Learning Outcomes, Authentic Assessments and Rubrics

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Learning Outcomes, Authentic Assessments and
Rubrics

• Erin Hagar
• ehagar_at_jhu.edu

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Workshop Objectives

• Describe the importance of aligning program
  goals, course goals, and learning outcomes with
  assessment strategies
• Write measurable learning outcomes for their
  courses
• Design an authentic assessment technique that
  measures a desired learning outcome
• Create a rubric that articulates the evaluation
  criteria and standards of performance for that
  assessment

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Facilitator Commitments

• Minimum jargon
• Open to questions at any point
• Grounded in theory, but
• Focused on practical applications

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Keeping the Big Picture in Mind
Program Goals
Course Goals
Unit Objectives/ Outcomes
Activities
Assessments
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AAP Biotechnology Program Goals

• The curriculum is designed so that graduates can
  
• participate fully in research
• lead lab teams,
• help to make development and planning decisions,
• apply research modalities to larger schemes set
  in large research projects.
• bridge the worlds between non-scientists roles
  and the scientists in their organization,
  allowing for effective communications and
  decision making.

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Course Goals

• Large or general intentions of a course of
  instruction
• Ex To introduce a group of academic staff new
  or comparatively new to teaching to the basic
  principles of teaching and learning, and to give
  them some opportunity to practice the application
  of these principles.
• Source Good Practices in Teaching and Learning,
  University College Dublin,
• http//www.ucd.ie/teaching/good/cou3.htm

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Unit Outcomes/Objectives

• Statements that describe, in behavioral terms,
  the skill or knowledge a student should
  demonstrate as a result of the instruction
• Outcome Participants will be able to create a
  rubric for a subjective assessment.
• Objectives
• Articulate criteria for the assignment
• Define standards for each criteria
• Describe levels of performance for each criteria

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Activity Articulate Outcomes/Objectives for an
Upcoming Unit
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The Assessment Cycle
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Principles of Effective Assessment

• Valid The assessment measures what you want
  measured
• Reliable The same assessment given after similar
  instruction produces similar results over time
• Aligned with learning outcomes

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Traditional Vs. Authentic Assessment

• Select Response
• Contrived
• Knowledge Recall
• Teacher-structured
• Indirect evidence of student thinking

• Perform a task
• Real-life
• Knowledge Application
• Student-structured
• Direct evidence of student thinking
• Source
• http//jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox
  /index.htm

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What Might Authentic Assessments in Biotech
Courses Look Like?
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Authentic Assessment Activity I

• Think about the learning outcomes you identified
  earlier in the workshop, and begin to formulate
  an authentic assessment that reflects desired
  outcome(s).
• What are you assessing?
• What skills/behaviors should be evidenced in the
  final product?
• What kind of guiding instructions will you
  provide?

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Authentic Assessment Activity II

• In pairs, share your ideas for this assessment,
  and provide feedback to your partner
• How well does activity reflect desired learning
  outcomes?
• Does it meet some of the criteria of authentic
  assessment? (real-world, student-structured,
  etc.)
• If you were a student given this assignment, what
  questions would you have about it?

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Traditional Vs. Authentic Assessment

• Select Response
• Contrived
• Knowledge Recall
• Teacher-structured
• Indirect evidence of student thinking

• Perform a task
• Real-life
• Knowledge Application
• Student-structured
• Direct evidence of student thinking
• Source
• http//jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox
  /index.htm

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BREAK TIME
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Part III Evaluating Subjective Assignments with
Rubrics
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What is a Rubric?

• An assessment tool used to evaluate student
  products that
• are complex and subjective.
• have various components.
• have no easily discernable right or wrong
  answers, but rather, can be described as good
  vs. poor products.

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A Silly Example The Chocolate Chip Cookie

• If you were the judge in a bake-off, what
  criteria would you look for in a chocolate chip
  cookie? (ex texture)
• Within those general criteria, what would
  constitute a delicious cookie? (ex
  textureslightly chewy)

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Specifically, a Rubric is ...

• a printed set of scoring guidelines that
  communicate the criteria being evaluated and the
  various standards of performance
• Lets look at some now...

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A Rubric Answers the Questions

• By what criteria will the work be judged?
• What is the difference between good and weaker
  work?
• How can we make sure our judgments or scores are
  valid and reliable?
• How can students prepare for excellence?

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The Advantages of Rubrics

• Force the teacher to clarify his/her standards
  and criteria in specific terms.
• Allow assessment to be more objective and
  consistent.
• Clearly show the student how their work will be
  evaluated and what is expected (must be given to
  student in advance.)
• Promote student awareness of the criteria to use
  in assessing peer performance
• Provide benchmarks to measure and document
  progress (i.e. an assignment you give
  periodically throughout the semester)

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Things to Consider When Using Rubrics

• What are the major elements of this assignment?
  What exactly are you looking for?
• Within these elements, what constitutes
  excellence and unacceptable, and everything
  in between?
• Can you describe excellent, average or poor
  etc. using the most concrete terms possible?

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Steps to Create a Rubric

• Step 1 Decide what the product is (in our case,
  a the authentic assessment youve begun to
  design).
• Step 2 Determine the elements or features of the
  product you will assess
• (4-5 elements).

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Steps to Create a Rubric

• Step 3 Decide what you will call the levels of
  performance
• 4-Exemplary, Excellent, Superior, Master,
  (Delicious.)
• 3-Accomplished, Skilled, Competent, Good
• 2- Fair, Needs Improvement, Developing
• 1-Poor, Novice, Beginning, Unsatisfactory,
  Unacceptable.

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Steps to Create a Rubric

• Step 4. For every criteria you identify,
  describe what would be exemplary.
• Use former student products as a guide (more than
  one).
• Be as concrete as possible.
• Step 5. Repeat this process for the lower levels
  in descending order, also using student samples
  to help you.

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Steps to Create a Rubric

• Step 6 Give the rubric to the students in
  advance.
• Step 7 Apply the rubric to the assignment.
•  Step 8 Modify the rubric based on feedback
  from students and reflection on its effectiveness.

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Activity Begin to design a rubric for the
authentic assessment youre planning
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Closing thoughts

• Our courses are ultimately a reflection of the
  programs goals
• Those program goals usually reflect advanced
  levels of thinking, focusing on synthesizing and
  applying knowledge appropriately
• Authentic assessments provide an opportunity for
  students to engage in those higher levels of
  thinking
• Rubrics can help us evaluate the products of
  those assessments that are complex and subjective