Assessment Diversity/alx

Assessment Diversity
Contributors
Last modification	September 14, 2016
Source	Bergin et al. (2015)
Pattern formats	OPR Alexandrian
Usability
Learning domain
Stakeholders

Use a variety of assessment techniques in each course to account for different learning modalities and to increase the richness of student experience.

You are designing the assessment structure for a new course.

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Every student is different. Some students are better test takers and some are better writers, speakers, ... Students need to learn to express themselves in a variety of ways.

Some students may do especially poorly on some assessment instruments independent of their learning. If every such measurement uses that mode they will do poorly overall, even with good learning.

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Therefore, use a variety of assessment vehicles within the course. Don’t depend on just exams. You can evaluate project work, writings, presentations, etc. Even within exams, use a variety of question types.

Almost any variety here is good. Flash quizzes, tallying participation, peer review along with formal exams as required. Use Your Choice (Your Choice), My Choice (My Choice) to make sure that the activities cover all the aspects that you want.

Each measurement should not have a large impact on the overall assessment of the student. Let grades be determined by the overall performance.

You may expect: You will tend to assure that if a student is somehow disadvantaged by a particular vehicle it will have low impact on overall performance measurement.

However, this takes a bit of thought and exploration, of course, but otherwise, few negatives.

Related Patterns

—Used by Constructive Alignment (Constructive Alignment)

— Reduce Risk (Reduce Risk)

— Kinds of Exam (Kinds of Exam)

Examples

—Iteratively grading a project as it is developed + a couple of exams + an oral presentation of the project (can also be part of Continuous Activity (Continuous Activity)).

—In the programming courses at HAN University of Applied Sciences, the students have to do two exams for grading and an additional practical assignment in order to address different aspects of the content.