Welcome to the Teaching & Learning Guide for Alternatives to Traditional Testing! 

This guide includes a recorded webinar, articles, links, and resources designed to help you: 

• Describe alternative assessments to traditional testing;

• Write effective questions for online assessments;

• Modify student presentations for the online learning environment;

• Create online discussion activities and other assignments;

• Recognize best practices for online assignments;

• Use student feedback for continuous improvement of your online course;

• Request support from your Instructional Designer and the Technology Service Desk.

With alternative assessments, students are encouraged to apply knowledge in authentic, novel ways rather than simply selecting from a given list of options. Creating an infographic in a Marketing Strategy course is an example of an alternative assessment. Alternative assignments can be assessed with rubrics, which also provide valuable feedback to students. 

When planning an online quiz/test/exam, questions can be designed to allow students to refer to either class notes and summaries or a “memory aid”, textbooks, or other approved material while answering questions. This guide is designed to help instructors write effective questions for online assessments.

Considerations when Designing Online Assessments

• Questions in online exams need to be devised to assess the interpretation and application of knowledge, comprehension skills, and critical thinking skills rather than only knowledge recall

• Make use of case-based exam questions that require students to apply critical reasoning skills in response to a trigger scenario

• Devise clear and unambiguous questions to limit student confusion and time spent interpreting the question so students can spend their time making use of their textbook or memory aid to effectively answer the questions

• Devise questions that require students to apply and make use of the information from their textbook or notes rather than simply requiring them to locate and re-write this information

• Design your questions and overall exam paper with the learning outcomes in mind i.e. what skills and knowledge are you assessing?

Example Ways of Designing Online Exam Questions

• Structure your exam questions around problem-based scenarios or real-world cases, requiring students to apply their skills and knowledge to the given problem or scenario

• Provide information or background information on a given topic or area of study

• Present relevant qualitative or quantitative data and then ask students interpretative and application questions – What does the data show? What relevance does this data or does the scenario have in terms of [component of current topic]? What other factors could potentially affect this data? How would you test for these?

• Structure content or topic questions in a way that tests for an ability to apply, analyze, evaluate, create, synthesize, interpret etc.

• When devising questions to probe student understanding, skills and knowledge, the Socratic questions and questions reflective of levels and stages of learning may be useful:

• Students create presentations (i.e., slide deck or poster) to present to the instructor and classmates online and receive instructor and peer feedback.

• Presentations can benefit both the presenter and the audience, encouraging both to learn course content.

• Synchronous web-conferencing tools can be used to facilitate these presentations, or they can be recorded and presented asynchronously.

• Use a rubric to grade presentations and make the rubric available to students before presentations are due.

• Solutions to consider include:

  • Work one-on-one with your Instructional Designer to add web conferencing to your Canvas course

  • Use Panopto Lecture Capture in Canvas for recording student presentations

• Instructors can initiate class discussions with a set of questions.

• Student moderation provides an opportunity for community building.

• Use a rubric to grade discussion activities and make the rubric available to students before assignments are due.

• Solutions to consider include:

  • How do I create a discussion as an instructor?

  • Creating Blogs, Journals, Wikis, and Podcasts in Canvas (Instructors)

• Students submit written work in Canvas.

• Students can use PowerPoint to create Infographics.

• Create small group assignments to provide peer feedback and build community.

• Use a rubric to grade peer-reviewed activities and make the rubric available to students before assignments are due.

• Solutions to consider include:

  • How do I create an online assignment?

  • How do I create a peer review assignment?

  • Creating a PeerMark Assignment (Turnitin Peer-Reviewed Assignment)

• If assignments are complicated and multi-part, it is more effective to break these down into multiple, smaller assignments so that the instructor can assess students at several points in the learning process and provide feedback.

• Provide students with explicit and detailed rubrics to accurately communicate student performance expectations.

• If the course material is highly technical, consider using ungraded, practice quizzes as a formative assessment to check student learning and determine whether teaching strategies should be altered.

• Scaffold assignments that build on each other throughout the module or semester to provide constant feedback to students.

• Use synchronous technologies when appropriate (i.e., Blackboard Collaborate in Canvas) to communicate with students in real-time. As online students have very different schedules, synchronous meetings can be recorded so students who cannot attend live can watch later.

• Self and peer assessments can be used to reduce instructor workload and improve student learning experiences.

• Look for opportunities to provide feedback to the entire class (i.e., an announcement or e-mail summarizing patterns observed in student assignments).

• Q&A Discussions can also be useful to field common student questions.

• Use a variety of assessments in your online course.

You can create a Canvas survey in your course to allow students to provide feedback throughout the course to help make assignments and assessments more effective.

• Surveys allow you to receive feedback from students or give them some extra points by responding to a survey. 

• Graded surveys appear in the Syllabus, Gradebook, Calendar, and To-Do Lists.

• Surveys can also be made ungraded and anonymous.

• You can view graded or ungraded survey results after one or more students have taken the survey.

Assessment: Strategies for Effective Assessments is included in the Strategies for Transformative Teaching Series of Workshops facilitated by Faculty Success. These workshops will provide you with best practices and concrete strategies for common teaching tasks, challenges, and opportunities. The workshops draw on research-based best practices from the literature on teaching and learning to help you apply those practices in your courses.

You can work one-on-one with your Instructional Designer at any time during the semester to incorporate the strategies you are learning into your courses or for support with developing your courses in Canvas.

Assessment: Strategies for Effective Assessments Workshop Description

Designing effective assessments can be a challenge whether your courses are online, hybrid, HyFlex, or face-to-face. You will learn practical strategies for designing your assessments and fostering a culture of academic integrity in your courses. 

• Hunter, M. and A. Diefenderfer (2019). “Accessibility Buy-In: Rubrics and Faculty Development Workshops.” Educause. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/5/accessibility-buy-in-rubrics-and-faculty-development-workshops 

• Johnson, A. and G. Svingby (2007). “The Use of Scoring Rubrics: Reliability, Validity, and Educational Consequences.” Education Research Review, 2 (2), 130-144. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X07000188 

• Kenyon, A. (2020). “Online Student Presentations.” Learning Innovation. https://learninginnovation.duke.edu/blog/2020/03/online-student-presentations/ 

• Kibar, Pınar Nuhoğlu and Buket Akkoyunlu (2018). “A New Approach to Equip Students with Visual Literacy Skills: Use of Infographics in Education.” Information Literacy, Lifelong Learning, and Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century, 492, 456-465. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-14136-7_48  

• Pavlova, I. (2019). “How to Make an Infographic in PowerPoint: The Beginner’s Guide.” Digital Mama. https://graphicmama.com/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic-in-powerpoint/ 

Request a Canvas Sandbox

Instructors may request a Canvas Sandbox for every course they teach. You can request one or more sandboxes by submitting a ticket to the Technology Service Desk. Please include the course numbers (e.g., ENG 1013, NURS 4612). 

Instructional Design Partners

Instructional Designer in Faculty Success design and present learning solutions to continually enhance institutional and instructor performance. We collaborate closely with instructors to translate course objectives into meaningful, customized courses tailored to each instructor’s specific needs, leveraging an aptitude for design and development, along with excellent problem-solving and analytical skills. 

Our technical expertise encompasses a range of programs and best practices, including Canvas, Quality Assurance, Universal Design, and more. Instructional Designers meet with academic components to answer questions about teaching and learning in one-on-one consultations, small group work, symposia, and workshops.

Technical Support

To request technical support, submit a Technology Service Desk email to start a ticket.