On this page we look at how do we make student learning visible, why backward design is helpful and what we mean by alignment of assessments to our learning goals.

Assess knowledge and understanding - to make thinking visible

What and how students learn depends heavily on how they think they will be assessed. Assessment practices must articulate and send the right signals to the students about what they should be learning and how they should be leaning it.

Teachers may think that assessing student learning is synonymous with the process of arriving at a grade for student work. However, you can see assessment in various ways and assessment can have different purposes:

as checking acquisition of acquired knowledge and/or skills,
as evaluating the achievement of standards,
as measuring the quality of teaching and learning
as enhancing learning through feedback on performance

The way teachers and educators perceive assessment influences the way they design their assessment tasks. Moreover, the design of assessment tasks and practice is influenced by teachers' and educators' understanding of knowledge, learning and the tacit assumptions regarding appropriate ways to assess students/learners. The practice of judging learners’ performance is often tacit and teachers design their assessments the way they themselves were assessed.

It can be difficult to design assessment methods with high levels of reliability, that is, methods which assess with great authenticity and precision when dealing with complex phenomena such as knowledge.

Assessment can be formative (guiding future learning, providing reassurance, promoting reflection, and shaping values) or summative (making an overall judgment about competence, fitness to practice, or qualification for advancement to higher levels of responsibility). See our page on summative and formative assessement.

In designing assessment tasks there are several things to bear in mind. Clear assessment criteria and rubrics need to be established for each task. It is useful to think of assessment tasks as a source of evidence of a student’s achievement of a particular intended learning outcome (ILO).

Beginning with the end in mind

Dee Fink (2013) describes the steps of backward design as making three key sets of decisions:

What do you want the students to learn? These are your learning outcomes.
How will students (and the teacher) know if they are learning? Determine acceptable evidence that students have achieved these learning outcomes.
What will the teacher and students need to do for students to learn? Plan learning experiences, instruction, and resources that will help students be able to provide evidence that they have met the learning outcomes

It's about beginning with the end in mind. Starting with desired learning outcomes, clearly stated in measurable terms, and working backwards through assessment activities, teaching and learning activities, and content delivery.

Why is it important to align assessments with learning outcomes?

Alignment between assessments and desired learning outcomes is foundational if your assessments are to be valid. Assessments that are aligned with your learning outcomes provide dependable evidence as to how well students are reaching the desired outcomes.

Clearly aligning assessments to desired learning outcomes also reinforces to students what needs to be mastered and helps them track their progress in the course. Students pay attention to what you test. For example, If your intent is for students to be able to apply, critique, or evaluate, but your assignments and exams ask students to remember, identify, and describe, then your assessments aren't aligned with your desired learning outcomes. Asking students to describe a concept doesn't encourage them to evaluate the concept in context and doesn't provide evidence that they can evaluate the concept.

Make Learning Visible | Formative Assessment Strategies

How can you assess learning in online and blended learning? Make learning visible by using Formative Assessment strategies. In this video (5.50 minutes) Chris Tuffnell from BLADEdescribes how two formative assessment strategies to help you understand what your students know, and provide them with insight as to where they are with their learning, informing both you and them of any gaps to address before summative assessment occurs. The video will also give you a recap on the subject of making learning visible. The tools that Chris mentions are Mentimeter which KI has a paid for licence and another message called "Ready Steady Yella" which involves writing short answers in the Zoom chat.

References:

GHPD HT21 course: Outcome-based education and assessment, Per Palmgren, Course director, Unit for Teaching and Learning, KI.

Fink, D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass:

Wiggens and McTighe, Understanding by Design (2nd Ed., 2005), describe the principles of backward design.

The Teaching Online Series is available due to the efforts of eLearning Design and Services (eDS) and our partners at Indiana University. eLearn@iu.edu. en CC-attribution: Non-commercial, attribution, share alike licence.