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Assessment of Students' Learning Using Discussion Assignments and A Culminating Essay
This entry explains how I use Discussion Assignments to help students develop their understanding of the course material and to enhance their ability to analyze and evaluate complex issues.
What I do and why Discussion Assignments (DA's) are informal writing assignments that students do prior to each class. Sometimes the assignment is general-- to summarize and respond thoughtfully to the readings for that class period. Other times I provide a set of questions to answer based upon the readings. We use a portion of each class to discuss (small group and/or entire class) some of the questions in the DA.
The goals of the DA's are to: 1) engage students with the material prior to class and 2) serve as a basis for informed class discussion, and 3) give students practice thinking about critical issues that will eventually be part of summative assessment (i.e., a "culminating essay").
The DA fits into a sequence in the class in which students: 1) complete readings and a DA prior to class, 2) discuss the DA questions in class, and extend and expand discussion to new topics, 3) complete another DA that builds from the previous class session, 4) write an in-class culminating essay at the end of a several weeks. Often the essay questions are the same as those used in the DA's. The appendix (page 22 ) contains examples of two DA's and the culminating essay that follows them. In addition, I provide students with a feedback sheet after each essay. See the appendix item, "Feedback on Culminating Essay."
How it turned out. The DA is an effective way to address all three goals. 1. Goal: to engage students in the material before class. DA's are an extremely effective way to get students to prepare before class. Students claim that the DA insures that they read the assignments and think about them before class. The large majority of students do the DA's and most of the DA's reflect substantive learning (i.e., students explain what the authors said, and express a thoughtful point of view about the material). 2. Goal: to serve as a basis for informed class discussion. The DA-based class discussions are of higher quality than class discussions in my pre-DA classrooms. I spend less time defining and explaining basic concepts, and less time answering my own questions. The DA's, used in combination with small group discussion, increase students' participation in exchanging ideas. The discussions tend to be better focused, and actually address substantive questions/issues. Students read, think, write and discuss the issues and questions. They develop at least incipient viewpoints. 3. Goal: to give students practice thinking about issues and problems that will be part of summative evaluation (i.e., culminating essays). The DA's in conjunction with small group discussions provide a chance for students to practice critical thinking in low-risk situations where they can experiment with ideas and get feedback from others.
The results from the culminating essay suggest that the DA's and class discussions produce better essays. I sorted the essays into three major categories that represent qualitative differences in learning and thinking (i.e., I=sound and compelling, II=adequate, and III=underdeveloped. See "Feedback on Culminating Essay" in the appendix for descriptions of these categories. About 44% of the class (17 S's) wrote category I essays, and among the remaining essays about 33% (13 S's) wrote essays very close to category I in quality. About 23% (9 S's) were relatively weak. The weaker essays contained some misconceptions, gaps in reasoning, and some lacked focus.
The scores are inflated slightly. I found two common misconceptions throughout the essays. See "Feedback on Culminating Essay" in the appendix. These were so common that I concluded that I had somehow misrepresented or overlooked some critical material. I ignored the misconceptions in the grading process.
What I learned, what I would do differently and why. The DA's are an effective way to get students to prepare thoughtfully for class, and they provide a solid foundation for informed class discussion. And, in conjunction with small group discussion they create a forum for exchanging ideas in an ungraded situation. The results of the culminating essay are encouraging. The quality of the essays was quite good despite two misconceptions that appeared throughout the class.
Still, half the class wrote relatively weak or adequate essays. The most common weakness in the category II essays was lack of explanation and support for general claims. This is consistent with almost every other piece of evidence I have collected about students' learning in my class. They are well able to read and represent others' views; they find it much harder to engage in causal reasoning--to develop an argument that explains how certain factors or conditions lead to particular outcomes. This kind of reasoning is the essence of critical thinking in the course. And, while a large percentage of students demonstrated effective reasoning in the essay, a large percentage did not. I need to work with students on how to explain and support a viewpoint. This is not a problem I can simply fix, but one that I must work on throughout the semester. Complex reasoning develops gradually. In subsequent classes I will continue to use DA questions that involve the same kind of causal reasoning and try to support students' developing efforts to explain how various types of conditions affect behavior. I will continue to give students specific evaluative criteria, individual feedback, group feedback, and the opportunity to read examples of successful essays written by classmates.
The following is an example of the categories I use to evaluate discussion assignments.
Sample of Qualitative Evaluation for Discussion Assignments Sometimes DA's "count" only as participation; students get credit for participation only. However, I score some of the DA's in terms of the quality of learning and thinking they reflect. In these cases I assess several aspects of the DA's and determine the extent to which they represent thoughtful effort to make sense of the material, establish connections between material and personal experience and beliefs, formulate new ideas and pose substantive questions. I judge the DA's as substantive, marginal or insubstantial learning and thinking. (Typically, substantive learning = 4 points, marginal learning = 2 points and insubstantial learning = 0 points.) Characteristics of substantive learning include well organized, integrated responses response reflects understanding in own terms (not verbatim from readings) incorporates ideas from the material to support a viewpoint makes connections between material and personal experience poses thought-provoking questions reflective response based upon thoughtful reasons Characteristics of marginal learning include significant portion of response is verbatim from the reading material describes what authors think but contains little in the way of response to what the authors say. tends to respond with personal preferences rather than giving substantive reasons as basis for reactions to questions. relies extensively on personal experience without connecting it to general findings in readings. lacks effective integration with other material Characteristics of insubstantial learning include poor organization and integration fragmented responses contains much irrelevant material asks questions that could be answered by rereading the article response reflects fragmented, seriously underdeveloped understanding of the material repeats what is in the readings without responding to it contains errors in factual information or erroneous, unsupported interpretations of articles |
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