CCT: Assessing Student Learning

Core Competency 5: Assessing Student Learning (CCTI, May 2024).

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Workshop attended: Assessing Student Learning, Certification in College Teaching Institute (CCTI), MSU Graduate School. Presenter: Kirstin Parkin (Associate Professor, Microbiology, Genetics and Immunology), with breakouts on Mentored Teaching Projects.
Workshop date: May 9–10, 2024, STEM Teaching and Learning Facility, Michigan State University

Description of the Core Competency

Assessing student learning means gathering evidence of what students actually know and can do, and using that evidence to improve both their learning and my teaching. Good assessment starts from measurable learning outcomes, often written with the verbs of Bloom’s taxonomy, and aligns each assignment or question with those outcomes. It includes formative assessment, which gives students and the instructor feedback during learning, and summative assessment, which evaluates learning at the end. Assessment is also a research tool: asking a focused teaching question, collecting data in the classroom, and analyzing it is the basis of the Mentored Teaching Project.

I met this competency through the CCTI session on assessing student learning and the follow-up breakouts and micro-assessment on Mentored Teaching Projects.

Artifacts

Materials distributed at the CCTI session:

  1. Bloom’s taxonomy handout (Krathwohl, 2001 revision) with verbs for writing measurable learning outcomes.
  2. Mentored Teaching Project 6-step outline: teaching and learning goal, teaching question, assessment technique, classroom practice, summary of results, conclusion.
  3. Mentored Teaching Project document and evaluation template.
  4. CCTI agenda showing the session, the Mentored Teaching Project breakouts, and the micro-assessment.

Materials Developed

Pre- and post-workshop evaluation surveys for the MSU AI for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing workshop (evaluation plan and surveys, PDF), the assessment instruments for my Mentored Teaching Project. Built on the 6-step outline from this session, they combine Likert-scale items aligned with specific teaching features (clarity, organization, pace, hands-on learning, guidance, independence, engagement) with open-ended questions, and they measure change by asking about confidence both before and after the workshop.

Artifact / Material Rationale

The Bloom’s taxonomy handout is important because it turns vague goals (“understand series”) into outcomes I can measure (“compare convergence tests and justify which applies”). The 6-step outline and evaluation template matter because they treat assessment as a cycle: decide what students should learn, ask a focused question, collect evidence with a simple instrument, and use the results to change practice. That cycle is the structure of my Mentored Teaching Project.

The surveys are my application of that cycle. Each item maps to a teaching feature I wanted evidence about, the pre/post design measures change in confidence rather than a single snapshot, and the open-ended questions capture reasons that ratings alone miss. The instrument was simple enough to analyze with descriptive statistics and thematic coding, and its results led directly to concrete recommendations for the next offering of the workshop.

Interpretation / Reflection

This session changed how I think about assessment. I had mostly treated quizzes and exams as a way to assign grades. The workshop showed me that assessment starts at the design stage, with clear outcomes written in measurable terms, and that most of its value comes from feedback during learning. This matches what I had seen in my own recitations: short, low-stakes quizzes let students learn from mistakes without heavy penalties, prepare them for larger exams with similar questions, and reduce anxiety.

The Mentored Teaching Project framework showed me that assessment can also answer questions about my teaching. Instead of guessing whether an activity works, I can pose a narrow teaching question, choose an instrument simple enough to analyze, and let the data tell me what to change.

My Mentored Teaching Project put this into practice: I designed pre- and post-surveys around a focused question about guidance versus independence, analyzed the results, and turned them into specific recommendations for the workshop.

Going forward, I will write learning outcomes with Bloom’s verbs before designing activities, align each assessment with those outcomes, use frequent formative checks to adjust my teaching, and use the Mentored Teaching Project cycle to study my own classroom practice.