Teaching

Create learning activities

There are several learning activities which can help students to reach the intended learning outcomes. Based on the following:

• What should students learn?
• How should students learn this?
• When does it suit timewise?
• In what order should learning activities take place?
  

Watch the film about constructive alignment External link. (It was created by Karlstad University.)

Create examinations

When creating any formats of examination, it is important to consider reliability and validity. Will it measure what we want it to measure and is it reliable? Perhaps we need to ask several questions and create opportunities during the examination for the student to demonstrate their knowledge in different ways and several times for each intended learning outcome.

When creating/designing the examination, we also need to think about how it should be assessed both at the question level and as a whole. Already when creating the examination, it needs to be clear how it should be assessed down to the individual question level. Ask a colleague to read through the examination.

Questions to ask when creating an examination:

• What intended learning outcomes should be examined and how?
• Do I have enough questions/tasks so that students have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge several times for the same learning outcome?
• Is the question/examination clearly limited towards the knowledge that will be tested?
• Is the examination clearly linked to the learning activities and content that the course has touched on based on the intended learning outcomes?
• How should the examination be assessed as a whole and at the question level?
• Are the questions posed in a way so that I won't get unexpected answers such as opinions that do not help me in my assessment? Can the question be interpreted in any other way than intended?
• Are the instructions clear and easy to understand?
• Are the students aware of how the examination will take place and on what basis their knowledge will be assessed?
  

Lärum can be a sounding board when querying and assessing different formats of examinations.

Formative way of working and summative assessment

For the students to learn, they need to know where they are on their way to achieving the intended learning outcomes, i.e., what should the student be able to do after the course, where is the student now and how should the student achieve the outcomes?

In formative assessment, there are five key strategies that support this. These are to clarify the intended learning outcomes, to highlight learning through learning activities based on the outcomes, pro-active feedback, use the students as a resource for one another, for example through peer feedback and that the students should be the owners of their own learning.

Summative assessment implies that we make a summary assessment of knowledge on a specific occasion. The purpose of summative assessment is to carry out a check precisely at that time and not to move the learning forward. However, the summative assessment can be used to create activities or feedback that can move learning forward.