To begin learning more about assessments, I’ve taken a closer look at a recent assessment I used in my small animal nursing skills course last semester. The assessment, a self-reflective document, was used to help students recognize their progress during the semester.
I realized shortly after becoming an instructor that many students struggle with the process of failure. My small animal nursing course is centered around technical skills and procedures that will be the foundation for all veterinary nurses. For most students, this is the first time they learn to perform these skills and procedures, like performing phlebotomy and physical exams or place sterile peripheral IV catheters. Naturally, students need practice and patience to become experts of such skills and tasks. To help students realize that failure is expected, accepted, and a necessary step towards success, I created the VM 160 Technical Skills Journey assessment for students.
Students receive this document on the first day of the course. Students revisit the assessment three more times throughout the semester so they can continue documenting their progress and reflect on how far they feel they’ve come since last seeing the document. The assessment also acts as a safe place to express honest feelings towards their progress and the course.
In my previous blog I mentioned three initial thoughts I had about assessments. First, I wrote that assessments tell us much more than just how a student is performing. Assessments can be used to show engagement, interest, growth, thoughts and opinions. The course assessment aligns with my first thought. This assessment is a personal reflection and shows a student’s progress and thoughts on a learning experience. Second, I wrote that assessments are used by both educators and students. Again, I believe that the course assessment stands true to this thought. Students use the document to reflect on their progress and experiences throughout the semester and recognize their strengths and weaknesses. Students provide me with learning experiences or methods that they learn best from, and I gain a better understanding of their feelings and thoughts on failure. I can also obtain information on how each student feels about their progress, which helps to give individualized guidance. And third, I wrote that assessments come in many different forms and are often ongoing. Students revisit the course assessment throughout the entire semester helping students to self-reflect and recognize their successes.
In The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture, Lorrie A. Shepard writes about old and new theories of assessments. The new theories include classroom assessments in which students play an active role in evaluating their work and display learning outcomes and processes. Shepard states, “In contrast to past, mechanistic theories of knowledge acquisition, we now understand that learning is an active process of mental construction and sense making. From cognitive theory we have also learned that existing knowledge structures and beliefs work to enable or impede new learning, that intelligent thought involves self-motivating and awareness about when and how to use skills, and that ‘expertise’ develops in a field of study as a principle and coherent way of thinking and representing problems, not just as an accumulation of information” (Shepard, 2000, pp. 6-7). I believe my course assessment evaluates learning as a process and acts as an evaluation and self-reflection outlet, helping students recognize their strengths and growth.
Reference:
Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14. Retrieved from https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X029007004.
Comments