This post is in response to Chapter 3, “Blended Assessments of Learning,” in the BlendKit Reader, Second Edition, Edited by Kelvin Thompson, EdD.
As an instructional designer, I think about assessment early on in course development. Assessments should follow directly from learning objectives, answering the question: “how will students show me they met this learning objective?” You may employ several assessments for one objective, but each objective should be assessed in at least one way or you should seriously reconsider it.
Formative and summative assessment can take many forms, and technology opens faculty up to a broader array of options. Thinking of moving assessment out of your class and into an online environment? The multiple choice quiz is one format that is an easy place to start and Moodle offers many options for setting up quizzes. When we show faculty how to use the online quiz feature, the conversation inevitably end up discussing the questions themselves. How do you create questions that challenge students to use higher order thinking skills (comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis)? Creating questions for which the answer cannot be easily found online or in a textbook also acts as a barrier to cheating.
The Blended Learning course offers several useful guides for writing quiz questions you might find useful – whether you are moving your quizzes online or keeping them in class.
- Examples of Multiple Choice Items at the Levels of Blooms Taxonomy from the University of Central Florida, Faculty Seminars in Online Teaching
- 10 Examples of Question Improvements from the University of Central Florida, Faculty Seminars in Online Teaching
- Writing Good Multiple Choice Test Questions from Vanderbilt University, Center for Teaching
- Improving your test questions from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning
-Jessica
