Last week, I was probably as overwhelmed as I’ve ever been in my professional life. You know the feeling. The feeling of playing the Whack-a-Mole game – just when I think I’m on top of one project or task, another pops up to take its place. And the worst is when you have two or three of those pesky moles all popping up at the same time.

As classes wind down, there is always loads of pressing “to do” list items to attend to. There’s the seemingly endless grading, all the end of the semester tasks like archiving course materials, the last round of committee meetings, and planning for summer projects. It can be tricky to keep on top of things, and then, know how to prioritize all those “to do” list items. And naturally, who would you turn to for advice in this situation? Why, former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, of course.

Prioritizing via the Eisenhower Matrix
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower was arguably one of the most influential leaders in the history of the United States. From commanding the Allied Forces in World War II to launching NASA to serving as Columbia University President, Eisenhower was exceptional at not only getting things done, but at accomplishing meaningful and lasting goals. His most important contribution to productivity, however, is what has been called the Eisenhower Box, Matrix or Decision Matrix.

Deceptively simple, this strategy challenges you to categorize your tasks and projects into one of four quadrants according to their level of urgency and importance. The first quadrant should contain those tasks that are both urgent and important; the second those that are not urgent, but important; the third those that are urgent, but not important; and the fourth those that are neither urgent nor important. When I feel like I’m barely keeping my nose above water, I categorize the tasks I’ve recently completed as well as the items I have yet to attend to. What I often realize is shocking.

“Measurements are not to provide numbers but insight.”
- Ingrid Bucher

Creating quizzes and tests is not exactly the most exciting aspect of our roles as faculty members. Be that as it may, assessing our students’ understanding is critical both to inform our teaching and to make sure that they are developing the knowledge, skills, and understanding that our courses are designed to address. The good news is there are a number of ways to approach quizzes and tests that go beyond the typical multiple choice, short answer, and essay exams.

Key features of the strategy
The two most important characteristics of an effective assessment are that it should measure what you intend to measure and that it is aligned with course and instruction. From here, quizzes and tests can take a variety of forms. Assessments can be both formative (designed to provide students with feedback on their work to assist them during the course) and summative (designed to comprehensively measure their learning at the conclusion of a course). Many of the Higher Education Learning Activities can actually be used as formative assessment opportunities. For example, both discuss/debate and write/respond can serve as formative assessments of students’ learning.

Quizzes and tests are also helpful measures of student learning as well. Each type of test item (e.g., fill-in, true/false, matching, etc. has its own advantages and disadvantages (see Nilson for a thorough review in the chapter on summative assessments). To the degree that they are aligned with the course content, are clear to the students, and challenge them to think at higher levels, assessments are both measurement and learning opportunities. The examples noted below may provide you with inspiration that goes beyond the typical approaches.

Examples and Variations
Application Card Quizzes
In a review of some of her favorite classroom assessment techniques (CATs), Gross discusses the use of application cards. This efficient and effective assessment measures the degree to which students can appropriately apply theories and principles. The premise is simple – the instructor passes out a number of cards that each include a theory or principle from the course. Students then write a real-world example of the theory or principle in action on the reverse side. This could also be “leveled up” by then having students exchange cards to identify additional examples of the concept.

Group Quizzes and Tests
We typically think of quizzes and tests as solitary activities. There are a growing number of strategies to engage students in group exams. Weimer overviews a number of these approaches in a blog post. In most variations, students work either with a single partner or in a small group. In some cases, they discuss the exam together before beginning and then debrief after they individually complete the exam before they turn it in. In other examples, they complete the entire exam individually. After they turn it in, they get together with a small group to retake the same exam. An individual student’s grade is the average of their individual and group score. In a performance-based assessment, one student can serve as a coach to help the group complete the task – without physically helping the rest of the team.

Cognitive Wrappers
Exams can serve as development learning opportunities when students reflect on their learning, the exam, and the results through the use of what Jose Bowen, the author of Teaching Naked, calls cognitive wrappers.  In a blog post he overviews the strategy in which the instructor provides students with a very short survey or series of questions following an exam. Questions can encourage students to consider how long and in what ways they prepared for the exam, which aspects of the exam were most difficult for them and why, and how they would prepare differently for the next exam. In this way, they are learning how to self-regulate their thinking and exam preparation for further success. For examples of cognitive wrappers, visit learningwrappers.org.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Perhaps the most concrete connection between completing quizzes and tests and 21st century skills is self-regulation. In order to prepare effectively for quizzes and tests, students need to organize their materials, understanding their own strengths and weaknesses – both in regards to the material and on their assessment performance, and plan effectively for their review of the material. These are quite challenging skills for many students to master. And although they have had considerable experience in taking quizzes and tests, the material in post-secondary courses is more challenging, and one’s learning techniques continually evolve. Using strategies like exam wrappers can be very helpful in assisting students to develop their own self-regulation strategies.

In terms of technologies, many textbooks provide banks of quiz and test items, along with online exam opportunities. You can also create your own online exams using free tools like Google Forms and Excel Survey. Student response systems can also be used to capture, collect, and display quiz results in real-time.

What strategies do you use for quizzes and tests in your courses?
Please post your comments below.

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”
- Isaac Asimov

Student writing serves two key purposes in courses – as a way for students to process and share their ideas and a way for instructors to assess their understanding. Too often, however, we might focus on a limited range of possible writing or response assignments in our courses. In a thought provoking blog post, Maryellen Weimer synthesizes results from a study of 405 sociology courses. In these courses, while instructors employed a number of different writing assignments, 81% were transactional in nature – essentially communicating information to the instructor.  Beyond these kinds of transactional, brief comprehension or reflection questions and more formal papers, we have a number of different options for engaging students in writing and responses in our courses.

Key features of the strategy
Writing assignments can take a number of forms: informal to formal, formative to summative, creative to expository, divergent or convergent. While the audience for the work is typically limited to the instructor, writing assignments can be shared and opened for commentary and feedback to the classroom community or to a worldwide community online. Writing assignments can be completed in the traditional paper “blue book,” using a word processor, or a variety of forms of digital media. One could even extend writing beyond words on a page to multimodal writing, including mixed media creations comprised of text, images, and even video. With all these options, Weimer (2013) reminds us to ask, “Are the writing experiences offered to students accomplishing the goals that have been set for those assignments?” Within this constraint, we have a number of options, including the examples noted below.

Examples and Variations
Informal Writing with the PTA Strategy
Informal writing approaches may seem ill-defined or somewhat vague. Hudd, et.al, (2011) however, describe their “PTA” model to promote a series of cognitive tasks - prioritization, translation, and analogy. This approach to informal writing is used to engage students in strategies and processes that will ultimately encourage them to engage in thoughtful analysis and develop substantive arguments. Throughout the semester, students generate a series of informal written responses to prompts from the instructor each week.  At the end of the semester, the students are encouraged to read back through their responses and prioritize them by identifying their strongest response, the one that challenged them the most, and the one that most clearly captures their values and beliefs. Then, they compare their earliest responses to those towards the end of the semester and describe changes they note in their responses, writing style, and developing understanding.

The Best Post Wiki
Greathouse & Rosen (2015) describe an interesting approach to collaborative writing in which groups of students responded individually and then as a group to weekly writing prompts throughout the semester on a collaborative wiki site. Each week, the groups collaboratively reviewed members’ individual responses to the prompt and “used all of the contributions to select, arrange, and construct the absolute best answer for the prompt… the most coherent perspectives of the group’s contributors in terms of understanding the content.” The prompts throughout the semester were deliberately designed to challenge students to engage in different levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. By the end of the semester, groups had reached the highest level of the taxonomy – creativity – by creating a video public service announcement related to the content of the course.

Integrated Papers
Students are accustomed to writing formal reviews of the literature related to course topics, particularly in advanced level courses. Zipp (2011) describes an interesting alternative to this form of writing that she calls the integrated paper. She describes this approach as “a type of review of the literature that includes the analysis, synthesis and evaluation of information on a well-defined content area and includes the writer’s original thoughts and ideas on the topic which are based upon the available evidence.” She emphasizes that the key aspect of the assignment is in challenging students to make transitions and connections between the different segments of the paper, forcing them to understand the larger picture. Through a structured and detailed rubric, students are supported in developing substantive, thoughtful work.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
Writing and responding support students in a variety of dimensions of the 21st century learning design (21CLD) framework.  Writing encourages students to organize their ideas, clarify their thinking, and ultimately, construct knowledge. When students develop writing and responses together, like in the Best Post Wiki described above, they engage in collaboration. Finally, by writing in multiple modes for a particular audience, they can also develop their expertise in skilled communication.

A range of digital tools can support the writing process for students. Most basically, traditional and collaborative word processing tools help students to experiment with their writing, rearrange ideas, and receive and respond to feedback provided in the text by the instructor and their peers. Blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, and other ways for students to share their writing can be both highly motivating and engaging for students.

What strategies have you used to encourage students to explore topics in your classes?
Please post your comments below.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive an “affiliate commission.” I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

In this episode I had the opportunity to discuss the process and importance of intentionality in online course design and development with April Lawrence, Senior Academic Technologist at the College of William & Mary. We discuss some of the key differences, opportunities and challenges in shifting from face-to-face to online or hybrid teaching. April offers a practical, but substantive three-step process to design online learning experiences. 

Links and Resources:

• ADDIE Model of Instructional Design
  
• Open Stacks
• "From Teaching to Learning" - Barr & Tagg (1995)
• Online Course Map (Word document)
• Quality Matters peer review process for online course design
• Online Learning Consortium
• Educause Learning Initiative
• Conquering the Content - Smith (2014)

What opportunities and challenges have you encountered in shifting to online or hybrid learning?
Please post your comments below.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive an “affiliate commission.” I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”