Overview 

Teaching during the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has many challenges. A chief concern of most instructors is designing assessments that accurately measure the learning progress of students. Do you revise existing assessments or create brand new assessments? How can you remove the temptation for students to use generative AI without making the assessment a painful process for instructor and student? 

Since the two most common types of assessments used in the classroom are formative and summative, let’s discuss alternative assessments that focus student energy on higher order thinking skills.  

Strategies 

Formative Assessments Strategies: Formative assessments help you form instruction. These are the moments where you check in with your students to make sure everyone is on the same page in their learning. This type of assessment is usually low-stakes and provides both the instructor and student with feedback on their progress. What can you ask a student to do to help you form instruction and measure their progress? 

  • 3-2-1: The 3-2-1 instructional strategy has students summarize three key points they’ve learned, pose two questions about the material, and identify one concept they still find unclear. This is a flexible strategy that can be tailored to a wide variety of courses. 
  • Top 5- or 10-words list from the lecture: Once the student has drafted their Top Five or Ten list of words from the lecture, they should explain how these connect to the reading completed before the lecture. This summarization can be shared as a discussion or to the instructor for assessment. 
  • 1:1 Challenge: The student will choose both the most important word from the class meeting and the follow-up reading, then write a brief statement explaining the connection between the lecture and the reading. 
  • Parking Lot:  Use the discussion board for students to jot down the most surprising takeaway from class or one place of confusion. The alternative is to share a parking lot document where students can leave the information anonymously.  Ask students to write the top three pieces of information they remember from the last class meeting. 
  • Stop, Start, Go!: Pick one objective from the module. Rate your understanding on a scale of Red, Yellow, Green and explain your rating. Red means you do not feel close to mastery and have questions (ask them or make arrangement for an appointment during office hours), yellow means you are at near-mastery, but you have a question (needs to be asked), and Green means you feel you have mastered that objective. A poll would keep this anonymous. 
  • Digital Write One, Answer One: Use the discussion board to have your students post a question about the material. Then, they must choose another student’s question to answer. 
  • 6-word summary: Have your students summarize the reading or lecture in a six-word sentence. They can post these in the discussion forum to share with the class, or have students post in a living document with a numbered bullet list. Students can use emojis to vote anonymously on the best summary. 
  • Many of these strategies can be used as Entry/Exit Tickets. Students can complete their “Entry Ticket” at the beginning of class and submit electronically. This technique gives the instructor an understanding of what students remember from the previous meeting so that adjustments can be made during instruction. Exit Tickets happen at the end of class with the same purpose. Remember to use variety in your formative assessments, or you risk disengaged students which may lead to potential cheating.

Summative Assessments Strategies: Summative assessments are the end game, the sum or measure of what your students learned at the end of a major unit or the end of the course. Using authentic assessments provides students with the opportunity to apply what they have learned in a new situation and provide instructors with greater flexibility. Crafting rubrics based on SLOs (Student Learning Outcomes) will be a major key to success with this form of assessment. Alternatives to traditional summative assessments include:  

  • Briefings: Students have an opportunity to practice their skills in synthesizing material and using concise language in a career-focused application.  
  • Build a website: Students build a website to highlight their learning in place of a traditional summative assessment. 
  • Curate an Annotated Anthology: Students prepare a selection of independently read works that includes an introduction to each piece and how it fits into the self-selected theme of the anthology. The focus is on a topic they wish to explore in connection with a course objective or topic. The instructor has flexibility in determining parameters for this assignment. 
  • ePortfolio: students create a digital portfolio of the work in place of a summative assessment. 
  • Fact Sheets: Students share their understanding using concise language that is applicable across many disciplines while practicing a career-focused application. 
  • Gamification: Students can build or complete virtual escape rooms or WebQuests.  
  • Poster Sessions: (Microsoft PowerPoint) 
  • White Papers: Students have an opportunity to hone their critical thinking skills in a problem/solution format. OWL Purdue has a great link to help your students get started. 

Technical options to navigate AI use by students on assessments include: 

  • Honor Lock 
  • ProctorU 
  • Turnitin 
  • Breakout Rooms in Zoom 
  • Canvas Discussion Boards 
  • Flipgrid 
  • Jamboard 
  • Kahoot 
  • Padlet 
  • Polls Everywhere  
  • VoiceThread Zoom Polls 

When you design your assessment, you might want to consider building a rubric to facilitate grading and feedback. Remember to start with your SLOs. We have a few suggested resources to help you on the journey: 

Other considerations for assessments: With easy access to generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) now commonplace, we need to rethink how we craft our assessments. If you have not tinkered with ChatGPT yet, try feeding it a prompt from one of your previous assessments or one you are considering for the new term. If ChatGPT can spit out passable answers, you might want to change your assessment. Try using Bloom’s Taxonomy to craft your test items as a starting point.  

Note about AI detectors: Current research is demonstrating that AI detectors are not reliable in identifying if generative AI has been used to on assessments and in writing assignments Research is revealing that AI detectors are biased against the ELL populations. 

References 

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