Phase II: Implementing the Assessment
Step 7: Interpreting the Results and Formulating an Appropriate Response
Questions About Course Content How much of the course content are students learning?
Which elements of the course content are students learning?
How well are students learning the various elements of the course content?
How well are students integrating the various elements of the course content?
Questions About Teaching
How does my teaching affect student learning, positively and negatively?
What, specifically, could I change about my teaching to improve learning inside the classroom?
What, specifically, could I change about my teaching to improve learning outside the classroom?
Phase III: Responding to the Results
her course. She had hoped to find that they were primarily interested in learning certain content knowledge and skills. Instead, she found that the students were most interested in feeling comfortable and secure in the clinical setting and valued most highly the personal contact with her. At first, she felt that the assessment had failed and that she had erred in giving it on the first day the students were in the clinic. When she shared the results with a colleague, however, he heard another message, one that the nursing instructor was perhaps undervaluing. He interpreted the results as evidence of the students' dependence on her as their source of security in a new and unsettling environment.
Formulating a response is often part and parcel of interpreting the data. As questions emerge from looking at student feedback, so do possible instructional responses.
e CASE IN POINT
A physical education instructor who had asked students to state and rank their goals in taking her elective aerobics class was surprised to learn that many students were not most interested in losing weight or getting a good cardiovascular workout. Instead, these students-particularly the adult women -wanted to improve their self-esteem and to relieve depression and personal and academic stress. In response, the instructor decided to teach and have students practice stress reduction exercises. She also incorporated information and activities that explored the relation of body image and fitness to self-esteem. By assessing the students' goals, she was better able to serve their goals. As a result, students were more motivated to share and meet her goals.
Much of the potential value of Classroom Assessment can be lost if you end the analysis and interpretation of feedback with your first reactions. To understand what the student feedback really means and how you should best respond to it, you might ask yourself the following questions before you discuss the results with your class:
1. Do your data indicate how well (or poorly) students achieved the teaching/learning goal or task?
2. Can you interpret why you got the results you did - why students did or did not achieve the learning goal? For example, if students did poorly, what was responsible for their lack of success: instructional methods, teaching style, or poor learning skills?
3. What follow-up questions might you pose to understand the results more deeply?
Planning and Implementing Classroom Assessment Projects 55
4. How might you best respond and make use of your findings to improve student learning? (Revise your teaching? Give a new assessment? Ob-tain additional feedback to understand why students responded as they did?)
Step 8: Communicating Results and Trying Out a Response. Maximize the possible positive impact of Classroom Assessment by letting students know what the assessment results were, how you interpreted them, and what you intend to do in response. Faculty responses to assessment results can range from simply sharing the feedback with students to restructuring lessons or entire courses. Not all assessments point out the need for change. At times, the results of a Classroom Assessment serve to validate successful practices.
In these cases, simply giving students information on their feedback is often sufficient.
- CASE IN POINT
A humanities instructor used a small-group discussion exercise to teach the application of Lawrence Kohlberg's (1984) stages of moral growth to real-life ethical dilemmas. After assessing student reactions to the exercise, he simply shared the positive student feedback regarding the small-group method and students' estimates of the value of the exercise. He felt that letting the individual students know how highly their classmates valued the lesson was sufficient to encourage their continued participation. Since most of the students had reacted very favorably, he saw no reason to change the lesson.
In other cases, faculty may revise their teaching in response to the results of Classroom Assessments.
- CASE IN POINT
A physics instruct or noticed from an initial assessment that his stu-dents' approach to visualizing problems seemed to be modeled closely on his demonstrations in class. The students tended to use only the points of view he demonstrated. In order to teach students to visualize more effectively, he explicitly modeled several different approaches to visualization in class sessions. Just as important as modeling the different approaches was the fact that he explained to the students what he was doing and why (Nakaji, 1991).
As you complete this step, you might ask yourself the questions listed below and, if possible, discuss them with one colleague or in a small group.
They are meant to help you think through your response to the feedback from your Classroom Assessment Project before you present the results and
your interpretation of them to the class.
1. How will you communicate the results of the assessment to your students?
2. How will you obtain their reactions to the results?
3. What do you expect their reactions to be?
4. What will you do or say to respond to the results?
5. What impact should your response have-on students and on their learning?
6. How will you determine the impact?
7. How can you help students make the best use of your results to improve their learning?
Step 9: Evaluating This Project's Effect(s) on Teaching and Learning. Assess the outcomes of your Classroom Assessment Project. How well did it achieve its goals? Were there any unexpected results? How did it affect your teach-ing? And what impact, if any, did it have on student learnteach-ing?
Although you have now reached the end of the Project Cycle, your project still may not seem "finished" to you, since each completed assessment bears the seeds of many possible future responses and investigations. You may simply want to ask one or two additional questions to clarify the results, or you may want to plan a major course revision. From our point of view, this
"open-endedness" is both a natural and a highly desirable aspect of Class-room Assessment.
The following questions may help you begin to evaluate the effects of your Classroom Assessment Projects on teaching and learning. Discussing your responses with colleagues who are engaged in the same process will add to your insights and understanding.
1. In what ways has your project affected your teaching in the class you focused on? (Please give specific examples.)
2. In what ways has it affected your students' learning in that class? (Please give specific examples.)
3. 'What surprised you most in doing the project?
4. What have been the most enjoyable aspects of the project?
5. What have been the least enjoyable aspects?
6. Summing up: What would you do differently next time?
Step 10: Developing a Comprehensive Classroom Research Project. After