Assessment Strategies Paper
Please be very specific with all the requirements.
Prepare a 2,000-word paper responding to the following scenario:
Imagine that you are conducting a hybrid course where part of the orientation is synchronous and the rest of the time the students participate in an asynchronous environment. The outcomes for your course program include:
Participants must be able to identify the various types of work-related harassment and the consequences of such actions.
Participants must be able to relate the need to maintain confidentiality of patient information and proprietary organizational information to work-related situations.
Enrolled in your course are five diverse students with varying learning styles, health care experience, and ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The students are employees at various health care organizations.
Your students are:
Maria Sanchez: Maria is fluent in both Spanish and English and has prior health care work experience.
Olga Bartold: Olga is 50 years old and new to the United States. Having come from Germany, she has limited English proficiency and is fluent in German. Olga does not have any experience working in a health care environment.
Dr. Ranzin: Dr. Ranzin is from India and speaks fluent English and has several years of experience working in a health care environment.
Joe Antone: Joe is a member of the Navajo Community. This is Joe's first experience working in a health care environment.
Martha Scott: Martha is from the Midwest and has several years of experience working in a health care environment.
Compare and contrast the various assessment methods used for this type of course now that you have met your students.
Identify the method you think will be the most effective to respond to this situation based on your analysis. Explain why you think this. What alternate assessments can you use to evaluate student learning?
Indicate how you evaluate the students based on the following criteria:
On an individual level
In a group activity
In health care
In a classroom setting
Distance learning environment
Answer the following question:
How does the method you have selected address the various learning styles, special populations, and use of higher order thinking skills for the types of students noted above?
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
Use at least five references from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals and cite them in the body of the paper. Newspapers, magazine articles, and websites are NOT acceptable sources.
Use the University Library to find additional materials to support your analysis.
Student:
Professor:
Course title:
Date:
Assessment Strategies
Assessment entails anything that a tutor does to collate information for making decisions with regard to the learners’ learning the tutor’s teaching. The main purpose of assessment is to collate data or information. In essence, assessment lets the teacher and the students know about the depth as well as quality of learning that is occurring (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013). In this paper, various assessment methods used for the identified kind of course with the diverse students are compared and contrasted, and the method that is most effective in responding to the situation basing upon the analysis is identified. The alternative assessments that can be used to evaluate student learning are also described. Furthermore, this paper describes how students would be evaluated basing upon a number of criteria including on an individual level, in health care, in a group activity, in a distance learning environment, and in a classroom setting. Lastly, this paper describes how the selected method of learning assessment addresses the different styles of learning, special populations, and use of higher order thinking skills for the different kinds of students noted.
Assessment methods for the diverse student populations
Assessment is a broad term which includes a variety of ways for collating, analyzing and interpreting data. The main assessment methods include teacher-made assessments, commercially-prepared assessments and standardized tests. Others include formative and summative assessments, portfolios, performance assessments, and socio-cultural assessments.
Standardized tests: these are tests, either criterion-referenced or norm-referenced, which are administered, scored and interpreted in a standard fashion (Guba & Lincoln, 2010). Norm-referenced implies that the performance of learners on a given test could be compared to the performance of other similar learners who have done similar test – the norm group. It is notable that the information which is obtained from this sort of test is meant to assist both parents and educators in knowing how their learners are performing compared to other similar learners (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013). Conversely, criterion-referenced tests look at the performance of a student relative to mastery of particular specified content. On these kinds of tests, a decision is made regarding what really comprises or represents proficiency, or sufficient learning of the content. If a learner scores above or at the passing score, then it is presumed that this learner is proficient or competent in knowledge of the specific content. Large-scale standardized assessments are usually based upon the traditional psychometrics, be they criterion-referenced or norm-referenced (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013).
Commercially prepared assessments: a lot of the supplemental materials and textbooks that educators utilize for instruction in their classrooms are commercially prepared and include assessments. Brookhart (2010) reported that these assessments might be utilized in several different ways, including screening, monitoring progress, diagnosing learning problems, and assessing learner outcomes pertaining to a particular instructional program. In most cases, instructional materials comprise assessments that are intended for units of lessons or teaching. An educator has to be certain that these tests actually evaluate the content that she is teaching.
Teacher-made assessments: when an educator develops her own classroom assessments, she has to be certain that the tests are at the right level of difficulty for her learners in terms of the content that is being evaluated and how the content is presented. When a teacher develops her own assessments, she needs to ensure that the content she is expecting her learners to learn is precisely what she is assessing (Guba & Lincoln, 2010). In addition, the educator can ensure that the assessments are written at the correct reading level for her learners.
Performance assessment: this form of assessment requires the learner to carry out a complex task for instance presentation, speech, or writing assignment. Teachers would usually employ collaboratively developed common assessments, rubrics, scoring guides as well as other methods in evaluating whether or not the work produced by the learners shows that they have learned what the educators expected them to learn (Brookhart, 2010).
Sociocultural assessment strategy: a social-cultural approach to learning assessment essentially acknowledges the influence on learning, teaching and evaluating of gender, language, culture plus other social aspects and factors of student identity. Guba and Lincoln (2010) reported that a sociocultural approach to assessment considers various things including the sociocultural factors which influence learning and performance for instance dialects and languages, home experiences, backgrounds of the students, classroom environment, as well as the in-school experiences of the learners.
Most effective assessment method
The most effective method of assessment is certainly the sociocultural approach to assessment. Unlike the other methods, this method encourages educators and other assessment developers to take into account sociocultural factors when they design or modify assessments, and when they evaluate the performance of learners in any assessment. This assessment method has reliability as it yields consistent responses over time. It also has validity as it is appropriate for what the educator would want to measure (Brookhart, 2010). The alternate assessments that could be used to evaluate student learning include: creating examinations, creating assignments which require learners to work interdependently/ in teams or groups and individually, and creating and using rubrics. Others are assessing group work, written essays, research reports, interviews, oral presentations, oral questioning, standardized tests in addition to various summative and formative types of assessment which provide the learners with immediate feedback.
How students would be evaluated basing on the following criteria:
On an individual level – learners would be evaluated on an individual level using examinations, tests, quizzes in addition to other assessments. Such assessments reflect the skills and concepts which the educator emphasized in the classroom, together with the educator’s clear criteria for judging performance of his or her learners. Bradley, Danielson and Hallahan (2012) reported that these skills, concepts and criteria are in alignment with the educator’s instructional activities and with district or state standards. Learners consider such assessments as fair measures of crucial learning goals. Educators facilitate learning by offering their learners essential feedback on their learning progress as well as by assisting them to recognize learning problems.
In a group activity – learners have to be made aware of the assessment before they commence the group activity such as project. The educator assesses the product: this entails measuring the quality as well as quantity of individua...