III.1 The types of assessments selected measure the stated learning objectives and are consistent with course activities and resources.

(Essential Standard -- 3 points)

Expectations

IMPORTANT: This is a content-related objective, and is reviewed by the course's department, as part of the Content Approval process.

• 1. Assessments, learning objectives and learning activities should align in a clear and direct way. Your assessment formats should provide a reasonable way to measure your stated learning objectives.

  2. Assessments can be quizzes facilitated through D2L or any number of other methods to evaluate the progress of the student (e.g. research papers, discussions, assignments, etc.)

  3. The key to satisfying this review standard is to make sure those assessments match your learning objectives (see examples below).

Examples

• • A simple example would be that if you require your students to be able to articulate their opinions through writing, you should require them to write a paper or participate in a discussion. Taking a multiple-choice quiz to assess this objective would not be appropriate. That is not to say that multiple-choice quizzes are inappropriate; for example, if you want to address critical thinking, you can pose a question and give a list of scenarios:

objective/assessment alignment:

• • a problem analysis evaluates critical thinking skills

  • a multiple choice quiz verifies vocabulary knowledge

  • a composition assesses writing skills

inconsistent alignment between learning objectives and assessment:

• • the objective is to be able to "write a persuasive essay" but the assessment is a multiple choice test

  • the objective is to "demonstrate discipline-specific information literacy" and the assessment is a rubric-scored term paper, but students are not given any practice with information literacy skills on smaller assignments