Mini-Cases for Formative Assessment

This week I would like to share a recent article detailing contemporary methods for offering formative assessments that both guide instruction and provide student timely feedback. The article is entitled, “Mini-Cases of Professional Inspired Activities in E-Learning Platforms: An Experience for the Formative Assessment” by Tortajada-Genaro (2022).

The author describes formative assessment as a strategy that allows students to be aware of the state of their learning and to establish ways to correct the identified deficiencies; at the same time, it provides information to the instructor about those issues where misunderstandings occur. The activities involved short extension cases from professional situations combined to self-learning tasks and supported on an LMS. The evidence collected (student’s documents, interviews and smartphone-based surveys) informed the impact. The participants positively valued the initiative against more traditional methodologies.

The principles from the literature that informed the methodology were:

• Tasks should be designed to stimulate sound learning practices amongst students.

• Assessment should involve students actively in engaging with criteria, quality and their own and/or peers’ performance.

• Feedback should be timely and forward-looking to support current learning.

• Assessments sample the actual knowledge, skills and dispositions desired, rather than relying on more remote proxies.

The material consisted of:

1. introductory document of the activity where the learning outcomes;

2. the data of the scenarios;

3. guide document for the development of the activity autonomously; and

4. report templates.

The tasks were chosen according to the following criteria.

1. The professional-inspired activities were created considering that their solving would imply a decision-making strategy and the development of analytical skills;

2. Short duration cases designed to ensure all could be done with the time constraints;

3. Measurable outcomes were established and guidelines to achieve them;

4. Evidence was identified that would allow monitoring the process and final result; and

5. One-shot activities.

In summary, this is another teaching method that may align with your current approach and/or could be integrated to enhance the ways in which you engage and provide timely, critical feedback to our students.

References

Tortajada-Genaro, L. A., (2022). Mini-Cases of professional inspired activities in E-learning platforms: An experience for the formative assessment. Multidisciplinary Journal of Educational Research, 12(1),38-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.447/remie.6070