Creating Universally Designed Assessments
Course Summary
This course went into the fact that roadblocks can happen when assessments are not universally designed to assess several different student types and modalities. It also highlighted the principles of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) which are engagement, representation, and action & expression which can be used to make the assessments accessible to more people and learning styles. The course laid out various questions that we should ask ourselves as educators to evaluate what is being learned and will it remain a learned concept long-term.
Why Did I Choose This Course?
When considering what courses I wanted to take for this certificate, this was one of the first ones on my list. Although I have been a teacher's assistant and tutor for many years, I've only recently moved into the full educator role who is responsible for the full outcome of a class. Instead of just assisting students to learn bits of material, I now have to make sure that I am able to impart the bulk of the information they receive, correctly assess their knowledge, and assign the appropriate grades for that work. It doesn't matter how I learn as a student or academic, it matters how each of my students are able to learn and retain what is being taught. I wanted to learn about the thoughts and methods from other educators/professionals to be a better teacher for my students.
Personal Reflections
One of the first things that this course asked us to do was to reflect on the question, "When you were a student, think about a commonly used strategy that was especially challenging for you?". We were able to read the responses for others who had taken the class, and I found this an excellent way to look at the issue further right from the start. There were several common themes and issues, but there were also a few that really made me stop and think about how the issue could be fixed. Although some issues were repeated, such as difficulty with written exams/recall, verbal presentations, and group projects … the reasons for the difficulties were quite diverse. Reading them brought certain students I've tutored to mind or even some of the students in my recent classes. Consequently, it made those types of problems more real to me.
Kevin Merry, the professional that this course came from, brought up something I hadn't given a lot of thought to before. He talked about assessments and what they measure. We know that they must measure the learning objectives and course objectives that the college requires. One thing he mentioned was making sure our assessments don't measure things that are irrelevant to those specific learning outcomes. This struck me as odd because generally I've assumed if it was taught in the class, it is relevant knowledge that you need. Upon looking at the course objectives to various classes I've taken (or taught), I can see where some people might feel that they don't need to remember certain aspects of a class. I think that we can fix that by linking their relevancy to the objectives. I will talk about that further in the “New Approaches” section.
I feel that I benefitted from this course's breakdown of the UDL principles of engagement, representation and, action & expression to give me the starting blocks towards both making the course successful for the students and to present the materials as a teacher. As students and tutors we hear all these words and abbreviations. We discuss them in professional development days, but I think that it truly becomes a more real concept when you are the actual teacher having to reach 20 different students successfully.
New Approaches
As I mentioned before, I think that some course objectives and learning outcomes need to be coordinated for relevance to a particular topic of the class. For example, one of the course objectives for the Introduction to Web Programming class is being able to use various materials to research a topic, get an answer and write about that answer. In online classes, that is taken care of with the use of weekly discussion questions. The department head states the following in those discussion post instructions:After completing this activity, you should be able to:
- Conduct online research on related topics associated with the assigned chapter reading(s)
- Acquire a basic understanding of the topics that you chose to research
- Respond and share your researched answers within the discussion forum
- Respond to one of your peers' responses by contributing additional knowledge and elaborating on the main discussion topic based on your own research
So, when working on my lectures and in class activities, I plan to keep this concept in mind about relevancy to the learning outcomes. I think this will help the students feel that they are being graded on something that doesn't necessarily relate to the class itself or the learning outcomes. I don't see this as a difficult leap to make the connection. It is just one that I need to be more mindful of.
Another approach that I wish to work on relates to the “Action and Expression” UDL principle. I think that we have several different methods of assessment in the ITWP 1000 (Introduction to Web Programming) classes, but I also think that the on-ground version of the class can benefit from more verbal and in-class practice activities. I'd like to find more points assessments to go along with the homework assignments but in the form of in class practice with it. We are also looking at making more of the content in the quizzes, midterm, and final as practical application problems instead of just book information.
My Predictions
If I can successfully work in some of the homework assignment points into an in-class practice section, I think the students will understand some of the harder concepts that they learn in the beginning of the class. Instead of losing points consistently on certain portions of the homework assignments, they could learn how to do it with several different examples and then apply it to their homework assignment. I am not 100% sure how I can work that transition in, but I will give it more thought.As for the other classes (not ITWP 1000) that I am, or will be, teaching, I think that making the assessments more concise will help the students to know what they are supposed to be doing. In one of the classes, I had people during multiple semesters asking me (as the TA) what exactly they were supposed to do because there wasn't a rubric or more detailed instructions. The students in those classes will benefit from making sure the assessments are geared towards what they are supposed to know and laying out that information for them.
My Aspirations
In the “Introduction to Web Programming” class, there is not as much of an immediate need for growth. However, I have been in discussions with my department head about adding a forum for each class that has additional resources, videos and practice content for the students to use. It would be one forum that all the introduction classes would have access too. That way it minimizes how many updates have to be taken care of for each semester. Technology constantly changes in our field, but we can keep the information current and relevant with less broken links by having it located in one place for everyone. The necessity here is making sure that I impart the relevancy to course objectives verbally as well as in other documentation that the on-ground students receive.For the two class subjects that need updating more severely, I want to make the layouts more intuitive and the instructions more concise. Assessment goals will be stated more clearly as well. The layouts should have a natural progression instead of expecting the students to look in several places before finding all of the content and instructions needed for an assignment within Canvas.