Blended Formative Assessments
As we continue to enhance our learning opportunities into online and/or blended environments, I would like to share several resources for collecting formative assessments. Most of these can be aligned with learning outcomes and used in any context.
For many years, I have shared this Interactive Techniques list for teaching and assessing, collated by a colleague, Dr. Kevin Yee (originally a top 100 has now grown to 288)
One of the strategies include One Minute Paper, here are some Sample Prompts.
Another frequently requested topic is a list for active and experiential learning. Here are several which may be helpful:
This recent article analyzed how active learning is defined in over 100 articles
List of 100 active learning strategies in Biology
"What We Say Is Not What We Do: Effective Evaluation of Faculty Development Programs"
There are classroom observation instruments for capturing active learning:
Teaching Dimensions Observation Protocol (Hora et al., 2013),
Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (Smith et al., 2013),
Practical Observation Rubric to Assess Active Learning (Eddy et al., 2015), and
Measurement Instrument for Scientific Teaching (Durham et al., 2017)."
As further support for adding Blended Formative Assessments to an instructors skill set, this week Mintz (2020) shared an article in Inside Higher Ed entitled, Remote Learning Isn't Going Away. In this, he reminds us that,
"For all that’s lost when we interact remotely, something is gained in well-designed, highly interactive online classes that feature personalized adaptive courseware; online tutorials; synchronous interactive lectures with frequent polls and whiteboard sessions; and breakout groups. We need to address the four aspects of the online apocalypse:
Isolation: How to transform an online class into a community.
Engagement: How to keep students motivated and on track.
Rigor: How to ensure student learning outcomes and academic honesty.
Quality: How to make sure that online courses meet minimal standards for accessibility and usability, learner support, interactivity, and robust assessment.
The key lies in intentional, thoughtful course design. Remember: for students who sit in the back rows of an auditorium, every large face-to-face lecture class is a distance ed course."
