Assessment Blueprint

A challenge for some students is understanding how a course relates to the real world and understanding how content and assessments are relevant. This is even more significant when teaching online due to the lack of face-to-face engagement. Diagnostic assessment can be used to prime students so that they can connect how the deliverables in the course link to a future career. For example:

• Ask students to review the syllabus, then search online for job advertisements that you believe are relevant to this course. Describe the tasks and skills listed in the advertisements.

• Ask students to find an advertisement for a position that they aspire to and audit/describe areas of skill development.

• Ask students to use networking platforms such as LinkedIn to tease out how professionals in the field are applying complex subjects.

A course may be an opportunity for a participant to prototype (try out) a possible career direction or experiment with new ideas. In this context, assessments may need to support and create a realistic environment in which it is safe to fail as well as innovate. A suggested approach is using a real world deliverable or case study as well as breaking that deliverable into multiple milestones. At each milestone, the project builds on previous skills in which students are able to revise on previous submissions. In this way, students are able to iterate and improve. This approach could be applied to both theoretical and practical subject areas such as:

• If your course is a prerequisite for another course, consider a project that dovetails into the next course. For example, if you are teaching a theory course that precedes a research course, consider an annotated bibliography in which students contribute a few articles each week. This bibliography could then be used to compile a literature review at select points during the semester.

• If your course is strongly grounded in theory, consider providing a case study in which students can explore and revisit from a range of theoretical angles. Students may also be asked to identify theoretical weaknesses and combine theoretical approaches to compensate.

• If your course is strongly aligned with practical applications, a large real world deliverable relevant to the course can be potentially broken down into a number of incremental deliverables.

Traditionally, summative assessment is often centered on high stakes (heavily weighted) tasks that assess learning at the end of the course. Examples include exams, major presentations or projects, and term papers. If students are being continually assessed during the semester, and they are allowed to iterate their knowledge and skills, then the summative assessment may be an opportunity for students to reflect on their learning and plan their next steps. For example:

• ePortfolio exercises may allow students to reflect on how a deliverable aligned with the content of the course and the lessons learned.

• Peer evaluations may allow students to reflect on team dynamics and identify opportunities to develop leadership skills (e.g. how team dynamics could have been improved).

• Self evaluations may allow students to reflect on how they progressed toward addressing skills and knowledge gaps that they identified at the start of the course.