toward mindful assessments: inquiry in and as practice
TRANSCRIPT
Toward Mindful Assessments:
Assessment in and as Practice ∞
Peter Felten
Elon University
“The asking of questions is in itself the correct rite.”
Confucius, The Analects (D.C. Lau, trans., 1979), III:15
Are we contributing in meaningful ways to our students’ learning and development?
How would we know?
How would our students know?
“Assessment is the systematic collection of information about student learning…to inform
decisions that affect student learning.”
Barbara Walvoord, Assessment Clear and Simple 2nd ed. (2010), p. 2
Assessment of learning
Assessment for learning
Assessment of students
Assessment with students
Ask a question
Act on results Gather evidence
Analyze evidence
What do you most want to understand about your students’ learning and development?
What do your students most want to learn
and develop in your course/program?
Where are the connections and the tensions?
Your questions
What is?
What works?
What is possible?
Adapted from Pat Hutchings, Opening Lines (2000)
What counts? Whole or parts?
When and in what context?
Intention or action?
What methods?
Self-report or direct measure?
I or we?
What is knowable?
Storytelling
Exit interviews
Pre/post survey
Storytelling
Exit interviews
Pre/post survey
Questioning Istanbul: City as Laboratory / City as Text
Curiosity
Curiosity
Journal writing: At least 4 times each day, write a
paragraph or two about questions that are on your mind at that moment.
(Graded for completion)
Reflective essay: Looking back at your journal writing, how and why did your questions change (or remain the
same) during this course? (Graded for analysis)
Faculty journal/analysis: As a class, did student questions
become more sophisticated and more authentic as the course progressed?
(Not graded)
Curiosity – with students
Pre/post survey
Student journal writing Student reflective essay
Faculty journal Faculty analysis
Gather, analyze, act
Linked to purpose and question
Grounded in context
Conducted with appropriate methods
Done with students
Adapted from Peter Felten, “Principles of Good Practice in SoTL,”
Teaching & Learning Inquiry (2013)
What do you most want to understand about your student learning and development?
What evidence might you gather?
How might you make sense of that evidence?
How might you do this with students?
How might this lead you or your students to act?
What is?
What works?
What is possible?
Assessment as attention
Assessment as discernment
Assessment as mindful practice
What is possible in the ways you and your students practice assessment?
“The thing being made in a university is humanity.”
Wendell Berry, “The Loss of the University” (1984), p. 77
“I think some faculty…are so focused on getting stuff done that they don’t pay attention to their
students, who I think are the most valuable resources in a classroom .”
Quoted in Alison Cook-Sather, et al., Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching (2014)
