Assessing Learning

The topic of academic integrity is often framed around misconduct and dishonesty, carrying both negative and punitive connotations. However, the dialogue is shifting towards an approach that is educative, preventative, and positive in promoting student success. With that shifting focus in mind, this page brings together information from a variety of sources across campus that promote academic integrity from multiple perspectives.

Grading not only measures student performance; it also shapes how students perceive themselves as learners. It communicates how well students have met learning objectives, shapes their academic identities, and influences their motivation. Historically, grading systems have focused heavily on compliance (e.g., punctuality, attendance) or relative performance (e.g., curving). Equitable grading shifts focus to whether students truly master the skills and knowledge intended by the course, while also promoting transparency, growth, and accountability in ways that serve all learners. Adapting our...

For many courses of varying format and size, across many disciplines, reasonable alternatives to traditional tests (i.e., paper-based T/F or Multiple Choice) exist. In fact, oftentimes the alternatives may even be advantageous to promote student learning and be more authentic means of students demonstrating what they have learned at the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (synthesis, analysis, evaluation).

End-of-course evaluations can be a valuable tool for instructors to understand students’ experiences in their courses. Acknowledging that end-of-course evaluations are not the sole instrument that instructors may want to use to understand the impacts of their course design decisions (Kreitzer and Sweet-Cushman 2021, Stark and Freishtat 2014, Boring et. al 2016, Uttl et. al 2016), instructors can encourage students to complete their online end-of-course evaluations using a number of evidence-based strategies.

Assessments can be used both to promote learning as well as provide useful insight into student progress toward a particular learning outcome. There are two general categories of assessments that highlight these different purposes: formative and summative.

Rubrics aren't just for summative evaluation. They can be used as a teaching tool as well. When used as part of a formative assessment, they can help students understand both the holistic nature and/or specific analytics of learning expected, the level of learning expected, and then make decisions about their current level of learning to inform revision and improvement.

Although grading is ubiquitous in higher education, both long-standing evidence and continued investigations have revealed that the answer to these questions can be very different across courses and contexts. In recent years, multiple different grading frameworks have emerged with the goal of explicitly designing practices that reflect student learning. In particular, these approaches provide opportunities to give more constructive feedback to students, give the instructor and students reliable information about their learning, and focus on promoting students’ intrinsic motivation.