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Nuts & bolts |
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Pure poetry: Grades, assessment, PTA Spring has sprung; Spring has come, -- Junior Collegian, Feb. 25, 1949. Our thanks to library director Susan Full, who found these sentiments in the SCI archives. They’re timely in more ways than one. When I attended the annual Assessment Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis in November, one of the hot topics was called primary trait analysis, PTA for short. It uses grades for assessment, and it has been billed as a way of giving faculty “the best chance of retaining control of the content and the criteria for learning in their disciplines and classrooms.” As authors Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson explain it, it is basically a matter of analyzing and documenting what goes into the grades we already give. In short, PTA gives us a tool for learning not only where those A’s is, but why they is. Most of us already do something like PTA, which includes, in Walvoord’s and Anderson’s words, “tying the test or assignment to the learning goals of the course, helping students to learn the skills and knowledge they will need, assessing student learning over time, feeding back results so students can learn from their mistakes, and using results to plan future teaching methods.” What may be new, for some of us, is documenting the process. Walvoord, an English professor, and Anderson, a biologist, suggest developing a rubric, or grading checklist, that is tied both to specific assignments and to institutional learning objectives. “That means it can be used by any teacher in any discipline to state the criteria that pertain to his or her assignment or test,” they say. “Yet it creates a common scoring format, so that criteria can be compared and aggregated across courses, especially if steps are taken to ensure a common language.” There’s a lot more to it than that, of course, and SCI’s Becker Library has just received a copy of Walvoord’s and Anderson’s 1998 book, Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment. Call number is: 378.167/W241. In addition, I am developing a PTA checklist, suitable for use in classroom grading, based on Walvoord, Anderson and rubrics used by neurology professor Douglas Eder and university provost Thomas Angelo. They have published widely on assessment, and their rubrics reflect best practices in the field. I hope to post a draft to the Assessment Committee’s website in time for use during the spring semester. Upcoming attractions Coming soon to an assessment website near you – At our last meeting of the fall semester, SCI’s Assessment Committee authorized me to start posting reports by faculty and staff of what they’ve been doing to get feedback on learning outcomes and student services. Barb Bernardi has agreed to explain a technique she uses for extracting assessment data from biology tests and graded assignments, I’ll start posting some of my PTA material, too, and I’ll be asking others who have techniques or case studies to share as well. But don’t wait to be asked! We want to hear from you. Plans are to start posting reports this semester. References “Exam Post-Mortem.” The [Springfield] Junior Collegean Feb 25, 1949: 1. Walvoord, B.E., and Anderson. V.J. 1995, Nov.-Dec. “An Assessment Riddle.” Assessment Update 7.6: 8-9+. Rpt. IUPUI. 2001 Assessment Institute, Nov. 4-6, Indianapolis. |
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