Adapt Assessments for Digital Deliveries

Practical or performance assessments focus on student performance and the quality of work performed by students.  Examples of performance assessments include, but are not limited to: 

• An oral defense in an exam 

• A music or dance performance 

• A teaching demonstration 

• A portfolio of creative work

• A storyboard of a film or book, etc.

• A capstone project 

• A research investigation

• A pitch or persuasive presentation

• A demonstration that communicates competency in a specific professional skill

  The essence of a practical and/or performance assessment is that students are given the opportunity to do one or more of the following: 

• Demonstrate their ability to perform a meaningful task

• Demonstrate competency in specific skills associated with a performance task

• Receive feedback in terms of relevant and defensible criteria within the academic program’s professional context  

Creating a digital assessment for a practical/performance task:

1. Review the learning outcomes associated with the student's performance task.

2. Identify ways for students to demonstrate their mastery of the learning outcomes in an online or remote learning context.

3. Modify the submission criteria associated with the performance task to ensure the assessment can be delivered in a digital format.

4. Consider including low tech or no tech options for students’ submissions.

5. Clearly communicate with students how the assessment will be modified and articulate any changes to the assessment’s rubric.

6. Ensure flexibility in criteria associated with the performance-based assignment, given the lack of resources students may now face.

7. For projects requiring highly specialized equipment that students may no longer be able to access, consider allowing students the option to represent their completed project in another format. For example, in the absence of a video camera, a student could present a film proposal through a storyboard, and still meet the criteria of the learning outcome.

8. Consider including the option for students to submit an explanation or commentary on how they modified their initial goals for their project for online delivery, if they wish.

Creating/modifying a rubric for a practical/performance assessment:

A rubric is a scoring tool that lays out specific expectations for an assignment. Rubrics divide an assignment into its component parts and provide a detailed description of what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable levels of performance for each of those parts.

You may have already created a rubric for your final assessment and depending on whether any significant changes have been made to the assessment, the rubric provides clarity for students on any expectations that you have for them to successfully complete the assignment.

When used effectively, rubrics can:

1. Provide timely and detailed feedback

2. Encourage critical thinking/self-evaluation

3. Communicate expectations

4. Expose the component skills of any task

5. Encourage fair and consistent marking

Different types of rubrics

There are different types of rubrics, but the two most common that are used for practical and performance-based tasks are: 1. the holistic rubric and 2. the analytic rubric.

• The holistic rubric is the most general kind of rubric. It lists three to five levels of performance, along with a broad description of the characteristics that define each level. The levels can be labeled with numbers (such as 1 through 4), letters (such as A through F) or words (such as Beginning through Exemplary). What each level is called isn’t what makes the rubric holistic — it’s the way the characteristics are all grouped together. It provides a snapshot of overall achievement.

• Holistic Rubric Example

• The analytic rubric breaks down the characteristics of an assignment into parts, allowing the scorer to itemize and define exactly what aspects are strong, and which ones need improvement. It is used when diagnostic and formative feedback is required.

  1. • Analytic Rubric Example

Constructing a rubric:

1. Identify the purpose of the assignment. Review the learning outcomes that are aligned with the assignment and how the students are expected to demonstrate achievement of those learning outcomes.

2. List assignment objectives that the students should produce at the highest level

3. Group and Label the objectives into different, common, single word categories i.e. organization, analysis, use of media, etc.

4. Apply levels to the scale and fill in the descriptions according to the levels

A note on rubric language:

Consider the language you use when creating both the scales and performance descriptors. If you have recently modified your assignment to allow for multiple ways students can submit the assignment, ensure that your rubric language isn’t specific to one kind of submission.

Additionally, any other changes or modifications that needed to be made to the assignment because of the campus closure and shift to a remote learning environment should be included in your rubric. For example: If one of the rubric’s criteria refers to the overall completeness of the project and a student submits a partially completed project because they can no longer access equipment required to complete the project, the faculty member should also modify the explanation of what is deemed a “complete” project.

Options for sharing feedback with students:

Feedback is an essential component of the learning process, and good quality feedback supports a student’s immediate and future learning and skill development. Consider the ways in which you can share feedback to compensate for the lack of an in-person audience at their presentation or performance, and to encourage them in the future.

1. Link to Blackboard record feedback features: Record Audio and Video

2. Consider one of these ed tech tools to allow students to share final projects with classmates.

3. Options for self-reflection and/or self-assessment may be part of the feedback process

4. Consider the option of a structured feedback model, if useful: RISE Meaningful Feedback Model

Some Alternative Assessments for Digital Delivery include:

Alternative Assessment Guide (Comprehensive List)

Academic Integrity in Online Courses: Adapting During COVID-19 (Webinar)

Academic Integrity in Online Courses: Adapting During COVID-19 (Webinar Resources)

Going Remote with Integrity (Webinar)