Formative and Summative Assessments are key to keeping the learning process on track, over both the short-term and long-term. Instructors must align these assessments with the learning objectives.
General education and soft skills are just as important to success in active learning and career development as continuing education and instructional seminars
CAT activities and the ways of learning and applying new information
Assessment is a really good tool to evaluate your students and how they are learning.
The use of assessments across a variety of learning styles and deliveries ensures a broader analysis ability for the instructor in their effectiveness in information delivery.
Comment on Pa Chi Moua's post:
I appreciated the focus on CATs as well and would like to encourage their use to assess knowledge anonymously and informally within class sessions.
The difficulty in grading ethical decision making based on commonly found ethical dilemmas.
I like the idea of using CAT activities, not only at the beginning or end of class, but also mid class to regain focus. I also liked the example of whether "what" or "how" we teach is more important - like scissor blades, both are so important that they can't work without each other.
I learned that active learning keeps the students engaged in the learning and also just how important assessment is.
Getting to know the best way the students can learn and still remain focus then putting it all together at one that way we can keep everybody's attention with a mix of different methods.
There are many different types of assessments that can be used to measures students' comprehension of material. Active learners are integral in making coursework more compelling. Keeping students engaged is crucial.
In this module, I learned that as an instructor, our learning objectives must clearly state what we would like the student to learn. Then, we would assess students' learning based on the objectives.
I totally agree that soft skills and ethical values is something that we should encourage students to think about. Hopefully as educators, we can influence our students to think of the consequences of their decisions both now and in the future.
CATs create a great bridge for learning and can be customized for engagement. It is always important to think about Bloom's Taxonomy so utilize all levels.
The need for formative assessment.
The Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) is a new concept to me, but which makes a lot of sense. I have loosely used it in the past, without knowing the terminology of which it is described. I also believe it is in the best interest of the students and the faculty to build in CAT in the curriculum, which would be beneficial for the students to have minute assessments if they are understanding the material. This is also beneficial for the faculty to evaluate if the material presented is appropriate to the learning level of the students.
Thanks
I have re-learned how to thoughtfully gauge the student's learning through my teaching.
Incorporate benchmarks to ensure content and assessments are appropriate for the course/students
assessment is an important part of learning.
I am going to formulate some CAT activities in my next session. Also a nice refresher on the evolution of learning thru Blooms Taxamony
