Assessment Strategies

One of my concerns with our discussion of assessment strategies is the issue of informal versus formal evaluations and the validity and reliability of one or the other. I would be interested in further analyzing which best reflects the effectiveness or success of teaching methods and how engaged students are in class at the college level.

Consider these two students:

Student A: Shows up for class, does the reading, engages in class discussion, and could easily write an essay on the spot, in the moment, on the material being discussed on any particular day.

Student B: Shows up for class, looks at Pinterest, posts to Instagram, plans the next football tailgate, reads only if a quiz is hinted, and plans to cram weeks worth of course material into 8 hours of studying the night before the exam. 

I can admit that there have been a few classes in my college career that I have been Student B. I skated through the courses, and I could hardly tell you about my instructor or the content I studied. Yet, I passed with an A's or B's and based on those tests I "mastered" the skills or materials expected of me. 

I have more often, however, been Student A; and if asked to,  I could write an opinionated essay,  supported fairly accurately from class texts, films, and discussions on most days in class. I stress essays here because I think that with Global Studies courses, especially, where the content of the courses are meant to make connections or comparisons, essays are more effective ways to assess. In addition, I believe that essay exams at this level can reflect and benefit those who think more critically and those who tend towards more creativity. 

The discussion required for an informal essay type of exam would allow for a more authentic analysis of what students are grasping, and it also would allow more freedom to fulfill every level of Bloom's taxonomy. I think that more of a push for examination like this at higher levels in education would encourage students to engage more in class and strive to establish more concrete understandings of the material taught in their courses. As opposed, the methods of examination currently in place, which promote many students to behave like Student B the majority of their time in school, and then regurgitate once the material they learn within only the few hours or days prior to the scheduled exam.

I understand the purpose of formal exams and of variations in exam formatting, but I think that in many of the social science and humanities courses I have taken the last few years it would have been more reflective of student engagement and knowledge to have more frequent informal exams that allowed for in-depth reflection.