Hi all --
Recently I was posed the question below and thought that maybe some xmca
folks might have good references on assessment in large-scale /
"efficient" classes (yes, the "" indicate irony). The question about how
to effectively assess students come from the university physics world but
seems relevant to many disciplines. In short, the question is given the
real-world constraints (notably time limitations and the entrenched nature
of grading) what are effective practices of assessment, and what related
research is there?
I'll happily take any comments off-line and then repost a summary of any
interesting tid-bits.
Thanks much.
Cheers,
Noah
Noah Finkelstein
soon-to-be-leaving-LCHC
nfinkels@ucsd.edu
---------- Forwarded question _____
A lot of [research] ... seems to be to basically be saying that if you
provide a lot of individual feedback to students as to their level of
understanding and what they need to learn the material better, studies
show they do learn better than if you ignore them or just give them a
simple grade ranking them relative to the other students. [...] What I
would like to see is research on what minimum elements (and hence most
cost effective) can achieve formative results. Even more useful would be
a practical study that accepts the fact that students are conditioned to
see grading as the primary incentive to attend or work in a class and
looks at the best way to grade things to best achieve desired learning
goals and attitudes in the students. In other words, what works best in
the real world in which most faculty and students currently exist? Do you
know any useful references on that?
I would be curious to hear about [any related research on assessment]
since grading questions are so much a part of the effective and cost
efficient teaching issue. A big fraction of the faculty and TA time is
devoted to grading but it is really unclear what is the best amount. I am
reasonably confident that I know the limiting cases. If every bit of
teaching time is devoted to grading, students probably will not learn much
nor have a good attitude, and similarly if zero time is spent on it,
results will not be very good. However, where is the optimum between
those limits and what are particularly good and bad practices seems
remarkably unclear and undiscussed, particularly considering the central
role it has.
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