. Presented some arguments supporting / challenging their answer Sufficient ability to apply / extend learning and main findings of paper to real world experiences or new contexts. |
Partially answered the question. Implications reasonably understood and presented Showed some independent thinking; Did not consider or present arguments in support / opposition of their answer Did not demonstrate sufficient ability to extend learning and main findings of paper to real world experiences or new contexts. |
Did not understand or answer the question Implications poorly grasped and discussed Did not demonstrate independent thinking Was not able to apply their learning and study findings to new contexts. |
Did not understand or answer the question Implications not discussed Did not demonstrate independent thinking Did not apply or extend their learning to new contexts |
/3 |
Criteria |
Level 5 (4 marks) |
Level 4 (3 mark) |
Level 3 (2 mark) |
Level 2 (1 mark) |
Level 1 (0 marks) |
Criterion Score |
Quality of Writing |
Thoroughly but concisely presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is highly engaging. No spelling or grammatical mistakes.
|
Thoroughly but concisely presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is adequate. Minor if any spelling and grammatical mistakes.
|
Adequately presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is appropriate. Few spelling and grammatical mistakes.
|
Contains some main points of research but not as sufficiently and not as well-organized. Narration and/or answering of questions is somewhat lacking Some spelling and grammatical mistakes.
|
Does not sufficiently present main points of research and is not well-organized. Narration and/or answering of questions is lacking. Many spelling and grammatical mistakes. |
/4
|
TOTAL |
/12 |
OVERALL SCORE
LEVEL 5 (11 points minimum) |
LEVEL 4 (9 points minimum) |
LEVEL 3 (6 points minimum) |
LEVEL 2 (4 points minimum) |
LEVEL 1 (2 points minimum) |
Grading is a major barrier when it comes to formulating an assessment. There is a limit to the number of hours a TA or instructor should be spending grading midterms. However, with this examination format, one major benefit is that you get your students to think about and formulate a response to a multitude of questions covering almost all units, while you only spend time grading a handful that actually appear on the exam.
Importantly, this assessment format encourages student interaction. When given the questions, students are encouraged to meet and discuss their answers with their colleagues. This stimulates the deep and meaningful discussion among students, where they can bounce off ideas, learn from each other, as well as apply their learning in class. The type of discussion encouraged and supported by this assessment format is the kind sought after and expected of graduate level students. In that sense, this course is ideal for students thinking about pursuing graduate studies.
It should be mentioned that particular attention should be paid when it comes to communicating expectations for responses. Your instruction and rubric should not be so specific as to box-in or limit your students’ responses. It should provide them with enough information to understand that they must, for example, provide you with an overview of the paper, adopt a nice narrative, and talk about implications. However, it should not be so specific that it would prevent your students from using their own creativity when it comes to discussing conceptual links and theories.
McMaster University. Dr. Bruce Milliken. PSYCH 3VV3 – Human Memory
8
Bloom’s Levels:
Understanding, Applying, Analyzing
The Minute Paper takes – well, just about a minute – and while usually used at the end of class, it can be used at the end of any topic discussion. The Minute Paper is a formative strategy and participation in the activity is normally not assessed, but it could be considered as part of a participation grade.
Between ending a synchronous session or an asynchronous lesson, ask students to submit a quick one-minute paper/response about what was discussed in class. Give students time to submit and set a deadline (such as by the end of the day or immediately after session or lesson). They work well at the end or the beginning of class serving either as a warm-up or wrap-up activity. If it is a wrap-up activity, consider giving students a heads-up at the start of the class that this will be included so they have time to process their thoughts throughout the lecture/lesson. Minute Papers can be used frequently in courses that regularly present students with a great deal of new information.
Minute papers are most useful in large lecture or lecture/discussion courses, although the technique can be easily adapted to other settings, i.e., lab session, study-group meeting, field trip, homework assignment, videotape.
Responses can be submitted using text, or audio. Use a text-entry assignment on a learning management system, so students don’t need to figure out uploading a short document, Google Docs, Polling Software: Mentimeter, PollEverywhere, Zoom, MS Teams, Socrative, Miro. Many LMS systems also support submission of an audio file as a response.
Criteria |
0 |
1 (Poor) |
2 (Acceptable) |
3 (Good) |
Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of events or examples identified |
None |
One |
Two |
More than two |
|
Descriptions of events or examples |
None |
Incomplete response with brief mention of both events or examples; or only one item discussed |
Partial response includes accurate summary of one event or example, limited description of second item |
Full response includes an accurate summary of each event or example |
|
Why was event or example meaningful? |
No response |
Student offers brief or perfunctory response (i.e., “because they were important”; “they affected lots of people”) |
Student offers a well-reasoned response to support one of their choices |
Students outlines a clear personal or cultural or scientific (or other) reason to support both of their choices |
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
12 |
To create: Use a text-entry assignment on a learning management system using an anonymous discussion forum thread, online form submission or classroom response software. These may include Google Docs/Forms, Microsoft Forms, or Polling Software/functionality available through Mentimeter, PollEverywhere, Zoom, MS Teams, Socrative, Miro, etc.
To submit: Learning Management System, online form, classroom response platform, web conferencing poll tool, Email
The Minute Paper’s major advantage is that it provides rapid feedback on whether the instructor’s main idea and what the students perceived as the main idea are the same. By asking students to add a question at the end, this assessment becomes an integrative task. Students first organize their thinking to rank the major points and then decide upon a significant question. Instead of asking for the main point, the professor may probe for the most disturbing or most surprising item. The Minute Paper is a very adaptable tool.
Instructors can use all or a combination of the following questions, depending on their teaching goals and time alloted. If you truly do have one minute, one or two is sufficient.
9
Bloom’s Levels:
Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing
The practice of ‘curating’ – the selective collecting of other people’s work – rather than creating content has become popular in a number of fields, including education. Although curation can be automated, based on tags or other metadata, it’s more common to add a human touch when curation is used in teaching. It actually takes a great deal of expertise to carefully choose, sequence and annotate resources in a way that makes the curated collection meaningful to learners.
For this assignment, students will design a lesson on a topic related to the course disciplinary topic (either included in the course content or one of their own choosing – it is up to the instructor to determine) by curating existing resources from the web. They will decide on a learning goal that they want their (imagined) audience to achieve and then, using a web-based curation tool or practice, create a curated collection from web-based resources that they select to support the goal of your lesson.
Ask students to imagine that they are trying to teach someone else about something – for example, the physical properties of sound or the Idle No More movement: what is essential that others know in order to understand the topic? Do they require other background information before being introduced to key ideas? What perspectives should be represented? How can a lesson provide answers to those questions using existing web-based resources?
As students are working through the assignment, instructors should recommend the approach below:
Students will use a curation tool (their call on which one, but a few options include Padlet, Wakelet, Diigo and Google Keep) to organize and display their lesson on the web. Next:
To sum up, to successfully complete this assignment, students are required to:
This assignment will be graded based on the following criteria: (max 5 points for each item for a total of 35 possible points)
To create: Up to the student but suggested platforms are Wakelet, Diigo, Padlet, and Google Keep as these are accessible curation platforms. If you do use a different curation tool, check it for accessibility.
To submit: Learning Management System, Email
McMaster University: Digital Literacy for Learning (Devon Mordell & Joanne Kehoe, instructors)
10
Bloom’s Levels:
Remembering, Understanding, Analyzing, Creating
Papers and tests are a couple of ways for students to demonstrate what they know, but not the only methods. Using a multimodal project as an assessment in a course is a valuable culminating assignment alternative. It can represent the accumulation, distillation and dissemination of knowledge a student has gained in the course.
For this final multimodal project, students must incorporate elements from at least 3 key topics or units of the course. Students are then given a choice of project options based on their preferences and interests:
Each of the options for the final project is discussed in greater detail below:
Multimodal refers to the use of two or more communication modes. In this assessment example, the modes should be digital in nature. This could involve the use of images, text, video, audio, webpages, presentation slides, animation, blogs, e-book, etc. This assessment reflects the principles of universal design for learning by giving choice and encouraging diversity around the modes of representation.
The topic students select can be taken from any of the units covered in the course, but must also incorporate or reference material from at least three units of the course in total – to represent the depth as well as the breadth of knowledge acquired. Students are expected to do additional research to build on what has been discussed in class and to make meaningful connections with the reference material from the other unit topics chosen; that is, students will present a deeper or more specific treatment of the topic.
Using a mutimodal approach as outlined in the previous option, you will develop a narrative that examines the experiences in your life (and this course!) that have impacted your learning experience in the course and your understanding of the course subject. Students might want to start with a reflection on what the course topics meant to them at the start of the course (a good welcome module activity by the way), and focus on how that changed (or didn’t!) throughout the course.
Students will create a media artefact to teach someone else (making the assumption that they have not been exposed to this concept) a complex concept from the course. The ability to communicate what they know in a clear, compelling manner is a key competency of knowledge translation and students may want to retain this as a useful portfolio item, depending on their career plans.
Requirements:
Multimodal projects, like any scholarly endeavour, take time and careful consideration, and the proposal stage gives students and the instructor the opportunity to have a conversation about what they are planning before students get too far into making it. The project proposal should be required about ¾ of the way through the course; if, as an instructor, you are following the advice of “after week 8, consolidate,” that is an ideal time to make this proposal due.
The project metadata document helps the instructor understand the student’s thinking as they develop their final project, as well as encouraging them to reflect upon why they are making certain design decisions. It should be about 2 to 3 pages in length and should be submitted twice – several weeks prior to the final project deadline and along with the final version of the project (with the self-evaluation/reflection piece added in). The proposal metadata document should include the following:
(Your) Name: |
|
Project option: |
[Choose: course topic, learner narrative or multimedia artefact] |
Topic: |
[State the topic of your final project, or general theme if narrative] |
Final concept: |
[Describe the key idea(s) that you’d like to communicate with your project] |
Project context: |
[Provide any background information that will help to illustrate the context you imagined for your project: what is your aim in creating it? Who is the audience you have in mind? How do you see your project being used, or where on the web might it go?] |
Course integration: |
[Expand on the course concepts/skills/activities that you plan to / integrated into your project; make specific reference to individual readings, videos or activities in at least three different units (i.e. what you write here should clearly demonstrate that you read/watched/participated in them, even if it is not as apparent from your project itself)] |
Project process: [reflective question, final version only] |
[Elaborate on your process as you developed your project: how did it evolve from the proposal stage? Did you discover any new information or insights that took your concept or project in a new direction? Were there any concessions you had to make because of time or available resources, and how did you resolve the problem? Were you influenced by someone else’s work as you created your project?] |
Self-evaluation and reflection: (note – to be completed when submitting project) |
[Critique your own work: what elements do you think are successful about it? What would you have liked to do differently? Do you think it achieves the aims that you wanted to communicate? How have your attitudes or views or practices changed as a result of working on the project? Do you feel that creating a project was a good learning strategy for you to better understand your topic?
|
Students will also see and give feedback to their classmates during a final project showcase that they can use to make some refinements to their project before submitting it for assessment.
Feedback and critique sessions with peers are incredibly helpful to identify the strengths of the project and areas for improvement. The experience of giving feedback, however, is just as invaluable, because it develops and refines analytical skills which students can then apply to their own work as they self-assess it.
The final project will be presented / provided to the class (the method used for this example was the Learning Management System Discussion Forum), with students then engaging in a feedback and critique process.Students are expected to comment on three peers during this time frame.
Students will then submit the final version of their project to a final project assignment folder by the end of the class.
In the final project, students are required to integrate concepts from at least three units in the course. Otherwise, the parameters of the project are fairly flexible. Students should take advantage of the proposal stage to have a conversation with the course instructor about their project to ensure that they are on the right track.
The length requirements vary widely depending on the project concept and the media used. For example, it takes considerably longer to animate a video or create an HTML5 game than to put together a pecha kucha presentation; likewise, if they are creating all of their images as opposed to using appropriated images. A few suggested guidelines for project length are given below, but they are *approximate* – if students have any concerns about whether your project is too long or too short, check in with the course instructor. Ultimately, students should aim to spend about 15 to 20 hours over the course of the term on the development of their final project.
Due dates for the showcase and the submission of the final project are to be finalized based on the schedule of the class.
One tested approach to the evaluation of the multimodal culminating project was to give it three distinct evaluation components: the final project proposal (5% of final grade), participation in the feedback & critique process (5% of final grade) and the project itself (30% of final grade). In total, the three components were worth 40% of a final mark in the course.
The proposal and participation components are effectively pass / fail, though substandard efforts may be penalized (i.e. if parts of the proposal are left incomplete or little feedback is given during the showcase).
The final project itself was evaluated based on the following criteria (items can be weighted equally or adjusted):
The nature of the multimodal assignment is for students to choose what technology they prefer to use. If students are unfamiliar with what to use, consider what tools are supported institutionally, or check out the list of the top tools for learning created and maintained by Jane Hart. Ensure that the platform selected meets accessibility standards (Google and Microsoft apps offer this assurance).
This assignment was created and used in the Digital Literacy for Learning undergraduate course. Effective integration tips include introducing the assignment and its expectations early on in the course and revisiting it as the class moves through content. Because the project included a self-evaluation / reflection, the assignment received pointed feedback, which was overwhelmingly positive, with many remarking that it was quite different than what they’d been exposed to previously throughout their education and their appreciation for the autonomy and choice over how the project was created. Because this course included units on multimedia for learning and exposure to various tools used to create multimedia artefacts, students were at an advantage. The course also included a learning portfolio requirement, which many used to host and feature their project. If integrating this assignment into a course, consider the ways students may need to be supported from the technical side, or make it clear that they should choose tools they are familiar with.
The Science of Aging and Immortality (by Robert Etherington)
Conversion Tips (by Sarosha Imtiaz)
11
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing, Evaluating
An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to sources (books, articles, websites, films etc.) that used to research a topic that includes a summary and evaluation of each source.
Category |
A – 12 points |
B – 10 points |
C – 6 points |
D – 4 points |
F – 2points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Quantity of sources |
Bibliography cites the number of sources outlined in the assignment |
Bibliography is either one source over or under the required number of sources |
Bibliography is two to three sources over or under the required number of sources |
Bibliography is four to five sources over or under the required number of sources |
Bibliography is more than five sources over or under the number of required sources |
Correct Resource Types: 1 website, 1 book, 2 peer reviewed articles, 1 primary resource |
Bibliography cites all the resource types of sources outlined in the assignment |
Cites all the resource types except one |
Adequate variety of sources; cites four types of the required sources |
|
No variety of sources; cites only one or two types of sources required |
Quality/Reliability of Sources |
All sources cited can be considered reliable and/or trustworthy |
Most sources cited can be considered reliable and/or trustworthy |
Some sources can be considered reliable and/or trustworthy |
Few sources cited can be considered reliable and/or trustworthy |
Little or no reliable and/or trustworthy sources cited |
Writing fluency of annotations (Summary, Analysis/Refection) |
All annotations are thoughtful, complete (including the evaluative material included in the instructions), and well written |
Most annotations are thoughtful, complete (including the evaluative material included in the instructions), and well written |
Some annotations are well written, but some are lacking in completeness (including the evaluative material included in the instructions), thought, and/or writing quality |
Most annotations are lacking in completeness (including the evaluative material included in the instructions), thought, and/or writing quality |
All annotations are lacking in completeness (including the evaluative material included in the instructions), thought, and/or writing quality |
APA and Documentation |
Citations are formatted correctly in the document |
There are a few formatting errors in the document’s citations |
There are some formatting errors in the document’s citations |
There are many and/or frequent formatting errors in the document’s citations |
There is a little or no adherence to APA format in the document |
Total |
|
|
|
|
60 |
To create: Collaborative document, presentation or curation platform of choice (Microsoft Word, Google Docs, PowerPoint, Zotero). Students can submit as a text-only document or be provided with the option to submit in the format of their choice – text, audio, video.
To submit: Online course assignment submission via link or file within a course Learning Management System.
12
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing, Evaluating
This next exemplar showcases an combination of individual and collaborative work, used in a class taught by McMaster University instructor Dr. Joanne Wilson, who integrated a twist on an otherwise conventional group project. This alternative assessment form was administered in an advanced seminar style course focusing on current topics in physiology. The course was updated during the COVID-19 pandemic to be administered online with both synchronous and asynchronous components. Students were required to read one research article per week in preparation for a synchronous seminar style lecture led by a guest speaker. To build individual and class understanding of the research topic contained in the article, a group assignment was integrated, which contained three distinct components:
To ensure the classes’ understanding of the major research topic introduced in the article, a small group of students were assigned each week’s paper. This group was to prepare a series of short video presentations about the paper, the physiological system, species of interest, methods/techniques, and major findings. These presentations were delivered as a series of short asynchronous videos (1 per student – so in a group of 5 students, there would be 5 videos) for the class to watch in advance of the synchronous lecture.
“The goal of the student videos is to prepare the class for the speaker and ensure that everyone in the class understands the topic in physiology to be discussed that week. Please note that the goal is NOT to go over every aspect of the paper but to ensure the class understands the paper.” Dr. Wilson.
Note that presenters were instructed to emphasize aspects of the paper (e.g., methods) that may be unfamiliar to students from other course work or faculty in their group presentations. Groups consisted of 2-4 students, but depending on class enrolment may change. While the videos were individual, they were coordinated for content across the group to provide a cohesive series and accomplish the group goal. Presenting students were also to moderate the discussion boards for the 2 days prior to the synchronous lecture. Presenting students should be prepared to answer questions from other students and lead the discussion.
There are components of the group presentations which are both group and individual work to accommodate students working remotely. Groups have flexibility in how much they integrate and work together but there must be some minimum coordination across each group. Below we have outlined the components of the assessment that is in group versus individual form.
Individual videos should be 10 minutes maximum; overall total of all videos should be a maximum of one hour, depending on group size. More than one hour of video will be too much asynchronous work for the lecture component. Videos should have rational titles so it is obvious what the content is, and groups should specify if they want the class to watch them in a particular order. Presenters should make sure that the videos are accessible with reasonable fonts, easy to read with high contrast and captions and transcripts are accurate and available to ensure they are easy to view by all. Videos are due for upload a week BEFORE the guest speaker to ensure students have sufficient time to watch the videos prior to the next synchronous lecture slot.
Students will be posting questions about the video content and paper on our Microsoft Teams channel as a part of their participation grade. Each week, individuals in the presenting group should moderate this channel to answer questions and lead the class discussion online. If the questions are specific to content in a particular video, that specific presenter should be trying to answer these but also aiming to try to contribute more generally to the topic. Discussion Boards should be more heavily moderated on the weekend. Students are welcome to post earlier but the expectation for the group is to be monitoring weekends to ensure questions are addressed before class.
Criteria |
Level 5 5 points |
Level 4 4 points |
Level 3 3 points |
Level 2 2 points |
Level 1 1 points |
Criterion Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Oral Presentation (5 points) |
Thoroughly but concisely presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is highly engaging. |
Thoroughly but concisely presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is engaging. |
Adequately presents main points of research. Narration and/or answering of questions is adequate.
|
Contains some main points of research but not as sufficiently and not as well-organized. Narration and/or answering of questions is somewhat lacking |
Does not sufficiently present main points of research and is not well-organized. Narration and/or answering of questions is lacking. |
/5 |
Presentation (5 points) |
Not cluttered. Colours and patterns enhance readability. Uses font sizes / variations which facilitate the organization, presentation, and readability of the research. Graphics are engaging and enhance the text. Content is clearly arranged so that the viewer can understand order without narration |
Overall visually appealing. Mostly not cluttered. Most colours and patterns enhance readability. Uses font sizes / variations which facilitate the organization, presentation, and readability of the research. Graphics are mostly engaging and enhance the text. Content is clearly arranged so that the viewer can understand order without narration |
Overall visually appealing. Mostly not cluttered. Colours and patterns support readability. Adequate use of font sizes / variations to facilitate the organization, presentation, and readability of the research. Graphics enhance the text. Content is arranged so that the viewer can understand order without narration |
Visual appeal is adequate. Somewhat cluttered. Colours and patterns detract from readability. Use of font sizes / variations to facilitate the organization, presentation, and readability of the research is somewhat inconsistent / distracting. Graphics adequately enhance the text. Content arrangement is somewhat confusing and does not assist the viewer in understanding order without narration. |
Not very visually appealing, cluttered Colours and patterns hinder readability. Poor use of font sizes / variations to facilitate the organization, presentation, and readability of the research Graphics do not enhance the text. Content arrangement is somewhat confusing and does not adequately assist the viewer in understanding order without narration. |
/5
|
Content (5 points) |
Factually accurate always Superior detail provided (e.g. controls, caveats, context, significance…) |
Factually accurate Excellent detail provided (e.g. controls, caveats, context, significance…) |
Minor factual errors Very good detail provided (e.g. controls, caveats, context, significance…) |
A number of factual errors Some detail provided (e.g. controls, caveats, context, significance…) |
Frequently erroneous Few details provided (e.g. controls, caveats, context, significance…) |
/5 |
Implications (5points) |
Implications very well understood and presented Highly appropriate content to aid class understanding |
Implications well understood and presented Appropriate content to aid class understanding |
Implications reasonably understood and presented Mostly appropriate content to aid class understanding |
Implications poorly grasped and discussed Some appropriate content to aid class understanding |
Implications not discussed Limited appropriate content to aid class understanding |
/5
|
TOTAL |
/20 |
OVERALL SCORE
LEVEL 4 (11 points minimum) |
LEVEL 3 (8 points minimum) |
LEVEL 2 (5 points minimum) |
LEVEL 1 (0 points minimum) |
Each student will write an individual report due one week after their presentation (max 2 pages, single spaced). This will be based on the assigned paper. They should be written in the style of a “journal feature” such as the “Outside JEB” section of the Journal of Experimental Biology (http://jeb.biologists.org). Rather than trying to write for a specialist audience, students should write their report in such a way that it is interesting and easily understood by an undergraduate biology audience. The written report should distill the paper’s main findings, most interesting work, OR implications for a broader field and have a clear point of view; this should not simply summarize the paper section by section.
Criteria |
Level 5 5 points |
Level 4 4 points |
Level 3 3 points |
Level 2 2 points |
Level 1 1 points |
Criterion Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Writing Style (5 points) |
Excellent grammar and highly appropriate length Excellent flow Excellent organization Highly engaging to read Very easy to understand to a broad audience. |
Excellent grammar and highly appropriate length Excellent flow Excellent organization Mostly engaging to read Easy to understand to a broad audience. |
Very good grammar and appropriate length Very good flow Very good organization Mostly engaging to read Easy to understand to a broad audience.
|
Good grammar and mostly appropriate length Good flow Good organization Some parts engaging to read Moderately hard to understand to a broad audience. |
Poor grammar and inappropriate appropriate length Poor flow Poor organization Unengaging to read Hard to understand to a broad audience. |
/5 |
Content (5 points) |
Science and physiology is highly accurate. Excellent articulation of the broad implications of the research and state of research |
Science and physiology is mostly accurate. Very good articulation of the broad implications of the research and state of research |
Science and physiology is often accurate. Very good articulation of the broad implications of the research or state of research |
Science and physiology is sometimes accurate. Good articulation of the broad implications of the research and state of research |
Science and physiology is inaccurate. Poor articulation of the broad implications of the research and state of research |
/5
|
Point of View (5 points) |
Obvious and very strong point of view, that highlights a critical aim, finding or technique of interest Excellent arguments that research is important, relevant and/or interesting |
Obvious and strong point of view, that highlights an important aim, finding or technique of interest Very good arguments that research is important, relevant and/or interesting |
Obvious and reasonable point of view, that highlights an important aim, finding or technique of interest Very good arguments that research is important, relevant and/or interesting |
Limited or weak point of view, that highlights an aim, finding or technique of low interest Good arguments that research is important, relevant and/or interesting |
No obvious point of view or it highlights an aim, finding or technique of interest that is not important Poor arguments that research is important, relevant and/or interesting |
/5 |
TOTAL |
/15 |
In this example, each student also completed an annotated bibliography, due one week after their presentation. The annotated bibliography should list all the pertinent publications that the student read to prepare the video and report. Full bibliographic details should be provided along with ~5 bullet points detailing the main points of the publication and critical data it provided for the seminar and report; students need to document what they used the publication for. An example of an annotated bibliography should be provided to the students ahead of time. Do not add extraneous publications as the point is not to have the most publications listed but to demonstrate that you have read a number of important papers related to your topic and can distill the critical information from the paper for your work.
Criteria |
Level 5 5 points |
Level 4 4 points |
Level 3 3 points |
Level 2 2 points |
Level 1 1 points |
Criterion Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Quality of presentation (5 points max) |
Citations are highly relevant for topic and from highly regarded sources / journals / organizations Citations are mostly primary literature and excellent options for non-primary literature Key sources for topic Sources are from diverse researchers Excellent number with full citations |
Citations are highly relevant for topic and from well regarded sources / journals / organizations Citations are mostly primary literature and very good options for non-primary literature Excellent sources for topic Sources are from mostly diverse researchers Excellent number with full citations |
Citations are mostly relevant for topic and from well regarded sources / journals / organizations Citations are mostly primary literature and very good options for non-primary literature Very good sources for topic Sources are from some diversity researchers Very good number with full citations
|
Citations are sometimes relevant for topic and moderately regarded sources / journals / organizations Citations are sometimes primary literature and good options for non-primary literature Good sources for topic Sources are few diverse researchers Good number with partial citations |
Citations are not relevant for topic and from poorly regarded sources / journals / organizations Citations are infrequently primary literature and poor options for non-primary literature Poor sources for topic Sources are from the same researchers Too few number with partial citations |
/5 |
Annotation Content (5 points max) |
Always provide main aim or hypothesis Always describe methods or experimental design Always provide main results / finding of the paper Always provide main conclusions of the paper Always describe how paper was used in presentation or written |
Almost always provide main aim or hypothesis Almost always describe methods or experimental design Almost always provide main results / finding of the paper Almost always provide main conclusions of the paper Almost always describe how paper was used in presentation or written |
Mostly provide main aim or hypothesis Mostly describe methods or experimental design Mostly provide main results / finding of the paper Mostly provide main conclusions of the paper Mostly describe how paper was used in presentation or written |
Sometimes provide main aim or hypothesis Sometimes describe methods or experimental design Sometimes provide main results / finding of the paper Sometimes provide main conclusions of the paper ☐ Sometimes describe how paper was used in presentation or written. |
☐ Do not provide main aim or hypothesis ☐ Do not describe methods or experimental design ☐ Do not provide main results / finding of the paper ☐ Do not provide main conclusions of the paper ☐ Do not describe how paper was used in presentation or written. |
/5
|
TOTAL |
/10 |
OVERALL SCORE
LEVEL 4 (10 points minimum) |
LEVEL 3 (8 points minimum) |
LEVEL 2 (6 points minimum) |
LEVEL 1 (0 points minimum) |
Looking back at my undergraduate career, this course, and in particular this assessment form stands out the most to me. It was one of the courses that best prepared me for my current graduate career. While I did not pursue my masters in the field of biology or physiology, rather in cognitive psychology, the research, writing, presentation, and analytical skills I picked up from this course benefit me to this day and are ones that are easily generalizable to jobs in the real world. The assignment is structured such that for one week in the course, your group is the class expert. You are able to bounce off ideas with your teammates, engage in deep conversations about the main points of the paper, as well as exchange secondary research articles to help you with your presentation, annotation, and understanding. I particularly loved how the degree to which you engage in collaborative versus individual work is to some extent up to the group to decide. Moreover, the constructive and hands on feedback from the professor during our meeting in the week prior to presentation upload was extremely helpful.
13
Bloom’s Levels:
Evaluating and Creating
A formative assessment leading to a summative activity on a simulation of a real-world task. This business trip exercise allows students in a business admin-type course to develop transferable skills that can be applied to future workplace.
You are asked to plan a business trip for Ms. Johanne Trudeau, Director of the Sudbury office. She will be travelling with her colleague, Mr. Lapointe. They are scheduled to meet on the third Tuesday of next month at 1, Yonge Street, in Toronto. Ms. Trudeau and Mr. Lapointe will be asked to make a short presentation at the meeting, which begins at 10:30 a.m. They will take advantage of this trip to meet a client at 2:00 p.m. at Humber College and end their day at a hotel where you will have to make reservations.
Knowing that you must settle all the details of the trip as quickly as possible, you promptly send her the information. According to office policies, you must reserve a room for Mr. Lapointe and one for Ms. Trudeau; however, the trips to Toronto will be done jointly.
Ms. Trudeau will leave from the office, as it is company policy that employees must leave from the workplace. You must thus make these arrangements for her:
Note: In order to save Ms. Trudeau time and to be of service to her, you decide to include a list of restaurants near their meeting place. It is also important to ensure that breakfast is included in the hotel room package.
Note: This activity is a simulation. You must do the research and gather the necessary information, but do not confirm the reservations. For simulation evaluation purposes, perform the following steps, in point form, in a Word document of no more than two (2) pages:
You have organized the trip to the meeting for Ms. Trudeau and Mr. Lapointe at 1, Yonge Street, in Toronto. This morning, you are asked to make reservations for Ms. Tammy Francoeur to accompany them to the meeting.
Ms. Trudeau also asks you to make all the reservations for Ms. Francoeur, the Human Resources Manager, who works at the Sault Ste. Marie branch, and who will accompany them to this meeting. Ms. Tammy Francoeur’s assistant sends you an email with the following information:
Hello,
Here is the information that I was asked to send you regarding Ms. Tammy Francoeur’s upcoming trip to Toronto. Please note the following points:
Note: This activity is a simulation. You must do the research and gather the necessary information, but do not confirm the reservations. Refer to the activity Planning a Business Trip.
Students appreciate that this activity is a simulation of a real-world task, which allows them to develop transferable skills.
14
Bloom’s Levels:
Creating
This assignment was created for a course in the Administrative Assistants college program. The assignment involved writing invitation letters in preparation for a professional event. This assignment is formative in nature, as all of the activities involved in preparing for this event scaffold towards the final culminating event. Note that this assignment was created at College Boréal and the resources linked are in French.
Preparations for the organization of the professional event are well underway and it is now time to move on to the actual preparation of the professional documents related to the conference. You have been working at Les entreprises Excellence inc. for some time and your supervisor is calling on your expertise and talents. You will thus have the opportunity to showcase your skills by preparing professional-looking documents.
At this point in your administrative assistant career, you have had to prepare several different notices of meetings and invitations. The time has come to proceed with the logistical step of preparing for a professional event. The notice of meeting or invitation should provide all the information needed to ensure the event runs smoothly. You can use the templates for notices or invitation letters that you have already written to accomplish this task.
Use the following resources to familiarize yourself with the terminology related to the activity:
Consult the following invitation templates:
Write an invitation letter that follows letter writing protocol and contains the following components:
Notes to consider:
Note: Your teacher will assign you a partner for this part.
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (80) |
Emerging (60) |
Incomplete (0) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Drafting of the letter (45%) |
Drafts an invitation letter containing the following components:
|
Drafts an invitation letter, but the information presented contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality.
|
Drafts an invitation letter, but the information presented contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Does not draft an invitation letter. OR Drafts an invitation letter that is not relevant. |
Letter writing protocol (20%) |
Writes the letter following letter writing protocol and presenting the information in a logical and sequential manner. |
Writes the letter following letter writing protocol, but it contains errors which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Writes the letter following letter writing protocol, but it contains errors which affect its quality. |
Does not follow letter writing protocol. OR
Writes the letter without presenting the information in a logical and sequential manner. |
Feedback to the colleague (20%) |
Suggest relevant corrections and areas for improvement that are obvious and easy to find, while being tactful and professional in their comments. |
Suggest corrections and areas for improvement. However, there are gaps, but which do not affect the quality of the process. |
Suggest corrections and areas for improvement. However, there are gaps which affect the quality of the process. |
Suggest corrections and areas for improvement that are not relevant. |
Language quality (15%) |
Uses a built-in language editing tool to review, make corrections and detect typos in the letter. |
Uses a built-in language editing tool. However, the letter contains errors that do not affect the quality of the message. |
Uses a built-in language editing tool. However, the letter contains errors that affect the quality of the message. |
Does not use a built-in language editing tool to review, make corrections and detect typos in the letter. |
The management of the collaborative part must be explained to the students in order to ensure smooth running of the activity.
Students like the fact that they can work and collaborate asynchronously with their course colleagues. They realize that analyzing the work of others allows them to improve their own skills at the same time.
15
Bloom’s Levels:
Applying
This formative activity leads to the summative activity, which uses the same elements.
Your supervisor asks you to prepare an outline for the manual you are to develop. You are to plan what is to be included in the manual. You prepare an outline by developing an automatic table of contents with the components she has asked you to include. This outline will determine the nomenclature, information structure and format of the manual.
You receive the following email from your supervisor following her meeting with the Administrative Committee (AC).
From: marie.gagnon@entreprisesexcellence.ca
To: suzanne.paul@entreprisesexcellence.ca
Subject: Draft outline of the manual
Hello Suzanne,
As you know, we have been aware for some time that we need to develop a manual for our company’s employees. This procedures manual must be developed in collaboration with the company’s other departments.
I will create a OneDrive folder for us that will contain the files including all the information to include in the guide. Are you familiar with OneDrive or any other cloud system? I would like to present the plan at the next Board meeting, scheduled for next Monday. Can you send me a draft of the plan in the form of a table of contents to review by Monday morning? I am sharing with you the components that need to be in the manual in the attachment.
Thank you,
Marie
Attachment: Elements _manual_Excellence_inc
You decide to present an outline to your supervisor that will eventually be used to develop the automatic table of contents for the employee manual. In addition, you feel it is important to familiarize yourself with the use of a storage and collaboration services such as OneDrive, as you realize that your supervisor will use it to share the content to be included in the manual in due course.
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (80) |
Emerging (60) |
Incomplete (0) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Plan of the manual
(10%) |
Prepares an outline of the manual based on the material presented and by doing the following:
|
Prepares an outline of the manual based on the material presented; however, makes mistakes that do not affect the quality of the plan in terms of the organization of the groups of elements or the hierarchy of the levels of the headings. |
Prepares an outline of the manual based on the material presented; however, makes mistakes that affect the quality of the plan in terms of the organization of the groups of elements or the hierarchy of the levels of the headings. |
Does not prepare an outline of the manual based on the material presented. OR Prepares a plan that is not relevant. |
Content of manual components (30%) |
Inserts the content into the correct sections of the manual and does the following:
|
Inserts the content into the correct sections of the manual; however, makes some mistakes or leaves out some details that do not affect the quality of the work. |
Inserts the content into the correct sections of the manual; however, makes some mistakes or leaves out some details that affect the quality of the work. |
Does not insert the content into the correct sections of the manual. OR Inserts content that is not relevant. |
Automatic table of contents (10%) |
Prepares a table of contents that contains all the prescribed elements and meets the following criteria:
|
Prepares a table of contents; however, makes mistakes or leaves out some elements that do not affect the quality of the work. |
Prepares a table of contents; however, makes mistakes or leaves out some elements that affect the quality of the work. |
Does not prepare a table of contents. OR Prepare a table of contents that is not relevant and which does not meet the criteria. |
Formatting (25%) |
Applies the following formatting according to the criteria presented and applicable to each of the elements in the manual:
|
Applies the formatting according to the criteria presented, but make a few mistakes or leaves out a few elements that do not affect the quality of the manual. |
Applies the formatting according to the criteria presented, but make a few mistakes or leaves out a few elements that affect the quality of the manual. |
Does not apply the formatting according to the criteria presented. OR Applies formatting that does not meet the criteria presented. |
Review of the colleague’s manual (15%) |
Offers three (3) to five (5) suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual, justifying their comments with arguments related to their learning. |
Offers three (3) to five (5) suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual, justifying their comments with arguments related to their learning; however, makes mistakes that do not affect the quality of the information in the justification of their comments. OR Offers three (3) suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual, justifying their comments with arguments related to their learning. |
Offers three (3) to five (5) suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual; however, makes mistakes that affect the quality of the information in the justification of their comments. OR Offers two (2) suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual, justifying their comments with arguments related to their learning. |
Does not offer suggestions for modifications or changes that they would make to their colleague to improve their manual. OR Offer suggestions for modifications or changes that are not relevant. |
Language quality (10%) |
Ensures a quality document by using a language corrector. |
Presence of mistakes that do not affect the quality of the language. |
Presence of mistakes that affect the quality of the language. |
Does not provide evidence of the use of a language corrector. |
Provide a list of elements that could be part of the table of contents and the manual to the students.
16
Bloom’s Levels:
Creating
This assessment was created for a business course at College Boréal and can be used in any course that includes an outcome related to writing a press release for a company as part of marketing/administrative responsibilities and skill-building. The course example used had the following learning outcome: Write a press release using an objective writing style that is respectful of the Associated Press style and the inverted pyramid style of writing.
It has been six months since Erika implemented changes to innovate and modernize the services offered at Excellence Enterprises Inc., and the efforts have paid off. There has been such an increase in the number of companies and individuals that use the services that it was decided Excellence Enterprises Inc. would give back to its clients by hosting a customer appreciation event: A Weekend Winter Carnival.
During a meeting, Erika asks you to create a press release to be published immediately. You recall the information conveyed by Erika during the last meeting:
“A WEEKEND WINTER CARNIVAL,”
This is the first-ever customer appreciation event, and, hopefully, it will become an annual event.
We want to invite our clients and their families to participate in ice sculpture competitions, see our incredible ice palace, enjoy outdoor games, and, if we are able to organize it, we will even have a heated tent with seating. Of course, we will be serving food and beverages as well. Roberta’s team created an interactive app “Excellence Enterprises Inc. FEST” that will be integrated in the festival, so nobody will miss a thing. David and Amahle, of the Language Department, have already agreed to oversee the evening bonfire, so it is sure to be a memorable event. I will be giving everybody more details shortly, including the information needed for our press release.
Use your reference sheet and the template you created to write the press release. Make sure the press release respects the following criteria:
Body must:
Make sure to use a writing style that is:
Note: Be sure to view the rubric to ensure you have met all the criteria for the press release.
The evaluation uses two different rubric formats: one resembles a checklist that evaluates the format of the press release (with only two performance levels) and one is a traditional rubric (with four performance levels) that evaluates the content and writing style of the press release.
Criteria |
Complete |
Incomplete |
---|---|---|
Order of elements (5%) |
The elements are presented in the correct order. |
The elements are not presented in the correct order. |
Contact and date (2%) |
The top includes contact information and date of release. |
The top does not include contact information and date of release. |
Specific title (3%) |
The title is specific and clearly explains what the release is about. |
The title is not specific and does not clearly explain what the release is about. |
Lead (5%) |
The lead explains news worthiness. |
The lead does not explain news worthiness. |
Body: inverted pyramid style (5%) |
The information is presented in decreasing levels of importance (inverted pyramid style of writing). |
The information is not presented in decreasing levels of importance. |
Body: sentences and paragraphs (5%) |
The body is formed with short sentences and short paragraphs. |
The body is not formed with short sentences and short paragraphs. |
Body: information Erika’s information (5%) |
The body contains all information provided by Erika. |
The body does not contain all information provided by Erika. |
Quotation (2%) |
The quotation is included. |
The quotation is not included. |
“About” section and contact section (5%) |
“About” and contact sections are included as boilerplates (part of the template created). |
“About” and contact sections are not included as boilerplates. |
Bottom (3%) |
Bottom includes “end” symbols. |
Bottom does not include “end” symbols. |
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (75) |
Emerging (50) |
Incomplete (0) |
Information included (25%) |
Includes all required information in the press release. |
Includes most required information in the press release. There are some omissions or mistakes present that do not negatively impact the quality of the information conveyed. |
Includes some required information in the press release. There are omissions or mistakes present that negatively impact the quality of the information conveyed. |
Does not include required information in the press release. OR Omits too much required information in the press release. OR Writes a press release that is irrelevant. |
Writing style (25%) |
Presents the information in the press release making sure the writing style is:
|
Presents the information in the press release, but makes mistakes in the writing style, or else there are some omissions that do not negatively impact the quality of the information conveyed. |
Presents the information in the press release, but makes mistakes in the writing style, or else there are some omissions that negatively impact the quality of the information conveyed. |
Presents the information in the press release without subscribing to the writing style. OR Writes a press release that is irrelevant. |
Proofreading (10%) |
Submits a press release that is free of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. |
Submits a press release, but there are some mistakes that do not negatively impact the quality of the work. |
Submits a press release, but there are some mistakes that negatively impact the quality of the work. |
Submits a press release with many mistakes that negatively impact the quality of the work. |
Students appreciate real-world tasks that allow them to develop transferable skills and acquire industry-specific knowledge.
Set Previous Contexts (to lead up to the assignment)
As part of Excellence Enterprises Inc.’s activities to innovate and modernize operations, Erika explains that writing press releases will no longer be outsourced to local journalists. She explains that press releases are not only used to make public announcements, but also that a well-written press release can be an outstanding marketing tool for both social and traditional media. For this reason, she has decided that writing press releases will be done in-house and that it becomes the responsibility of the administrative assistant, with the support of the Language Department.
Your entire work team must now gather information to learn more about the typical format guidelines and writing style. Your team has found interesting resources to consult and to learn more on the subject.
Erika would like the staff of Excellence Enterprises Inc. to develop a simple, one-page, point-form type reference sheet that will be used as a guide each time a press release is prepared. She expects the reference sheet to be simple, to briefly outline the elements of a press release as well as to provide hints for writing style. This should very much be like a checklist.
Note: Erika wants the staff to use this guideline reference sheet to write an upcoming press release. She has asked you to study information presented during the last meeting and also in the following resource.
Erika would like the staff members of Excellence Enterprises Inc. to begin using their own press release template, because it is an efficient practice that not only saves time, but also helps to ensure a continuity of the information published. She has asked you to use the information already provided to create a simple template that can be used by all staff. She also asks that you make sure the About and Contact sections, which normally do not change from one press release to another, are completed and incorporated into the template.
Note: Erika expects the staff to use this template to write an upcoming press release.
Erika has made it known that she will be announcing customer appreciation events for which she will want to publish a catchy press release. Since you have been assigned the task of writing this press release, you decide to polish your skills by studying various recent press releases. You also find it helpful to research information online that provides tips and strategies on writing effective press releases.
17
Bloom’s Levels:
Analyzing
This assessment builds on course readings and applies them to a real-world context. The assessment was used in a course at College Boréal and is aimed at summarizing the rights of aging persons.
You do more in-depth research on the rights of the aging human in order to prepare for your first staff meeting and increase your knowledge of the human rights of aging people. This research will also allow you to validate your thoughts on the subject.
In order to become more familiar with the subject and to base yourself on facts, you decide to consult the websites and pages below to prepare for the first course session:
Since you joined the Agence Mieux-Vivre, you have done some research and learned about your perceptions of the rights of the aging person. You have had the opportunity to share the results of your research with your supervisor. He congratulates you for having expanded your knowledge by consulting professional and relevant resources and sites. He then asks you to undertake a task where you will summarize the rights of the aging person on global, national and provincial scales.
To accomplish the next activity, use the resources you consulted in the preparatory readings.
Using the table Summary of the Aging Person’s Rights, summarize the rights of the aging person on global, national and provincial scales.
In another document, describe a situation you have experienced (or a situation you have seen in your readings) where there seems to be a violation of the rights of the aging person.
Referring to what you just read and your new knowledge, explain why you believe the rights of the aging person have been violated. Your assignment must include the following:
The preparatory activity involved reading in which students consulted all the necessary resources and laws in order to be able to complete the other activities of the course.
18
Bloom’s Levels:
Evaluating
This assessment was used in a course at College Boréal and involved writing a journal / reflection throughout. The activity was aligned to the following learning outcomes: support aging individuals in protecting their rights in accordance with Ontario and Canadian legal concepts; and discuss ethical issues that arise in society and the workplace in order to advocate for the rights of aging people.
You have reached a very important milestone in your career path! You have obtained another position and you must leave the Agence Mieux-Vivre. You reflect on your personal and professional journey. The time has come to record your thoughts in your journal.
Write a final entry in your journal taking into account the following points:
Note:
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (80) |
Emerging (60) |
Incomplete (0) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Journal structure (format) (20%) |
The journal follows a specific format:
|
One (1) element is missing from the journal.
|
Two (2) elements are missing from the journal. |
Three (3) or more elements are missing from the journal OR The journal is not submitted. |
Presence of all entries and reflections in the journal (60%) |
The journal contains all the required reflections. Each reflection is supported by examples and reasoning that are inspired by professional and personal experiences. |
The journal contains most of the required reflections. Most of the reflections are supported by examples inspired by professional and personal experiences.
|
The journal contains only a few of the required reflections. Reflections are not always supported by examples inspired by professional and personal experiences. |
The journal contains very few of the required reflections and these are not supported by examples inspired by professional and personal experiences. OR The journal is not submitted.
|
Consistency and conciseness of text in the journal (20%) |
The journal is written in a fluent way:
The text is:
|
|
|
The journal is not written in a clear and fluent way, and the ideas are not coherent. OR The journal is not submitted.
|
Guide students to enable them to meet the requirements of the activity and submit all mandatory journal entries.
19
Bloom’s Levels:
Evaluating
This activity simulates a visit to a client’s home and how a health care profession would evaluate it for risk factors.
You work for Domicile Boréal. As a care provider, you need to ensure that your client’s environment is safe. In this activity, you will analyze the environment of one of your clients who presents several risks that could contribute to an accident. It’s up to you to screen them and determine how you can change their environment to make it safe.
You arrive at your client’s house and when you enter, you are a little shocked by the scene. The Stay Safe poster from the Government of Canada is the image used for this assignment which represents an environment you encountered during your visit.
Analyze the image in order to identify eight (8) risk factors for the client.
Computer, Word processing software (or other Microsoft software), Learning platform (Brightspace)
Students appreciate the activity since it is as close as possible to a real home visit with a client.
It is necessary to ensure that the images used are described well for accessibility reasons, and that they represent objects or situations that simulate the reality which the care provider could be facing.
20
Bloom’s Levels:
Evaluating
This assessment provides students in health care related courses with the opportunity to simulate how to identify risk factors for a client during a home visit. The outcomes related to this activity include:
You work for Domicile Boréal, a company that provides home care to clients in the community. You arrive at Mr. Shuang’s house for your initial visit. You notice that there are several elements that put your client’s health and safety at risk. While analyzing this case, you will have the opportunity to observe a client’s environment to determine if there are any risks to their health or safety, and to eliminate them, if necessary.
Read the following sections of Chapter 22 “Safety” in your textbook. (Note, this class used Sorrentino, S. A., Remmert, L. and Wilk, M. J. (2018). Mosby’s Canadian Textbook and Workbook for the Support Worker (package) (4th Edition). Elsevier.
Download the document Analysis of Mr. Shuang’s Case and do the assignment presented in it.
Note: Don’t forget to quote your sources, if any.
On your first visit to Mr. Shuang’s house, you notice that the medicine cabinet is full. According to Domicile Boréal’s policy, you are responsible, on your initial visit, for checking its contents to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to their health.
Medicine Cabinet check:
Here is an image that might represents the environment in which Mr. Shuang lives.
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (80) |
Emerging (60) |
Incomplete (0) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Checking the contents of the medicine cabinet (15%) |
Determines which elements need to be considered when checking the contents of the medicine cabinet. |
Determines which elements need to be considered when checking the contents of the medicine cabinet, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Determines which elements need to be considered when checking the contents of the medicine cabinet, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Does not determine which elements need to be considered when checking the contents of the medicine cabinet. OR Identifies elements that are not relevant. |
Actions to be taken: expired bottle (15%) |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of an expired bottle of Dextromethorphan. |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of an expired bottle of Dextromethorphan, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of an expired bottle of Dextromethorphan, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Does not determine the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of an expired bottle of Dextromethorphan. OR Identifies actions that are not relevant. |
Actions to be taken: wrong medication (15%) |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of a bottle containing capsules that differ from the name of the drug written on the bottle. |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of a bottle containing capsules that differ from the name of the drug written on the bottle, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Determines the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of a bottle containing capsules that differ from the name of the drug written on the bottle, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Does not determine the actions to be taken in response to the discovery of a bottle containing capsules that differ from the name of the drug written on the bottle. OR Identifies actions that are not relevant. |
Other places to be checked (15%) |
Lists other areas that would be important to check to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to the health or safety of the client. Provides an explanation of their reasoning as evidence. |
Lists other areas that would be important to check to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to the health or safety of the client and provides an explanation of their supporting rationale, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Lists other areas that would be important to check to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to the health or safety of the client and provides an explanation of their supporting rationale, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. OR Lists other areas that would be important to check to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to the health or safety of the client, but does not provide an explanation of their supporting rationale. |
Does not list other areas that would be important to check to ensure that there are no harmful elements that could cause a risk to the health or safety of the client. OR Lists areas that are not relevant. |
|
Proficient (100) |
Developing (80) |
Emerging (60) |
Incomplete (0) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Elements in the environment (15%) |
Identifies five (5) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling. Provides an explanation of their supporting rationale.
|
Identifies five (5) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. OR Identifies four (4) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling. Provides an explanation of their supporting rationale. |
Identifies five (5) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. OR Identifies three (3) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling. Provides an explanation of their supporting rationale. OR Identifies five (5) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling, but does not provide an explanation of their supporting rationale. |
Identifies fewer than three (3) elements in Mr. Shuang’s environment that could jeopardize his safety or cause a risk of falling. OR Identifies elements that are not relevant. |
Elimination of the risk of falling (15%) |
Determines how the risk of falling could be eliminated while respecting Mr. Shuang’s wishes. |
Determines how the risk of falling could be eliminated while respecting Mr. Shuang’s wishes, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Determines how the risk of falling could be eliminated while respecting Mr. Shuang’s wishes, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Does not determine how the risk of falling could be eliminated while respecting Mr. Shuang’s wishes. OR Presents information that is not relevant. |
Tips to prevent a fall (10%) |
Gives Mr. Shuang two (2) relevant tips that could help prevent falls and injuries. |
Gives Mr. Shuang two (2) relevant tips that could help prevent falls and injuries, but the information contains gaps which do not, however, affect its quality. |
Gives Mr. Shuang two (2) relevant tips that could help prevent falls and injuries, but the information contains gaps which affect its quality. |
Gives Mr. Shuang one (1) relevant tip to that could help prevent falls and injuries. OR Gives tips that are not relevant. |
It is necessary to ensure that any images used are described accurately and truly represent objects or situations that simulate the reality which the care provider could be facing.
Students appreciate the activity since it is as close as possible to a real home visit with a client.
III
Jevan Banks-Cross, Jenn Hillier, Daniela Rajcevic, Brock University
The objective of Cranium is to be the first team to move clockwise around the board and into the Cranium Central, where a team will attempt its final activity for the win.
Cranium is not suitable for children 15 and under and must be played with a minimum of 2 players on each team. The game is adapted to be suitable for individuals of all backgrounds, including persons of disabled and able bodies. The board game is specifically designed to be accessible and inclusive for the strengths of all individuals. In this way, the structure of the game promotes exploration and social interaction by cooperating various skill assets such as abstract thinking, creativity, and logical thinking.
Cranium is played through the use of 4 character card boxes including: Creative Cat, Data Head, Star Performance, and Word Worm.
***REMEMBER: In Cranium a player must roll at the END of a turn, after they have successfully completed an activity.
The well-rounded categories of the game cards were maintained in the redesign of Cranium. The concept of having a diverse range of categories provides individuals the opportunity to excel at their own strengths, whether that be through hands-on activities or mind-like puzzles. The categorical cards within the game board develop an inclusive environment, which is an important principle not only for the game, but for disability awareness as a whole. Often, board games limit or exclude individuals who may experience delayed cognitive processing or inhibited motor movement, thus perpetuating ableism. The tasks included within each card however, attempt to break this cycle by tapping into and celebrating individual strengths, giving every player the chance to succeed no matter their story.
The rule that the game must be played in teams was also maintained in our design of Cranium. Playing with a minimum of 2 players per team allows each player to ‘pass’ or ‘accept’ a task, depending on their own comfortability or confidence completing the requirements. This again provides every player the opportunity to demonstrate their strengths, as it also caters to the needs of individuals with disabilities. For example, if a player does not feel inclined to participate in a task, they have the ability to request their alternative partner to step up without penalization. Many game boards fail to include individuals with disabilities and thus do not participate or are forced to face vast barriers of participation within the game. As a result, it is common for board games to only pertain to able-bodied individuals – even if not necessarily done intentionally. Therefore, our group believes that by maintaining a team-based board game it may limit the exclusion of people with disabilities due to the adaptive nature of the game.
The first component our group decided to alter was the theme of playing cards. The need for ongoing education can be achieved by increasing awareness, such as board games like Cranium. We decided to alter the tasks of each card category in order to advocate awareness and knowledge of disability in social, historical, and theoretical contexts. In this way, our group’s version of Cranium constitutes meaningful participation by generating opportunities to transfer learning into everyday experiences. Raising awareness has a crucial role to play in overcoming negative, ill-informed attitudes which may often lead to discrimination and prejudice towards people of disabilties if ignored. Therefore, each task is designed precisely with the motive to encourage players to reflect and test their personal understanding of disability. In order to diminish prevailing stigmas, our redesigned version of Cranium embeds a disability-focused curriculum, so that it is still a competitive and light-hearted game that can be used as an intentional educational tool for ages 15 and up.
The second component our group decided to remove from the original game of Cranium was the allocated 60 second timer. The pre-established time a task must be completed by each team is a discourse of ableism as it creates an unfair disadvantage for individuals who possibly have cognitive or physical impairments. For example, individuals with learning disabilities or neurological disorders such as ASD may require greater time to process or plan a motor skill, and thus additional time would be a necessity to compensate for an individual’s specific needs. For this reason, as a group we decided to readjust the time constraint so that instead each team is given the opportunity to determine how much time they believe it might take for them to successfully complete each task at hand. Doing so would limit any individual from being placed at an automatic disadvantage solely due to time constraint and would establish equity for all.
The third component our group decided to remove from Cranium is the ‘Fast Track’ element of the game board. After analysis, our group was able to conclude that the ‘Fast Track’ instills ableist discourses due to the fact that it may significantly benefit individuals who do not experience intellectual delay-cognitive functioning, developmental delay, or a learning disability. The removal of a ‘Fast Track’ allows each player and team to start at an equal playing field throughout the entirety of the game. Doing so also adapts the initial instructions to be more concise and consistent. Structure and simplicity can greatly aid individuals with learning, processing, and communication challenges, thus we believed it was important to enhance Cranium by removing this barrier of participation.
MacKenzie, Ellie, Jacelyn & Sterling, Brock University
You have a child with a disability and need to find the best resources for how to care for a person with a disability. Where do you look?
Throughout your life you had multiple encounters with disability, which of the following do you find most inspiring?
You hear someone be corrected for not using person-first language (i.e., “a person with autism,” “a person with a mobility impairment,” “a person who is blind.”) What do you do?
You see a story about a service animal in the media, What do you do?
You are a person with a disability and someone says “I never think of you as disabled,” in an attempt to compliment you. How does this make you feel?
You want to be the best non-disabled ally for disability rights, how can you do this?
It’s disability awareness week at your school and you have volunteered to help out with the organization, what do you focus on?
You have a friend who has a speech impairment and sometimes you’re not sure what he is saying. You should:
You are having a conversation with a stranger in the library who uses a wheelchair. How do you respectfully converse with her?
You are beginning your first day as a medical student and someone in your class says that they hope to one day find a cure for disability. How do you respond?
Maureen is in your High Profile Political Assassination Tactics & Strategies class. She hands in her accommodation letter. She has accommodations for distraction reduction and additional exam time. However, on exam day, she shows up in class. You assume she is not using her additional exam time. She gets very frustrated when time expires, stating she wanted extra time but not reduced distractions. Do you have to give your student the extra time?
You meet a student at the beginning of the year to discuss accommodations. They seem to have trouble focusing and are easily distracting. It reminds you of your bro who has severe autism. You have learned to help your brother through problems. You want to help this student as well. Do you ask the student to disclose their disability so you can provide additional support?
A student in your class, Sterling, is constantly cracking every joint in their body. Sterling registered accommodations with you early in the semester, you assume the joint cracking is a side effect of the disability or perhaps the treatment. It is very distracting to you and other students. Do you accommodate this behaviour if it is possibly due to a disability?
Mackinzee has enrolled in TikTokology for 37 weeks. She missed a TON of classes, like a lot. She hands the professor a note at the end of the year. The letter is an accommodation letter stating she has a considerable amount of absences due to disability related reasons and has permission to perform make-up tests and assignments. The professor accepts the letter and tells her they will contact them with the next steps. Did the professor do the right thing by accepting this letter?
Jaycelyn registered for the How To Pull Chicks in a 67’ Mustang lab. She has accommodations for extended time and reduced distractions. This complicates things as the lab exam gives students 4 minutes for each station. As the TA, are you expected to change the format of this exam for this student?
Ellie enrolled in Backflips as a Personality 101. She requires the note taker accommodation after failing a backflip. The professor has made announcements to acquire one for weeks but no student has volunteered. The professor types up their own notes to each lecture for Ellie. Did the professor have any other options?
Frank Ocean is eligible for double time in his exams. Due to scheduling conflicts, the professor wishes to give him half the exam, at normal time, and the same amount of points. Frank informs the teacher he would rather take the regular exam with the time accommodation. Is a half exam a reasonable accommodation?
John Bonham has risen from the dead and is teaching Insane Dirt Nasty Drum Triplets and Drum Licks 401. John whips out an old TV and VCR to show the class some live footage of himself that is narrated over. A student in his class is hearing impaired and has an interpreter in the class with them. The clip does not have closed captioning but the professor informs the student they can use the interpreter. Is this an appropriate accommodation?
You get hired on as an accessibility developer for a computer software company and are told to create a fully accessible website. What do you do?
You are volunteering in Maureen’s SNAP program and she is running late. She asks you to start the lesson with activities that work on deceleration and acceleration movements. What do you do?
Abby, a student in the school to community classroom who is living on the spectrum, experiences moments of lashing out and temper tantrums when she gets frustrated. She gets frustrated that she cannot perform the activity of rocking and rolling. As the instructor, what do you do?
Samantha has an IEP and is granted extra time on quizzes, assignments, and exams. She goes to write her final exam and no additional time has been added. She hit the time limit, but did not complete all of the questions. She emails you, the professor, asking for additional time. What do you do?
Karl has a visual impairment and benefits from activities that have bright colours and provide auditory feedback. He wants to be included in a community program that is inclusive to all impairments. As the creator of this program, what resources may be included to make it more inclusive for visual impairments?
It is disability awareness month, so your teacher decides to invite a guest speaker to come in to discuss disability and how it has impacted her life. She has been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy which has impaired her walking abilities, requiring her to use a walker. You teacher wants you to think of a question to ask. What should your question be?
You are put into a situation in which someone ascribes an identity to you that does not match with your avowed identities. How do you respond?
A student in your class has ADHD which causes them to fidget constantly, experience difficulty in concentration, present impatient behaviors, and interrupt conversations/activities. What would be the best teaching strategy to enhance learning/participation for this student?
You are doing an assessment of your university to determine the most prevalent barriers that limit accessibility. You must make note of the barrier(s) and list one way to effectively remove each barrier. Of the list you made in your notes, which would be the most effective at increasing accessibility?
You are running a physical education class with both able-bodied and disable bodied individuals. Your lesson plan is focused on Volleyball, and you want everyone to have equal opportunities, but two classmates have impairments in gait that need to be considered. What are the best options for creating equality and inclusivity for all?
You have just found out that your best friend has a disability. How do you approach the situation?
An individual in your PE class is unable to grasp a ball due to lack of grip strength. What activity would you recommend?
A student in your class struggles to take notes from the whiteboard. You find that they often miss key points or words throughout the lesson. What accommodations can be made?
In a work meeting you hear some coworkers talking poorly about an individual that has a service animal. One then stands up and goes to pet and play with the animal. How do you approach the situation?
An individual that is 9 months old shows that they are unable to cross the midline and prop themselves up onto their hands and knees. What does this suggest?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was mostly:
Invisible disabilities are:
Which is more likely to accompany disability?
Most blind people:
Autistic people:
True or False: Only People who can’t walk use wheelchairs.
Partial Accessibility successes are examples of:
True or False: It is safe to assume that people with disabilities usually need help.
True or False: People with Cerebral Palsy usually have a cognitive delay or disability too.
True or False: If a public space such as a movie theatre or restaurant says they are wheelchair accessible, that means it is easy for people who use wheelchairs to enjoy.
Disability is a social construct.
Which of the following does not belong to the medical movement of disability history?
Impairments do not necessarily lead to a disability until society creates a physical or attitudinal barrier.
Voices in the disabled community are well represented in academia.
Disability traditionally is presented in a way that individualizes the disability and leaves the individual to bear all responsibility.
Disability studies is the _____ side to the disability rights movement.
The medical movement aimed at ‘purifying’ a race from physical impairments, as well as other traits such as religion and skin colour is known as ____.
There is a general absence of disabled peoples perspectives in our culture.
The word handicap(ped) is an up to date appropriate term to refer to a disability.
Discrimination in favour of able-bodied peoples is ableism.
Only people who can’t walk use wheelchairs.
Most individuals with a disability cannot work.
Individuals with disabilities want the same respect and opportunities as others.
Who is responsible for paying for a worker’s possible accommodations?
You should always speak directly to the individual, not through their support worker or companion.
Service animals are the same as pets.
Which one is not a characteristic of tokenism?
Which one is not a characteristic of the medical model?
Personal Tragedy Model is characterised by all, except:
Ableism is characterized by all, except:
Where is the Fully Accessible Condominium planned to be built?
Denmark has a vision to create ProjectZero (State of Green) by 2029.
Which of the following is an example of accessibility in architecture?
Speech-to-text/text-to-speech software is a poor example of accommodating neuro-diversity?
All of the following make up the main 3 main manifestation of Cerebral Palsy, except:
Patting your friend who uses a wheelchair on the head is a way of strengthening/restoring their sense of dignity?
Objects we need: 1 purple yoga ball (size of a tennis ball but softer), 2 dice, 10 playing cards of random suits, 6 red solo cups, bouncy ball
Marissa De Lio, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University. Prepared for CHYS 3P30, Dr. Maureen Connolly
Anna, a ten-year-old girl, and her family are walking towards the door of a restaurant to go eat dinner. When walking up the steps, Anna trips and falls while hitting her elbow against the stair’s stone. She begins to scream and cry in pain. Patrons inside of the restaurant and in the parking lot notice Anna and stop what they are doing to watch the scene unfold. An employee walking into the restaurant for the beginning of her shift notices Anna fall and asks if she needs help and if she is okay. Suddenly two other people from the parking lot come running to help Anna stand up, to which she does and hides her face in her mothers’ jacket in an attempt to escape other’s attention. After Anna’s mother reassured the patrons that Anna was unharmed, they carried on with their activities while Anna and her family entered the restaurant.
Adults certainly accept the possibility that children feel anger, but the ___________ , ____________, and ____________ aspects of anger may come as a surprise.
__________ ____________ about children’s emotions coupled with ____________ over children make it possible for adults to ____________ children’s emotions without so great a risk of ____________ social encounters as is likely in adult-adult interactions.
As described in Waksler (1996), taken-for-granted rules are those that “govern the emotions that child ought and ought not to feel and the objects and events towards which they ought and ought not to feel harm” (p.79).
Answers will vary on students’ definitions, and examples but below is a sample of my own answer.
Taken-for-granted rules are those that guide parental and societal expectations of how children should or should not behave, feel, or express harm towards a particular event, situation, or object at any given time (Waksler, 1996). An example from my childhood that reflects the enactment of taken-for-granted rules occurred when I was six-years-old in a grocery store with my mom. As my birthday is around the Christmas holiday and was only a few weeks away, my mom and I walked in the toy aisle to look for presents we could give to other family members. While observing the new toys, I immediately found one that I really wanted and asked my mom if she could buy it for me as an early birthday present. When she said no, I instantly became upset and started to cry in the store. When my mom saw me crying, she walked over to me and told me that I shouldn’t be upset because I had other toys that I could play with at home and that I should be grateful for the ones I had because other children were not as fortunate as I was. Thereafter, she told me to stop crying and wipe my tears away so we could continue with our shopping venture. In doing so, this story exemplifies an adult’s use of taken-for-granted rules as my mother attempted to govern my feelings towards the toy. More specifically, as she deemed my sadness and crying because of the toy as inappropriate, she regulated my behaviour by telling me to stop crying and that I should not feel upset because I had more toys at home (Waksler, 1996). However, as my mother failed to acknowledge the source of my emotions, she implicitly ignored my perspective, allowing her to minimize and deny the emotional impact of this experience (Waksler, 1996). Therefore, as taken-for-granted rules are those that adults use to govern children’s behaviour based on their own ideologies, my mom utilized them to control my crying and sadness within the store as she deemed my small temper tantrum over a toy as inappropriate.
Within Waksler (1996), Goffman states that in everyday social interactions adults
As illustrated within Waksler (1996), Goffman’s first stage when managing embarrassment is an adults’ attempt to conceal their emotions. According to Goffman’s theory, when individuals experience embarrassment, they appear to be physiologically flustered, revealing impressions of inferiority, weakness, and defeat to others (Waksler, 1996, p.82). Due to the negative connotations socially ascribed to feelings of embarrassment, adults attempt to conceal their emotions externally. However, their embodied emotions are often made apparent to others through their gestures, facial expressions, and movements. Specifically, when physiologically flustered and embarrassed, individuals may cover their face with their hands to hide their cheeks’ redness, convey surprised or shocked facial expressions or walk away from the scene. In doing so, despite trying to hide their embarrassment, adults’ external actions may reveal their embodied emotions, allowing others to perceive their current emotional state. Therefore, the concealment of an adults’ embarrassment can be embodied through their physical gestures, facial expressions, and movements after experiencing an embarrassing event.
In Goffman’s second stage of embarrassment, he argues that because adults dislike feeling or appearing embarrassed socially, many will often suppress their emotions by pretending to be unaware of their presence or hide them using physical gestures (Waksler, 1996, p.83). However, when attempting to suppress or conceal their emotions, an adult’s embarrassment often becomes embodied and revealed simultaneously. More specifically, in an attempt to compose themselves, adults may change the conversation or excuse themselves from the scene to alleviate the stress or attention placed upon them. Additionally, adults may bow their heads or focus on a random object in the room to avoid unnecessary eye contact, conversations or to hide their facial expressions from others. In doing so, as adults utilize their physical body and expressions to conceal or suppress their feelings, their embodied emotions of embarrassment unconsciously become revealed to others as their body language singles changes in behaviour and emotion.
During Goffman’s third stage of embarrassment, he argues that when an embarrassing event transpires, both the individual and onlooker experience emotions of shame and guilt (Waksler, 1996, p.84). Specifically, Goffman asserts that due to social standards and the negative connotations associated with embarrassment, the initially embarrassed individuals experience feelings of shame, guilt, and weakness (Waksler, 1996). Coincidingly, the onlooker or the adult who threatened the other person also experiences shame or guilt due to the acknowledgement that he may have destroyed the other’s social image as well as his own (Waksler, 1996, p.84). In doing so, both parties’ embodied emotions may become revealed through their expressive body language and attempts to help one another. Specifically, upon the initial onset of embarrassment, victims may publicize their embodied emotions of shame and guilt by conveying sad, shocked, or surprised facial expressions or using their hands to cover their face to conceal their embarrassment. Additionally, as exemplified within Waksler (1996), victims who cry also reveal their embodied emotions of shame to others as their tears reflect inner sadness, despair, or guilt. Simultaneously, however, as the onlooker recognizes his wrongdoings, their embodied emotions become revealed as he apologizes or assists the other person. More specifically, by acknowledging, admitting to, and apologizing for his mistakes, the adult onlooker expresses his inner sorrow and guiltiness to the victim, exposing his embodied emotions to the victim. As a result, when receiving assistance in repairing an embarrassing situation, both adults’ embodied feelings of shame and guilt become revealed through their expressive body language and attempts to assist the other person.
As illustrated within Waksler (1996), Goffman’s fourth stage of embarrassment involves adults’ failure to conceal their knowledge of another person’s embarrassment (p.85). Similar to Goffman’s first and second stage, when an adult attempts to hide their emotions from others or suppresses them internally, they risk publicizing their embodied emotions through their social behaviour. More specifically, when knowledgeable of another’s embarrassment, adults embodied emotions may become known as they begin to disassociate with others, avoid social interactions or physically remove themselves from situations. As exemplified within Waksler (1996), adults may pretend not to notice others’ feelings; however, the avoidance of adult-child social interactions may expose embodied knowledge to others. Additionally, the adult’s departure from the scene may reveal their embodied emotions as their explicit behaviour becomes suspicious as they avoid public attention (Waksler, 1996). As a result, when recognizing and concealing knowledge of the other’s emotions, adults may unintentionally express their embodied feelings as they suspiciously disassociate with others, avoid social interactions or remove themselves from others, demonstrated through their social behaviours.
According to Waksler (1996), children’s embarrassment proceeds in three stages.
Anna, a ten-year-old girl, and her family are walking towards the door of a restaurant to go eat dinner. When walking up the steps, Anna trips and falls while hitting her elbow against the stair’s stone (stage one). She begins to scream and cry in pain. Patrons inside of the restaurant and in the parking lot notice Anna and stop what they are doing to watch the scene unfold. An employee walking into the restaurant for the beginning of her shift notices Anna fall and asks if she needs help and if she is okay (stage two). Suddenly two other people from the parking lot come running to help Anna stand up, to which she does and hides her face in her mothers’ jacket in an attempt to escape other’s attention (stage three). After Anna’s mother reassured the patrons that Anna was unharmed, they carried on with their activities while Anna and her family entered the restaurant.
Stage one, the initial scene of embarrassment, occurs when Anna trips, falls and injures her elbow on the stairs as she recognizes her mistake and tries to recover without gaining others’ attention.
Stage two occurs when the restaurant employee asks Anna if she is injured and needs assistance standing up. Although the employee is being sincere and kind in helping, the attention placed upon Anna reveals that others have acknowledged her mistake, intensifying feelings of embarrassment further.
Stage three occurs as more people approach Anna to ask if she is okay and needs assistance. As Anna’s feelings of embarrassment are prolonged and intensified, she cannot escape the scene and attempts to avoid contact with others by hiding in her mom’s jacket.
“Adults certainly accept the possibility that children feel anger, but the thoroughgoing, enduring, and consequential aspects of anger may come as a surprise” (Waksler, 1996, p.87)
Answers may vary but below is a sample of my answer to this question.
Although adults acknowledge that children experience feelings of anger, many fail to recognize how they may contribute to, or be a source of, their child’s distress. As exemplified within Waksler (1996), adults can contribute to children’s anger when they laugh at or mock children for their innocent mistakes. More specifically, when an embarrassing event transpires or when children make mistakes, they often feel vulnerable, insecure, or inferior to others. Simultaneously, when adults fail to provide support or assistance and unconsciously reinforce power differential stereotypes by laughing at children’s innocence or lack of knowledge, they may unintentionally contribute to children’s anger (Waksler, 1996). In doing so, as many adults fail to recognize how their actions contribute to their child’s behaviour, their expression of laughter or mockery may unintentionally cause or contribute to their child’s distress.
Another way adults unintentionally contribute to or become the source of children’s anger occurs when adults fail to offer apologies for their wrongdoings but coerce children into apologizing to others for their perceived mistakes (Waksler, 1996). As exemplified within Waksler (1996), adults’ commitment to their understanding of a given situation may be biased or flawed due to misperceptions of the event or extraneous variables. However, when adults recognize and acknowledge their mistakes, many fail to offer apologies and avoid confrontation with others (Waksler, 1996). In doing so, adults’ inability to apologize for their wrongdoings contributes to children’s anger as children deem adult-child power differentials to be unjust and immoral. Additionally, as adults can govern children’s behaviour and often coerce children into apologizing, they may unknowingly contribute or be the source of children’s anger as children may view an apology as unwarranted (Waksler, 1996). Specifically, when children feel as if they were not at fault or have made a mistake, being forced to apologize for something they have been accused of can enhance their distress and perpetuate anger. As a result, adults’ failure to offer apologies when they have made a mistake or coercing children into apologizing when they are not at fault can contribute to or become the source of children’s anger.
Throughout childhood, adults may explicitly or implicitly misunderstand, misinterpret, or disagree with children over whether a given situation or object provokes fear (Waksler, 1996). As adults are likely to deem childhood fears, especially those that are unrealistic, as inappropriate, foolish, or immature, many risk denying or ignoring children’s emotions and fears (Waksler, 1996). Exemplified within Waksler’s (1996) chapter five, when children’s fears are solely based on their imagination, such as fearing monsters, many adults perceive these fears as irrelevant or meaningless as they are knowledgeable about their inexistence. However, as children seek out authority figures for alternative explanations, adults’ inability to provide adequate support for children’s fears due to their misperceptions leaves children’s emotions minimized (Waksler, 1996). In doing so, children may maintain their versions of what they believe to be true and construct explanations for parents’ inadequate support, such as ‘my mom doesn’t care’ (Waksler, 1996, p.92). As a result, adults’ inability to understand or acknowledge children’s fears as legitimate enables them to perceive the child’s fears as childish, limiting their ability to provide adequate support and ultimately denying, ignoring, and minimizing children’s emotions and fears.
Answers may vary on the example utilized, but below is a sample of my own answer.
When children experience an embarrassing moment, they are left feeling vulnerable, defeated, and insecure. However, how adults attempt to repair the situation can make the experience more difficult as adults are likely to use embarrassing tactics to remedy the problem, call public attention to the event or fail to provide children with adequate assistance (Waksler, 1996). More specifically, when discussing bed-wetting as an embarrassing event, Waksler (1996) illustrates that children’s attempts to conceal their embodied emotions of embarrassment become compromised when adults use their embarrassment as a strategy to prevent the situation from reoccurring. As described within Waksler (1996), adults may utilize resources available to them, such as diapers, to further humiliate children in front of their siblings or peers in hopes that they will be too embarrassed to wet the bed again, accomplishing their goal of repairing the situation (p.82). However, in doing so, already embarrassed children experience further humiliation, defeat or inferiority which makes coping with the initial embarrassing experience more challenging. Additionally, when adults explicitly pronounce children’s embarrassment to others, the distress it instills on children enables them to ascribe negative characteristics to their personal qualities while believing them to be true (Waksler, 1996). Serving as an example described within Waksler (1996), when teachers’ pronounce to the class that a student is too short for their classroom’s growing tree, the student may become self-conscious, embarrassed or ashamed of her height in comparison to her peers (p.83). In doing so, the repercussions of having others know about one’s embarrassment, by adults, makes it more difficult for children to deal with manageable situations as children may experience added negative emotions other than embarrassment. Lastly, as adults fail to recognize how they may be a source of children’s embarrassment, they become unable to assist children in concealing their emotions or guiding them out of the situation (Waksler, 1996). More specifically, when adults are unaware of children’s emotions, they fail to recognize when children need assistance and tend to minimize, deny, or dismiss children’s feelings by not focusing on them. In doing so, children are often left managing their own experiences, making the situation more difficult due to their lack of experience or knowledge. As a result, adults may unintentionally make situations more difficult for children to manage as they capitalize on children’s embarrassment to repair the situation, expose children’s embarrassment to others, or fail to provide adequate assistance due to their misperceptions (Waksler, 1996).
Answers may vary; however, a sample answer is provided below.
As adults have the authority to govern children’s emotions towards specific objects, events or situations, their misperceptions or inability to appreciate children’s cognitive schemas may unintentionally minimize or deny the existence of children’s feelings (Waksler, 1996). Illustrated within Waksler (1996), when adults fail to appreciate the value or importance children place upon particular objects, they may unconsciously ignore, minimize, or deny children’s feelings. Serving as an example, when adults are unaware of the symbolic significance children place upon a particular object, such as a toy doll, adults may view their child’s behaviour as immature, overly sensitive, or inappropriate (Walker, 1996). In doing so, many adults fail to provide children with adequate support or tend to their emotional needs, leaving children to manage their emotions alone (Waksler, 1996). As a result, adults’ inability to understand or appreciate children’s cognitive schemas, enables parents to unconsciously minimize, ignore, or deny children’s emotions as they may deem their behaviour as inappropriate or childish and simultaneously provide inadequate support.
“ Inaccurate assumptions about children’s emotions coupled with power over children make it possible for adults to overlook children’s emotions without so great a risk of destroying social encounters as is likely in adult-adult interactions” (Waksler, 1996, p.97)
Waksler, F. C. (1996). Chapter five: Emotions ignored, minimized, distorted, and denied. In F. C. Waksler (Eds.), The little trials of childhood and children’s strategies for dealing with them. (pp. 79-97). The Falmer Press.
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At this point, you may have had the opportunity to explore—or perhaps even implement—some of the alternative assessment approaches suggested in this publication. It is the intention of the inter-institutional collaborative group who created this resource that implementing these approaches will allow students the opportunity to be assessed on “real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills” (Mueller, 2016).
You are encouraged to try some of these approaches in your own teaching, however, be aware that alternative assessment may be a new approach for your students as well. They may take some time to acclimate to the notion of an assessment ‘beyond the exam’. Be patient and customize these approaches to fit your context accordingly.
As a conclusion, the authors of this resource have solicited some comments from instructors and students who have engaged with alternative assessment. The following comments are from instructors who have implemented alternative assessment strategies:
I used a group response and comment form of assessment that asked students to form groups, respond to a prompt based in reviewing an online exercise program and then comment on another group who did a different program… This enabled proximal learning and expanded everyone’s online exercise program repertoires. I was able to assess over time (three modules) and the students were able to distribute the workload and expand their knowledge base.
I used a Scavenger Hunt final exam (take home, time limited) where I enlisted the students in the creation of the exam… The students created the questions, the rubric and did the assessment of their peers’ submissions. I assessed the quality of the items and their ability to provide feedback in their assessment of their peers.
I used a ‘show what you know’ take home open book exam. I surveyed the students about the types of questions they preferred and did not prefer and then constructed an exam that had a variety of question formats (MC, matching, short answer, fill in the blanks, long answer, application, analysis). Then I allowed them to choose the questions they preferred as long as the total was 100… The students had less stress and I got to see what they could do when they worked with their preferred formats.
Similarly, we asked students in the above three courses to comment on their experiences with alternative assessments. Here is what they said:
I participated in a group-based review of exercise programs that also required us to comment on another group’s review. We did three of these over three modules. Usually I hate group work, but we were able to take turns with different components of the review and comment and it was more enjoyable to comment on my classmates than I thought. I also found some way cool online programs.
I participated in a Scavenger Hunt take home exam. Students got to create and assess the exams. The prof did all the organizing and assigning of who did who’s exam. It was confusing and there were lots of instructions before I figured it all out, but the overall experience was good for my learning. I had no idea that my classmates would protest their grades and feedback! That part was not fun. Creating the exam and taking someone else’s exam forced me to read the chapters more carefully.
I participated in the ‘show what you know’ open book take-home exam. I wish all my exams could be like this. I loved the choices. It was harder than I expected, but I had time to read and re-read.
These comments indicate that using alternative assessment approaches had a positive benefit to the students’ experiences and their learning. The instructors indicated that setting up the alternative assessments can be more onerous, but once it was done, it could be used in subsequent years or in other courses they teach.
Perhaps you have an alternative assessment that you would like to share with our community. Please consider sharing your own ideas and suggestions by visiting our website and submitting your ideas of effective alternative assessments. They will be reviewed and added to this resource, and in time, we anticipate there to be dozens of additional suggestions for alternative assessments. Please check back regularly for updates.
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As you have read throughout, we started this resource with the intent that it will grow – with more assessments added and eventually categorized for (easier) finding. In order to do this, we are calling on you to be part of this growth. Whether you are an educator in an Ontario post-secondary institution or beyond – you are all welcome to share the alternative assessments that have worked for you – and most importantly – your students.
Complete the form at our “Beyond the Exam” website by providing a few details and one of our project team members will reach out to you to gather more info, and collaboratively pull together your entry.