Center for Teaching Development (UCSD) Weekly Workshop: Assessment February 21, 2013 ctd.ucsd.edu

1. slides and resources: http://tinyurl.com/CTDAssessment
CTD WEEKLY
WORKSHOPS:
ASSESSMENT
Peter Newbury
Center for Teaching Development,
University of California, San Diego
pnewbury@ucsd.edu
@polarisdotca
ctd.ucsd.edu #ctducsd
Thursday, February 21, 2013
12:30 – 1:30 pm Center Hall, Room 316

2. Typical Peer Instruction
Episode
Alternating with 10-15 minute mini-lectures,
1. Instructor poses a conceptually-challenging
multiple-choice question.
2. Students think about question on their own.
3. Students vote for an answer using clickers,
colored/ABCD voting cards,...
4. The instructor reacts, based on the
distribution of votes.
2 Assessment

3. Fixed and Growth Mindsets [1]
3
Growth, Malleable,
Fixed, Entity,
Performance-oriented Incremental,
Mastery- oriented
The helpless [children] The mastery-oriented
believe that children think
intelligence is a fixed intelligence is
trait: you have only a malleable and can be
certain amount, and developed through
that‟s that. I call this a education and hard
„fixed mind-set.‟ work.
Assessment

4. 4 Assessment Graphic by Nigel Holmes [2

5. 5 Assessment

6. 6 Assessment

7. 7 Assessment

8. 8 Assessment

9. 9 Assessment

10. 10 Assessment

11. Agency “Human agency is the capacity for
human beings to make choices. It is
normally contrasted to natural forces, which
are causes involving only unthinking
deterministic processes.”
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy)
11 Assessment

12. Feedback and Practice that
Enhance Learning [3]
Writing – public policy course
Presentations on research – medical anthropology
Instructors‟ expertise and bias
not clear to students (or
themselves)
12 Assessment

13. Feedback and Practice that
Enhance Learning [3]
Solution: Goal-directed practice coupled with
targeted feedback are critical to learning.
Excellent Shot by Varsity Life on flickr CC Music by Piulet on flickr CC
13 Assessment

14. Feedback and Practice that
Enhance Learning [3]
Solution: Goal-directed practice coupled with
targeted feedback are critical to learning.
[G]oals can direct the nature of focused practice,
provide the basis for evaluating observed
performance, and shape the targeted feedback that
guides students’ future efforts.
[p. 127]
[T]argeted feedback gives students prioritized
information about how their performance does or
does not meet the criteria so they can understand
how to improve their future performance.
14 Assessment
[p. 141]

15. Feedback and Practice that
Enhance Learning [3]
Solution: Goal-directed practice coupled with
targeted feedback are critical to learning.
 practice is goal-directed
 productive practice
 timely feedback
 feedback at appropriate level
15 Assessment

16. Aside: exploring these
characteristics
 analogy
Students come to the classroom with
preconceptions about how the world
works…Teachers must draw out and work with
the preexisting understandings that their
students bring with them. (How People
Learn [4])
 contrasting cases
Teachers must teach some subject matter in
depth, providing many examples in which the
same is at work and providing a firm foundation
16
of factual knowledge
Assessment
(How People Learn

17. Contrasting cases
practice not goal-
practice is goal-directed
directed
productive practice unproductive practice
timely feedback untimely feedback
feedback at feedback not at
appropriate level appropriate level
17 Assessment

18. Practice is goal-directed Practice is not goal-directed
sport/hobby
education
18 collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu #tccucsd

19. Rubrics
Needs to be given BEFORE and BUILT INTO
assignment
 Outlines what it takes to improve: path to
improvement
 “reasonable yet challenging goal” [3]
 Use to support growth mindsets
19 Assessment

20. 20 Assessment

21. Clicker question
Does this rubric foster a
A) fixed mindset
B) growth mindset
C) neither
D) both
21 Assessment

22. Teaching Statement Rubric
Needs
Excellent Weak
Work
Goals for student learning
Enactment of goals (teaching method)
Assessment of goals (measuring student learning)
Creating an inclusive learning environment
Structure, rhetoric and language
22
Assessment

23. Take Away
 Plan your course (learning outcomes,
assessments and activities)
Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative
23 Assessment cwsei.ubc.ca

24. Take Away
 Plan your course (learning outcomes,
assessments and activities)
 Motivation and Expertise
 Growth mindset is necessary for deliberate
practice, development of expertise
 Behave in the classroom
 Rewarding errors, etc.
 Take care to support and be sensitive to minority
experiences
 be aware of your own mindset towards your
students‟ ability to learn your discipline
24 Assessment

25. References
1. Dweck, C.S. (2007). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. Scientific
American, 18, 6, 36-43.
2. Nigel Holmes http://nigelholmes.com/home.htm
3. Ambrose, S.A., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C., &
Norman, M.K. (2010). How Learning Works. San Fransisco:
Jossey-Bass.
4. National Research Council (2000). How People Learn: Brain,
Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. J.D. Bransford,
A.L Brown & R.R. Cocking (Eds.),Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press.
25 Assessment