Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

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Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

• Faculty Development Week
• August 8, 2008
• Sue Chaplin

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Overview of the session

• Introduction/background
• Case Studies recommendations?
• CATs of all varieties
• Design a CAT to assess a difficult
  topic/concept/issue in one of your classes
• Small group discussion
• Debrief
• Evaluation

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Introduction

• Assessment (including testing) is not just for
  the purpose of assigning grades (McKeachie and
  Svinicki)
• Informed teaching ? Intentional Learning

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Some statistics about classroom dynamics

• During two years of observations of instructors
  at Columbia University, George Hillocks (1999)
  found
• 82 of classroom time involved teaching
• 73.4 involved frontal instruction (sage on the
  stage)
• 9.5 involved management
• 4.4 involved assessment
• 3.7 involved diversions

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Why assess learning?

• Alert students about their level of understanding
• Reaffirm to students your expectations for their
  level of performance (a la Bloom)
• Cues to you about what was not understood
• Feedback on level of complexity students can
  handle
• Concerns you are not aware of

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CAT Cycle
?
GOALS FOR LEARNING
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNICATION OF GOALS
ASSESSMENT
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Case studies

• Read and think individually for a couple of
  minutes and then discuss in small groups
• ID problems
• Suggest methods of addressing problems (e.g.,
  CATs in readings or from your own experience)

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CATs of all types

• What do you want to know?
• Engagement
• Content mastery
• Conceptual understanding
• How the course is going (lecture speed, level,
  group work, etc.) how a specific activity worked
• Learning gains

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CATs for checking understanding concepts and
content mastery

• 1 minute summary of main points
• Muddiest point in lecture
• Write a question pair-share for understanding
  answers
• Pose problem (student response on cards or using
  clickers)
• Concept map
• Writing to learn (explain figure, graphs, etc.)
• Answer questions on reading in advance of lecture
  (JiTT) submit via email, blog, discussion board
  on Blackboard

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Engagement overall course flow

• Non-verbal cues!
• 1, 2, 3 question
• CIQ (Brookfield)
• Journals
• Feedback on group work

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Learning Gains

• Knowledge Survey (Karl Wirth, Dexter Perkins)
• Student Assessment of Learning Gains (salgains
  http//www.salgsite.org)
• Learning Audit
• Student self evaluation

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Design a CAT to assess your class

• Work alone on this for 5 min
• Share with small group for 10 min
• Debrief with large group