Author: Catharine Gruver

Formative Assessment: What Is It? Why Is It Useful?

Final exam week is coming soon. How confident are you that your students understand what you’ve been teaching? Do your students know what they understand and what they need to work on as they prepare for finals? If you are looking for a way to find out how well your students understand key concepts or can perform key skills before the students turn in a major project or take a big exam, formative assessment can help.

What Is Formative Assessment?

Formative assessment is a type of assessment that provides teachers and students with information about how well students understand concepts or can perform skills before students turn in a major project or take a big exam. “The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning” (Eberly Center, n.d.). These assessments are activities where students demonstrate skills or understanding and receive feedback on how well they perform skills or understand.

What Do Formative Assessments Look Like?

A formative assessment can be any type of activity that gives you and your students information about how well a student understands course concepts or can perform important skills. These activities should include opportunities for students to receive feedback on their performance.

“Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

  • Draw [and share] a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic” (Eberly Center, n.d.). Then you create a concept map together as a class so students can compare their understanding to yours. You can also review the student concept maps to identify misconceptions and make plans to address them.
  • “Submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture” (Eberly Center, n.d.). Then you can share the main point you intended to communicate during the lecture, so students can compare what they took from the lecture with what you wanted to communicate. You can also review the student submissions to determine if your intended points are coming across to students.
  • “Turn in a research proposal for early feedback” (Eberly Center, n.d.). This feedback can be written or oral and can be provided in-person or through recorded audio or video. To explore different ways of providing feedback to students, learn more about the feedback options in Canvas, our institution’s learning management system (LMS).

These are not the only activities that can be used as formative assessments. What is key is that the activities give students a chance to show their understanding of course concepts or their level of proficiency when performing skills and that students receive feedback related to their achievement of course learning outcomes. Formative assessments give you the opportunity to determine if you need to review information or procedures, provide additional resources, or move on to a new topic or skill. Formative assessments give students the opportunity to determine if they are correctly understanding course materials and developing the desired skills.

How Can I Use Formative Assessment in My Courses?

To effectively use formative assessments in your courses:

  • First, identify the key concepts and skills you want students to understand or be able to perform. As you do this, you may want to consider the concepts or skills that have been challenging for students to learn in the past.
  • Then identify or develop activities that ask students to explain a concept, perform a skill, or in some other way demonstrate understanding of what you want them to learn. Consider reviewing the techniques suggested in The K. Patricia Cross Academy’s Techniques Video Library for ideas.
  • Determine how students will share their work with you so that you can “recognize where students are struggling and address” misconceptions (Eberly Center, n.d.).
  • Determine how feedback on their work will be provided to students.
  • Then try out the activities in your course.
  • Listen to student feedback about their experiences with the activities, and reflect on how well each activity helped you identify misconceptions or problematic performance.
  • Finally, make changes to the activities, and continue to use them to inform your teaching and students’ understanding of what they are learning well and what they should focus on as they continue to learn.

There is no need to change your entire course overnight. Instead, start small by adding one opportunity for formative assessment to your course. Evaluate how well it worked. Make changes. Then consider adding more.

More Information

To learn more about formative assessment, take a look at the following resources:

If you have questions about formative assessment or specific formative assessment techniques, contact a member of the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning team.

References

Eberly Center. (n.d.). What is the difference between formative and summative assessment? Carnegie Mellon University. https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html

Crafting Your AI Course Policy

This semester the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning provided a workshop on crafting an AI course policy. This post provides some key takeaways from the workshop.

AI Tools Have Pros and Cons

AI tools, just like any tools, have specific capabilities and limitations. Some AI tools are able to generate executable code as well as meaningful text, images, music, and video. Different AI tools have different capabilities in these areas.

AI tools also have limitations. Many of them:

  • Do not evaluate the quality of the data they were trained on
  • Sound authoritative even when they present incorrect information
  • Makeup sources when complying with requests
  • Do not correct for biases in their data

When instructors ask students to use AI tools, it can be helpful to present both the capabilities and the limitations of the tools. Students have different levels of experience using AI tools. Students also have different levels of understanding of how these tools work and what their capabilities and limitations are. Providing a brief overview of AI tools in class helps ensure that all students become knowledgeable about how to effectively use these tools.

AI-Use in Courses

Effective use of AI to support learning will look different in different courses. It’s important to consider the desired course learning outcomes when determining whether AI tools can be used effectively to support student learning in a specific course. For example, some courses may require students to build foundational knowledge. Overuse of AI tools in these courses could make it more difficult for students to build this foundation. Other courses may require students to perform certain tasks quickly. If AI tools can help students create higher quality outputs, more efficiently, using AI tools to their full extent may support student learning in these courses.

When instructors decide what level of AI use to allow or encourage in their courses, they should consider four levels of AI use:

  • No AI-use: In these courses, the instructor has determined that using AI tools will make it more difficult for students to achieve the course learning outcomes, so AI-use is not allowed.
  • Use AI only as directed: In these courses, the instructor determines when and how AI tools can support students in achieving the course learning outcomes. The instructor indicates throughout the course when students should and should not use AI tools and explains how the tools should be used.
  • Use AI with no restrictions when directed: In these courses, the instructor determines when AI tools can support students in achieving the course learning outcomes. The instructor indicates throughout the course when students can use AI tools, and students are able to use AI tools however they would like to complete the AI-use permitted learning activities.
  • No restrictions on AI-use: In these courses, the instructor has determined that students can use AI tools however and whenever they would like. The students determine when using AI tools will help them achieve the course learning outcomes and how to use the tools.

These categories of AI use are not comprehensive, and instructors may find that a different strategy for AI use is most effective for the courses they teach.

Disclosing AI-Use

When students are allowed or encouraged to use AI tools as part of a learning activity, it is recommended that they document their AI-use. This can be done using citations for written work according to a discipline’s style guide. This can also be done by asking students to provide a brief description of how they used AI tools when completing a specific learning activity. It can also be useful to ask students to reflect on their experience using AI tools. For examples of how some instructors have asked students to disclose their AI-use, see Lance Eaton’s collection of Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools, which he collected from faculty willing to share their AI syllabus policies.

Michigan Tech Resources

The Michigan Tech AI Working Group has provided AI Resources for Faculty and Staff. These resources include Policy Guidance, Syllabus Guidance, and Pedagogical Tools and Educator Resources. These resources can be a starting point for you as you consider how to communicate your AI policy to your students.

If you would like to request an additional session of the Crafting Your AI Course Policy workshop, email Catharine Gruver at cgruver@mtu.edu.

Online Course Design: Getting Started

Are you interested in creating an online course? Do you have colleagues who enjoy teaching online, but you’re not sure how to get started? Below are some tips for developing an online course. (If you are already teaching online, consider joining our Fall 2024 book club where we’ll read Flower Darby’s Small Teaching Online.)

Develop a Vision for Your Course

When you begin developing an online course, start by thinking about what you want to teach students and why an online course would be a good way to teach what you want to teach.

Many times, online courses are developed as an additional section of an in-person course that is already being taught at the university. In these cases, the purpose for teaching the course and the learning outcomes that you want students to achieve by taking the course may already be clear.

Sometimes, an online course is developed to meet a specific need before a similar in-person course has been developed. For example, your department may be launching a new online program, and a new course needs to be developed to support students in achieving the program learning outcomes. In these cases, it’s important to clarify how the course will fit into the program and what learning outcomes students should achieve by taking the course.

Determine How to Assess Student Achievement

After you have decided on the purpose for your course and what students should learn from taking the course, it’s important to think about how you will assess student achievement using assessments that have been tailored for an online environment. In addition to or instead of multiple choice tests and writing assignments, authentic assessments can be useful for assessing student achievement in online courses. Authentic assessments “are tightly aligned with the learning objectives of a course or learning experience and have learners working on ‘real world’ problems” (Niemer, 2024). These types of assessments can be more engaging for learners and can better prepare them to use what they are learning in a course in their professional and personal lives.

For more information about authentic assessments, see Rachel Neimer’s (2024) discussion of Creating Authentic Assessments.

For more information about assessing students in online courses, see Creating and Adapting Assignments for Online Courses.

Collaborate with Instructional Designers

Once you have a vision for your course and ideas about how you would like to assess student achievement, consider working with an instructional designer as you continue designing and organizing your online course. The instructional designers at the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning can help you:

  • Gain access to the MTU online course Canvas template
  • Brainstorm effective online assessment and learning activities
  • Consider how to make your course accessible to as many students as possible
  • Prepare to meet the Michigan Tech online quality course standards

To contact the CTL’s Instructional Design team, email Dan Ye at dany@mtu.edu or Catharine Gruver at cgruver@mtu.edu.

References

Niemer, R. (2024, January, 15). Creating authentic assessments. M Online Teaching. https://onlineteaching.umich.edu/articles/creating-authentic-assessments/

The Ohio State University Teaching and Learning Resource Center. (n.d.). Creating and adapting assignments for online courses. https://teaching.resources.osu.edu/teaching-topics/creating-adapting-assignments

Refreshing Your Course Syllabus

Are you ready for Fall semester? A new school year brings students back to campus and the chance to review and refresh our courses. Consider taking this opportunity to refresh your course syllabus.

Tone

Take a moment to read over the first paragraph of your syllabus. What is the tone? Does it sound like you are encouraging your students and looking forward to the course? According to Zakrajsek and Nilson (2023), “studies show that students prefer a learning-focused syllabus that states strong student learning outcomes and [has] a positive, motivating-tone over a traditional content- and policy-focused syllabus (p. 66). There is no need to reduce course rigor to create a warmer or more positive syllabus. Instead, focus on introducing course requirements using positive and supportive language.

The President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023) share several suggestions for creating a syllabus with a positive tone. These include:

  • Using friendly language
  • Providing a rationale for assignments
  • Sharing a little bit about who you are
  • Showing your enthusiasm
  • Expressing compassion

For more information about each of these, take a look at the full article Syllabus Language Sets the Tone for Your Course.

What to Include

There are a variety of opinions about what to include in a syllabus and how long it should be. However, Michigan Tech’s Senate Policy 312.1 provides a list of content required in MTU course syllabi. This list includes:

  • Instructor information
  • Course information
  • Grading information
  • A schedule of course assignments
  • References to three university policies
    • Academic integrity
    • Disability
    • Equal opportunity
  • Course policies

To help you create a syllabus that includes this required content, the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning provides a syllabus template that you can use as a starting point for your own syllabus.

Taking time now to review and revise your syllabus can help you set your students up for success by effectively providing them with important information and motivating them to actively engage in your course.

Resources

For additional information about what to include in a syllabus and how to do so, consider reviewing:

If you have questions about creating or refreshing your syllabus, contact a member of the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning team at 487-3000 or ctl@mtu.edu.

References

Michigan Tech University Senate Policy 312.1 (2015). https://www.mtu.edu/senate/policies-procedures/list-policies/312.1/

The President and Fellows of Harvard College. (2023). Syllabus language sets the tone for your course. Retrieved from https://teachingandlearning.knowledgeowl.com/docs/syllabus-language-sets-the-tone-for-your-course

Zakrajsek, T. D. & Nilson, L. B. (2023). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors (5th ed.). Jossey-Bass.