Assessment Strategies
The ToolBox
Assessment tools have pros and cons. Drawing on different assessment tools allows you to gather information to paint a full picture of your students' learning.
NYU Abu Dhabi science student Nada Al Bedwawi (NYUAD '20) made a splash in the history books as the UAE's first female swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games.
Taken from: NYUAD's Olympic Pride.
Authentic Assessments
Emphasize on authentic assessment activities that mirror or link to workplace requirements to ensure students are able to transfer academic skills to a workplace environment.
Authentic assessment, or performance assessment, requires students to apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes in solving complex and ill-structured problems in professional life. Unlike working on the traditional assessments such as multiple-choice tests and exams, students are offered the opportunities to interact with external professional bodies or criteria as they are engaging in authentic assessments (e.g., creating a business plan or role-playing in simulations).
Self And Peer Assessments
Integrate student voice via self- and peer-assessment activities to empower autonomy for both short- and long- term learning outcomes.
Self- and peer- assessment provide opportunities for students to monitor their learning process and evaluate their own work, as well as the work of their peers. Integrating student voice in the assessment process increases students’ responsibility for their own learning and develops autonomous learners. Self- and peer- assessment can deepen students’ understanding of the learning outcomes and assessment criteria. Supporting self- and peer- assessment with rubrics makes group work more effective as it helps identify individual contributions to a group project.
Use the link below to learn how to assign a group project in NYU classes. Group Projects within NYU Classes
Exams
Traditional exams are frequently used in a variety of disciplines and context given its reliability and efficiency. Well-designed tests provide an objective gauge for measuring students’ learning progress.
The questions on a traditional exam are either selected-response items (e.g., multiple-choice, true-false, matching) or constructed-response items (e.g., short answer, label a diagram, essay). Maintaining the academic integrity with traditional exams has been a concern. We suggest to:
Remind students frequently of NYU’s core principles and standards with respect to academic integrity and how they apply to both face-to-face learning and remote instruction.
Include an Academic Integrity Pledge in your assignments and exams.
Consider using Zoom to remotely proctor an exam.
Randomize the order of questions. Follow this tutorial to set up your exam with Google Forms.
Create different versions of the exam using google docs if your class size is small (n<15).
Consider using Turnitin. This tool is integrated into NYU Classes and helps to detect potential plagiarism.
Beyond the Traditional
Provide a wide range of assessment activities for students to demonstrate their learning.
To register for a NEXUS Assessment Strategies webinar, please visit the toolkit's Training & Support page.