Reaction to Readings (Blog #5)

This weeks readings mainly concerned testing and assessment of both students and ourselves as instructors. I found many suggestions in the reading that were both interesting and useful in implementing in my own teaching in the future. In this blog, for my personal future reference, I've divided the useful suggestions between assessment of students and assessment of the instructor.

Assessment of the Students:

I felt the most important suggestion was found in both McKeachie's Teaching Tips and the reading excerpt and it was the idea tests and assessments should facilitate learning. I feel this is important because the primary goal of being an instructor is to teach students and therefore assessment should also be a technique in furthering the knowledge of our students. I would implement this through essay questions on exams. I feel that essays, rather than multiple choice or fill in the blank questions, really tap into a higher level of thinking. If the questions concern critical thinking, they will further assist the student in assimilating information together into one cohesive answer. I also plan to implement this suggestion through "hands-on" exams or labs, as some of my psychology classes have done. During my Psychobiology class, one exam involved dissecting brains and correctly labeling areas and parts of the brain. Not only did this exam test our recall of these parts, but it also facilitated learning through the actual dissection and the experience of seeing and touching a brain. This idea also ties into another suggestion made by McKeachie. He suggested that teachers should construct learning situations in which they can observe student performance. This is done in the field of psychology regularly, as well as other "hands-on" experiences, such as my practicum placements and video-taping role playing in class. Both these experiences are assessed and graded, but both provide vital information and practical practice that a paper and pencil exam couldn't. I also like his suggestion of implementing a portfolio as a class assignment in order to assess student learning over the long term, the entire semester. I would like to use a portfolio possibly by having the students create a case study throughout the semester. The portfolio would have to include aspects from each unit of the semester, that way I could assess the students development and improvement over time.

Another important suggestion arouse from the McKeachie chapter. He suggested that we use a variety of assessments when measuring the goals and learning development of the class. "...not every student can show understanding on high-stakes tests; some students might do better on written assignments or on projects or shorter assessments." I feel this is important because students learn in a variety of ways and methods. Some people are visual learners and really prefer powerpoint presentations and hand outs. Other students are more audio-directed learners. These students benefit more from purely listening and hearing the instruction as well as verbally participating in discussion. Yet there are still other types of learners: those who learn through class participation, those who prefer to learn through reading, some prefer to work alone, others prefer group work, or yet others who do much better writing. I plan to implement this suggestion in the obvious fashion: administering a variety of ways both students can earn points towards a final grade and I can assess their level of learning and progress towards class goals. These could include examinations that include a variety of question types (short answer, multiple choice, fill in the blank, essay), written assignments, hands-on assignments, group projects, ecetera. I feel this could be implemented to a greater extent in the psychology field. Currently, the majority of my experiences as an undergraduate psychology student as well as a TA for undergraduate psychology classes consist of multiple choice item examinations and written assignments. Not many of my classes utilized other types of methods. Hands-on assignments and group projects really didn't start to much extent until graduate school. I feel the field would benefit by implementing more of these various methods.

When creating examinations, I plan to implement a couple of McKeachie's suggestions. I feel it is important for me to first lay out the number of items I want from each chapter. This is important because, since I'm new at writing test questions (no easy feat), this will assist in speeding up the test writing process. I also feel it is important to use materials with somewhat greater apparent relevance to the course goals. This is important because not only will it be easier to assess progress towards goals, it will be more fun for the students if they feel the tasks are relevant. It seemed to me while reading McKeachie's chapter this week, that he "frowns" upon multiple choice exam items. Unlike McKeachie, I like to utilize multiple choice items when I write exams (for the classes I TA for). I feel they determine if the student has done the required reading and assesses if the student has acquired the very basic understanding and comprehension required for more critical thinking. I also plan to implement the following quick tips for estimating the time to allow for the exam: 1 minute per multiple choice item or fill-in-the-blank item, 2 minutes per short answer item, and 10-15 minutes per essay questions.

The last suggestion concerns involving students in the assessment process. I think it is important to ask students for test questions. This is important because it involves students in the learning process rather than simply telling the students what they should think is important, they actively learn and decide what is important for themselves. I plan to implement this through having the students create questions from the readings and including a select few of these in the exam. This serves two purposes: ensuring the students do the reading and involve them in creating some of the test items.

Assessment of Instructors:

The one suggestion from the excerpt article that I felt is useful is the idea of peer assessment among instructors. Although the text outlines a problem with this method, instructors simply comparing each other to one another's teaching style, I feel this can be overcome by creating a set of what should be assessed. Departments for example could create a rubric for assessing each other and rather than "grading" it could be more of a suggestions and feedback exercise for instructors. I think this is important because if utilized effectively, it could increase the overall quality of teaching. I plan to implement this by asking fellow instructors to look over my syllabus, student assessments, the nature of my class assignments and reports. As a new instructor, I also plan to compare my ideas with past instructors. Obviously I plan to implement fresh and new ideas, but it helps to have other instructor's experiences to compare to. And lastly, an important part of this implementation is my peer reviewing of other instructors. This will, hopefully, not only help those instructors, but will also give me an idea of other's methods and give me new ideas for methods and assessments.

A suggestion that was offered by the reading excerpt I feel is both useful and I would like to implement, but my experience in teaching and being a student in psychology classes tell me it would be extremely difficult. The reading suggested that successful professions learn as much as possible about their students, their lives outside of class, hobbies, interests, involvement, and some go so far to have lunch with their students. I would LOVE to be that teacher! However, most psychology classes that I've TA'ed for and taken as a student consist of at most 500 students and at least 40. If I am assigned to instruct smaller courses I would like to implement getting to know my students on a more personal level, without compromising the teacher/student relationship. I would like more instruction on how to do this without overstepping boundaries or allowing myself to look less professional and perhaps be taken less seriously. Although I'd like to see the field of psychology implement this, I feel it wouldn't work the majority of the time due to the sheer volume of students in the class.

Additional Resources:

• Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment
• From the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Peer Review of Teaching: An Overview