Multiple Forms of Assessment | Origin: HQ103
This is a general discussion for the following learning topic:
Assessment of CTE Student Performance: Building a Body of Evidence --> Multiple Forms of Assessment
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
The biggest thing I took from this module is the idea that performance isn't only psychomotor. I'd been carrying an unspoken assumption that "performance assessment" meant the hands-on part, the weld or the repair, and everything else was just testing. The Washer and Cochran framing flipped that for me. Students are performing in all three domains nearly every day, and a written memo to a client or showing up on time and on task is performance too, just in the cognitive and affective domains. That sounds small but it changes what counts as evidence of learning.
What I want to fix is how lopsided our assessment usually is. Hands-on programs tend to lean on multiple-choice because it's fast to grade, so a physical field gets measured mostly on recall, and the affective skills employers actually complain about, like reliability and following safety protocols, rarely get assessed at all. The goggles example named that gap exactly. A student can pass the safety test and still never wear protection on the floor, and if we don't assess the behavior we never give feedback on it.
I oversee 11 CTE pathways, and my summer curriculum cohort is writing three-year scope and sequence maps for all of them right now, so the timing works out. My plan is to build a simple three-domain check into the maps so writers tag each objective by what it really demands, cognitive, psychomotor, or affective, and then make sure the assessment matches. That keeps us from defaulting to a written test for a skill that should be demonstrated, and it builds multiple ways for students to show what they know into the pathway from the start instead of leaving it to whoever happens to think of it.
We assess theoretical info and skills based performance. They complement each other. Teaching of theory is interactive and dynamic, formative assessments are part of dissemination of information. Skills performance has a very specific format and involves discussion, skills lists, video and personal demonstrations, individual and group practice, debriefing and finally a summative evaluation of performance. This multimodal approach is meant to engage the student in active learning
I find that my assessments that have quick/immediate feedback, tend to engage my students more than the written tests.
Some assessments I apply in my current program, such as giving the students the ability to self asses. I find this encourages more students to engage.
