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From our own Ryerson faculty, we have ideas culled from the "Teaching Large Classes" workshop held by the LTO on November 4, 2009. The full notes from the meeting are available as a pdf on the LTO's resource page on teaching large classes.
Our faculty agreed that it is important to:
- Create assignments that will not lend themselves to violations of academic integrity. Be careful with attaching grades to activities which you cannot monitor closely, such as online quizzes, clickers or homework.
- Not negotiate/change marks or give marks for non-academic tasks like attendance. Consider all variables when implementing bonus or participation marks--they must be fair and accessible to everyone.
- Create assessments to measure meaningful learning, and match assessments to objectives and strategies. Consider alternative methods of assessment other than tests and exams. Even if a final exam is required by an accreditation body, a large component of assessment can still be taken from group work, presentations, peer teaching, etc.
- Be creative about assessing group efforts. Individualize group marks through the use of self- and peer-assessment or weekly reports from all group members, etc.
- Get feedback on how the course is going. Keep track of questions that come up during office hours. Use one-minute papers, clicker polls, and follow-up discussions to "check the class pulse."
In 41 Interesting Ways of Getting to the End, York University's Center for the Support of Teaching offer best practices for designing assignments, giving feedback and helping students focus. Some excerpts:
- Design assignments that focus attention on only a subset of the full criteria that you might normally use for a larger assignment, and give marks and feedback only in relation to that subset.
- Provide copies of a previous student's work (with permission and cleansed of attributions, of course) and have students mark it and try to arrive at shared criteria.
- Have students assess themselves and/or their peers' contributions to seminar groups against specific criteria you want student to observe, or to the part of the project for which they were responsible.
The Learning & Teaching Office has prepared a page of resources on Assessment and Grading. These links will direct instructors to information on assessment strategies, tests and exam design, and grading rubrics, some of which are excerpted below.
- Student Learning: Observing and Assessing
On the Cutting Edge, The National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Carleton College.
The NAGT have collected numerous assessment resources, including instructions and examples for using different assessment tools, including concept maps, knowledge surveys, poster presentations, and peer reviews. Their page on Large Class Assessment might also be of assistance to Ryerson instructors working with large groups.
- Assessing Student Learning: Ideas, strategies and resources for quality in student assessment
Centre for the Study of Higher Education. The University of Melbourne.
A collection of papers and presentations on a variety of topics in assessment, including assessing group work, assessing large classes, qualities and standards, tips for new staff, and minimizing plagiarism.
- Quizzes, Tests, & Exams, Allaying Students' Anxieties
About Tests, and Grading Practices
From Tools for Teaching by Barbara Gross Davis. Berkeley University. 1993.
Barbara Gross Davis offers an overview of the function of tests and
exams, general strategies for developing tests, different types of tests and alternative
modes of testing. A supplementary resource, Giving Exams Demonstrating Student Understanding, offers some helpful guidance for designing questions and helping students succeed.
- FLAG: Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide
College Level One Team. National Institute for Science Education. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Constructed by CL-1 as a resource for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics instructors, this site will be of use to any instructor looking to match their course goals with the appropriate classroom assessment techniques.
- How to Write Tests
By Robert Runté. University of Lethbridge. 2001.
Dr. Runté covers test-taking and test design. Includes information on assessing student achievement, reporting test results, and designing objective test items, including essay questions, multiple-choice questions, and short answer questions.
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Generic Centre Assessment Series
Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN). 2001.
These briefing papers were prepared by The Higher Education Academy. They cover group, peer, and self assessment, as well as assessing disabled students and dealing with plagiarism.
For faculty and staff working with large classes or interested in pursuing group work, additional assessment resources can be found on our Teaching Large Classes and Collaborative Learning pages.
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The Learning & Teaching Office has a collection of books on assessment and grading, many of which are available at the Ryerson Library. Check our library resources page for the complete listings. Following are a selected number of books that the LTO recommends:
Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers
By Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993.
Call No.: LB2822.75 .A54 1993
The art of evaluation: A handbook for educators and trainers
By Tara J. Fenwick and Jim Parsons. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishers. 2000.
Call No.: LB3051 .F46 2000
A handbook of techniques for formative evaluation: Mapping the student's learning experience
By Judith George and John Cowan. London: Kogan Page. 1999.
Call No.: LB2333 .G46 1999
Monitoring and assessment in online collaborative environments : emergent computational technologies for e-learning support
Edited by Angel A. Juan. Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, c2010.
Call No.: LB1028.5 .M617 2009
Assessing student learning: A common sense guide
By Linda Suskie. Bolton, Mass.: Anker Pub. 2004.
Call No.: LB2331 .S97 2004
Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment
By Barbara E. Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1998.
Call No.: LB2368 .W35 1998
Ryerson University provides faculty and students with a variety of helpful services and programs, covering everything from digital media assistance to career development.
This month's featured Ryerson service is Blackboard Training offered by Computing & Communications Services (CCS).
There are several workshops coming up:
Intro to Blackboard, Sept. 27
Assignments and Grade Center, Sept. 22
and Oct. 21
Advanced Grade Center, Oct. 5
Faculty and staff who wish to attend these workshops must register in advance.
CCS also offers a Blackboard Walk-In Clinic that does not require any registration. These clinics occur every Wednesday afternoon, from 2 to 3 PM in LIB-B99.
For those unable to attend the Blackboard clinics, CCS offers an entire page of resources aimed at helping faculty and staff integrate Blackboard into their teaching strategies. Blackboard has several assessment features, including a gradebook, online assignments, online quizzes, surveys and statistics. Two video tutorials are available, one on Creating Assignments and the other on Collecting and Grading.
New to Blackboard 9? This Quick Tutorials Library can help get you up to speed.
This winter, the LTO will be running the University Teaching Development Program (UTDP).
If you are a new or experienced teacher, or a graduate student teaching in the academic year 10/11, this Program will provide you with a solid foundation in university teaching and learning, and an opportunity to advance your scholarship in this area. In addition, you will be an active participant in the evolution of the Ryerson teaching community.
Register for the University Teaching Development Program (UTDP)
(Deadline for application: November 30, 2010)
"The LTO Best Practices" is produced monthly by The Learning & Teaching Office of Ryerson University. Our October issue will be on teaching with technology.
Do you have any thoughts, suggestions, or best practices that you would like to see appear in this newsletter? Please send all submissions to michelle.schwartz@ryerson.ca. We look forward to including your contributions in our next issue!
Location: Kerr Hall West, room KHW373.
Phone: 416.979.5000 x6598
Email: lto@ryerson.ca
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