University of Nebraska Kearney

March 7, 2007 Presentation

This presentation will cover a range of practical ideas for developing and integrating formative classroom assessments to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between the instructional objectives of a course and the assessment of student performance. The effective integration of these techniques will promote enhanced student learning as faculty self-monitor the impact of instruction on the performance of the students throughout a course.

Some of the innovative and creative ways that formative assessment can be quickly and easily integrated into a course include:

empty outlines to discover what students recall and can organize into an outline
minute paper to quickly assesses the most important things learned during a class
defining features matrix to assess skills in analysis or critical thinking
one-sentence summary to measure skills in synthesis or creative writing
directed paraphrasing  to assess application or performance

The presenter, Jean Mandernach, is Associate Professor of Psychology and Online Learning at Park University and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at UNK.  She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, an M.S. in experimental psychology from Western Illinois University, and Ph.D in social psychology from University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Her research focuses on enhancing student learning through assessment and innovative online instructional strategies.