Literature Review

Authors: Elbery Center

Title: “Whys & Hows of Assessment” - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Journal or Text: Educational Text (Website)

Year: 2000

Main idea(s) Supporting Evidence

This article defines assessment and a few
strategies that may be used.
“Assessment itself is nothing new. If you’ve ever given
an exam, led a discussion, or assigned a project – and
used what you discovered about student learning to
refine your teaching – you’ve engaged in assessment.”
“Assessment is simply the process of collecting
information about student learning and performance to
improve education.” (Elbery Center, 2000).

This article explains how Carnegie Mellon
as an example, has assessments that are
meaningful and not just teaching to meet
the test standards. In the teaching industry
some educators have lost the passion for
teaching and teach the students the
knowledge they believe will help students
pass test scores rather than comprehend
complex ideas. Assessments provide
specific resources and information when
used correctly in the classroom.
Assessments should be used for the following, “reflects
the goals and values of particular disciplines. Helps
instructors refine their teaching practices and grow as
educators. And helps departments and programs refine
their curriculum to prepare students for an evolving
workplace.”
(Elbery Center, 2000).

“An observation provides feedback from an outside

This article examines how to assess your perspective on the aspects of your teaching that interest
teaching. Assessing one’s teaching you most. Consultants provide objective data regarding
strategy can be a huge eye opener and give your classroom teaching behaviors as well as the
opportunity for growth as an educator. observable behaviors of your students.” (Elberly Center,
Assessing through surveys is also another 2000).
great strategy not only to analyze a
student’s performance, but to find There are also ways to receive feedback from your
information about the individual students students. This should be done at least once every
and their learning abilities, culture, semester. The text states, “An early course evaluation
interests, and goals. There are many ways allows you to get feedback from students so you can
to assess learning, one way of which decide on possible adjustments while your course is still
requires teachers to assess themselves. in progress. A survey is also relatively quick and easy
Teachers should be asking other teachers
to observe their classrooms and provide
feedback on what they think is successful
and what needs additional clarification.
This article also discusses the different
ways in which students can be assessed. It
is important to assess students in several
different ways over the course of even just
one assignment. This standard for the
district of Carnegie Mellon has
approaches to adapt students real life
situations in their assessments so students
can relate to the subject content they are
learning.
This article also highlights and
emphasizes the importance of obtaining
prior knowledge to their students before
starting the lesson. When the teacher
receives the information they need, it will
create a starting point for the teacher. The
teacher discovers how far back they need
to start the lesson, or in some cases jump
ahead of the information students already
know and understand. Once the students
are ready, the teacher can build on top of
each lesson to build stronger connections
from lesson to lesson.
way to elicit this feedback.” (Elbery Center, 2000).
“Assessment is an integral part of everyday activity. It
takes place continually and on many levels – course,
program, department and school. It takes many forms –
formal and informal, summative and formative,
qualitative and quantitative, standardized and
customized. Our students are assessed by various
constituents – instructors in a course, faculty across the
department, peers, and audiences made up of the general
public. We are data-driven at our core, and actively seek
out authentic and meaningful ways to assess our
students and our programs. We approach assessment
from a data-centric rather than a tool-centric position,
our choice of methods guided by questions.” (Elbery
Center, 2000).
“In order to gauge how much students have learned, it is
not enough to assess their knowledge and skills at the
end of the course or program. We also need to find out
what they know coming in so that we can identify more
specifically the knowledge and skills they have gained
during the course or program. You can choose from a
variety of methods to assess your students’ prior
knowledge and skills. Some methods (e.g., portfolios,
pre-tests, auditions) are direct measures of students’
capabilities entering a course or program. Other
methods (e.g., students’ self-reports, inventories of prior
courses or experiences) are indirect measures. Here are
links to a few methods that instructors can employ to
gauge students’ prior knowledge.” (Elbery Center, 2000)
Further examples:
Assignments and Exams
 Performance Rubrics
 Assessing the Effectiveness of using Multi-
Media for Case-based Learning
Comprehension Checks
 Clicker system and concept questions to assess
 understanding during class
 Using Clickers for Quizzes to assess
understanding in real time.

Group Process Assessments

 Weighted peer evaluation for group projects

Performance Criteria

 Forms for evaluating student projects

Pre/Post Tests

 Assessing prior knowledge and growth

 Surveys

Reflective Assessments

 How students think about something

 Rubric for developing student self-
assessment skills

 Journals to monitor student thinking

 Reading reflection exercise to prepare class

discussion
 References

Assess Teaching & Learning - Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation - Carnegie Mellon
University. (n.d.). Retrieved January 12, 2015, from
http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/index.html