assessment

Empowering students to practice essential learning strategies


image of Brendan KellyThe debate over assessments—their frequency, structure, and value—has become more vibrant in recent years, first with the onset of COVID-19 and now with the advent of Generative AI. As instructors experiment with different approaches, the Math Department has increased its emphasis on assessments, yielding some early successes. 

Brendan Kelly, Senior Preceptor and Director of Introductory Mathematics, notes that one of the main objectives in Harvard’s Math preparatory sequence is to provide students with a consistent, cumulative experience so that each course effectively builds off prior ones, or hands off to subsequent ones. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a unique challenge. Kelly and his team observed that course-by-course experimentation with assessments during this period resulted in inconsistencies across courses, and as a result students being inadequately prepared for higher level Math courses - in turn prompting a reevaluation of their approach.

Assessment as a learning tool


image of Andrew HoAndrew Ho, Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, is a psychometrician whose research focuses on the design and use of test scores in educational policy. Given his scholarly interest in assessment, Ho feels the pressure to “practice what I preach” in his teaching to ensure that assessments offer opportunities for student learning. In his statistics courses, Ho aims for assessments to be “genuine, relevant, and engaging acts of learning” that simulate the work educational statisticians do. He argues that it is crucial for faculty to have clarity of purpose when measuring student learning, and suggests all faculty consider the question: “Why are you assessing?” 

Rethinking student participation in the college classroom: Can commitment and self-affirmation enhance oral participation?

This article highlights the importance of self-affirmation and commitment as a route to academic success when it comes to student participation. This article explores the evidence-based practice of student goal setting. An extended multidisciplinary literature review looks at student...

Read more about Rethinking student participation in the college classroom: Can commitment and self-affirmation enhance oral participation?

Structuring and grading participation


image of Luke MiratrixLuke Miratrix, Associate Professor and Co-Faculty Director of the PhD in Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, teaches graduate level statistics and data science courses, including Introduction to Statistical Computing and Data Science in Education and Multilevel and Longitudinal Models. In these courses, Miratrix tasks students with creating individualized participation plans. Early in the semester, each student submits a short essay about their goals for how they intend to engage with the course. Halfway through the term, students write a brief reflection evaluating progress on their goals and making adjustments as desired. At the end of the semester, students complete a one- or two-paragraph self-assessment and assign themselves a participation grade. This grade is reviewed by the teaching team, potentially adjusted, and constitutes the bulk of the full participation grade for the course.  

Nuanced assessments: More than the final grade


Howell JacksonHowell Jackson, James S. Reid Jr. Professor of Law, experiments with end-of-semester exams and writing assignments to create opportunities for meaningful, formative feedback through skills practice, reflection, and peer collaboration.

What are Course Analytics? (Canvas)

Analytics evaluate individual components of a course and evaluate student performance. Course Analytics takes a three pronged approach to creating substantive data for Canvas users.

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