Dr. Diane Chapman from North Carolina State University presented at the 2021 Lilly Conference online on “Customizing Classroom Assessment Techniques for Online Teaching and Learning.” Classroom assessment techniques (CATs), Chapman stated, are “in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening.” They are simple and not graded. Chapman described the benefits of CATs:
- Just-in-time feedback
- Less work than tests, papers… and other traditional assignments
- Encourage learning as an ongoing process of inquiry, experimentation, and reflection
- Help students become better monitors of their own learning
- Help them feel less anonymous
- Provide concrete evidence that the instructor cares about the learning
I did not know some of the history about CATs that Chapman described! Also, Chapman provided a step-by-step guide to using CATs, including:
- Deciding what you want to assess about the learning process
- Choose a CAT that provides this feedback
- Explain the purpose of the activity to students, and then conduct it
- Review the results
- Let your students know what you learned from the CAT and decide if changes are necessary.
I didn’t realize how important explaining the purpose of the activity and reviewing results with them is until I typed this post. Chapman emphasized explaining to students throughout the presentation. Examples included using a Google Form for a Minute Paper. For Muddiest Point, ideaboardz could be used for a distance education course. Similarly, one-sentence summaries can be a low-stakes powerful way of crowdsourcing Chapman talked about one-sentence summaries and concept maps that can be used online. Student-generated questions is a great way to help students share questions and contribute to the course. Direct paraphrasing helps students share writing and feedback. Application cards and documented problem solutions help students reflect on their learning and think about strategies. Chapman concluded that CATs can be summative or formative and analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. Chapman stressed again the importance of explaining to students the goals of the assignment. I have to work on being more transparent and explaining to students why we are doing CATs.
