Options for Expression and Communication

Flexibility Leading Up to Major Assessments

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>> What I want to talk about today is that idea of outcomes and assessments. And perhaps some of you might relate to this. Some of the courses that I do teach have specific requirements in terms of-- terms of-- in terms of the type of assessments that they require. So, some of the liberal arts and science courses require a research paper. Yeah (laughing) [indiscernible] the quality control cat. (laughing) So, um, and so there-- clearly that proposes some restrictions. That said, I, I do within those classes still try to provide a variety of other options that students can use to express what they know to minimize the barriers for any of the other projects. And so feel free to highlight on-- directly on the screen or add any other ones you might use in your classes to illustrate the variety. So for, for my specific classes, in addition to some of the write-ups, yay, I get-- get a check mark for video. Yes, I definitely try to use options for video. Students can do voice-overs or podcasts. I really love interpretive dancing (laughing). So this is kind of low stakes assessment what they can actually illustrate-- illustrate what they’re know in some of the science courses. I-- we work with various types of schematics as well if that’s a preferred option. Kind of cause and effect relationships, they have to represent logical thinking. We do virtual field work. We do other types of field work. Yeah, I love-- I love doing that. Particularly in my in-class sessions, the students see me doing some interpretive dancing there too (laughing). So I really try to make sure that learners have this opportunity to, in addition to one major project, also incorporate some of the other ways in which-- which they can express themselves to minimize the barriers. So thanks for adding some of your check marks on the map as well to-- that’s nice for me to see what are some of the other things you’re, you’re work-- working with as well.

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A Professor Reflects on Allowing Students to Choose the Format

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>> And then, this is-- one of the-- one of the-- when they submit those-- the research project, again, they have the opportunity to submit in any format even though now-- I used to be very reluctant to use rubrics because I thought that rubric will be very limiting. But now I do rubrics because some students really wanted rubric. Why they saying I’m disorganized? (laughing) So, I have a rubric but I always highlight that the format is whatever they want to present the-- their information. So it could be a fact sheet. This is real students’ final work. It could be a fact sheet, a brochure, some type of poster. Infographics are becoming very common. In other-- previous years, some people-- I think only one-- a student even-- they created video because they were-- I think the gaming school. This is not the-- here you have how to make natural dyes for fabrics. This is not a real student activity but I found it on the internet. But one student, a few years ago, I didn’t [indiscernible], she did something like this. She got a cotton fabric and then she extracted juices from different fruits and stain those fabrics. And those [indiscernible] is very simple but that is another application of plants. Most of the dyes that we use came or still come from plants. And it was so-- it’s an application of physical creativity to applying all the-- those concepts. It was very amazing.

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