Transcript: Link to Micro-Lesson 2.2 video transcript

View Google Slides for Micro-Lesson 2.2

2.2 Outcomes (WHAT): In Micro-Lesson 2.2, we will

Use student self-assessments and peer review activities to help you and the learners monitor their progress;
Plan and use non-graded, online assessments to provide self-assessment opportunities for students and activities to prepare students for class meetings or recordings; and
Use strategies and tools (e.g., the Transparent Assignment Template) to make sure students know what to do, how to succeed, and why they are completing each learning task, regardless of the course modality.

2.2 Purpose (WHY): Having more ways to participate in their courses, many students will need or appreciate help a) identifying how to successfully complete their work and b) keeping track of the work they have completed.

2.2 Instructions (HOW): To complete this micro-lesson:

Review the material in at least one of the following ways:
1. watch the Micro-Lesson 2.2 video OR
2. review the Micro-Lesson 2.2 slides with speaker notes OR
3. review the Micro-Lesson 2.2 transcript
Complete one or more Activity 2.2 tasks that are relevant to your plans.
Click the 'Mark as done' button on this Micro-Lesson 2.2 page when you are ready to move on or to submit your work for Activity 2.2. This helps you keep track of your progress in a flexible course experience.

Estimated time: 8-10 minutes for content review + 10-15 minutes for Activity 2.2

Monitoring progress
Involving students
Helping students prepare
Clarifying expectations
Transparent Assignment Template
Template elements
Interpreting the template
Expanding the template
Activity 2.2

Monitoring progress

The last micro-lesson mentioned that flexible course experiences add to everyone’s cognitive load—students and teachers alike. To address this for students, we can use assessment activities that give them additional chances to check their understanding and track their progress.

Self-assessment activities provide opportunities for students to gauge their own progress without affecting their course grade. It’s important to tell students how completing these self-assessments will help them and how they can use the results to improve. Self-assessment examples include creating low-stakes or ungraded quizzes and surveys, instructing students to score their own work with the rubric, and providing reflection activities like exam wrappers or assignment wrappers.
Peer-review activities provide opportunities for students to give each other feedback and revise their work before turning it in for a grade. As many students are not used to giving constructive feedback, you can conduct a practice peer review exercise with a mock submission or anonymized submission from a former student who gave permission. You can also offer peer review worksheets or a checklist with prompts like these:
- “Did your classmate show that they completed each step in the lab experiment?”
- “Did your classmate show how they solved each equation?”
- “Did your classmate support their argument and cite their sources?”

Involving students

Want yet another way to support students? Involve them more directly in your flexible assessment processes. Here are two strategies to do that:

Student-created or student-informed rubrics – Allow students to give input about how an activity, assignment or assessment should be scored. For example, ask students to generate a small number of criteria worth 10-25% of the activity grade, or ask students for feedback about what aspects of an assignment they find important and use that feedback to weight those aspects as appropriate.
Student-generated test questions – Ask students to work individually or in small groups to create potential test or quiz questions. This helps students prepare as they have to review the material to come up with potential questions. This also allows you to see what students think is important and address gaps ahead of time.

Helping students prepare

Creating self-assessment opportunities is one step in the process. You also want to help students make sense of the results and take action to improve before a high-stakes assessment.

Provide automated self-assessment feedback – Use the automated feedback boxes at the bottom of each survey or quiz question in your learning management system. When students review the survey or quiz results, the feedback should tell them where to go to review the concept behind each question, so they can answer it correctly on their next attempt.
Encourage self-organized self-assessment – Start a digital flash card deck (e.g., StudyBlue, Quizlet) for each lesson or module and encourage students to add to each deck.
Conduct self-assessment review sessions – To help students prepare for an assessment, use real-time self-assessment strategies that can be completed asynchronously as well. Platforms like Kahoot or Poll Everywhere allow you to ask different types of questions during a live class experience. Students who watch the recording later can answer those same questions, adding their results to each poll or to the quiz analytics. Discuss the results and what students can do to answer correctly in the future. Be sure to address the students studying on their own time.

Clarifying expectations

With flexible course experiences, students will need help determining how things work compared to traditional or online class experiences. If they are “mode switching,” they may have a hard time finding their place or remembering what to do. This means they need crystal clear instructions for assignments and assessments.

When you craft instructions for an assignment, include everything a student will need to be successful, but only what a student will need to be successful. Then streamline those instructions to remove unnecessary language.
If the instructions are long for good reason, create a tl;dr (“too long; didn’t read”) summary at the top.
Add a “Need help?” section with just-in-time links to relevant support, like librarian chat lines, tutoring centers, technology help desks, or software tutorials.

To take this concept a step further, we’ll look at the Transparent Assignment Template. The template is a tool that research has shown to help students—especially first-generation students—determine what to do, why they’re doing it and how they’ll know they did it well.

Transparent Assignment Template

The Transparent Assignment Template is used as “a guide for developing, explaining and discussing class activities and out-of-class assignments.” Building on the last slide, the template is designed to make each activity or assignment clear to every student. It does this by asking instructors to provide for each activity a purpose, a list of tasks to complete, and criteria or resources students can use to measure their success.

On a personal note, I adopted the Transparent Assignment Template throughout my entire course. I had seen the research that showed how using the template benefits students—especially first-generation, low-income and disproportionately impacted students. That summer I went through my course and converted all of my assignment instructions to follow the template’s format. I also did this with all of the prompts for reviewing content and for engaging in course activities.

The subsequent fall semester went well and at the end I received an email from a student who had gotten an A grade. He had failed the course the previous spring because he had stopped doing the work. He wanted to thank me specifically for revising the instructions throughout the course, closing his note with a powerful statement: “This time I knew what I was supposed to do.”

Template elements

As I mentioned the template has three main elements

First, state the purpose, which can include connecting the assignment to the learning outcomes; outlining what knowledge, skills and attitudes students will gain; and relating it to students’ lives.
Next, list the tasks, which may be steps in a process or a set of expectations. For a flexible course experience, keep in mind that there may be more than one list of tasks. You may have slightly different lists for in-person learners; for remote, real-time learners; or for asynchronous learners working on their own time.
Last, share criteria for success, which could take the form of a checklist, a rubric, or examples of quality work.

You can download the template from the Transparency in Learning and Teaching or TILT Higher Ed website.

Interpreting the template

To use student-friendly language, I view the template in the form of three questions:

Why are we doing this? (Purpose)
What are we supposed to do? (Tasks)
How will I know if I did it right? (Criteria)

Expanding the template

To increase learning equity, I have expanded the template a little.

For the Purpose, or the Why question, the template suggests making academic connections to learning outcomes, as well as personal connections to students’ lives beyond the course or campus. Whenever possible I’d add professional connections as well. For example, “completing this assignment will prepare you for doing similar projects in the workforce.” You can also ask students to make personal connections on their own, by including a prompt for them to do this as part of the assignment.
For the Tasks, or the What question, the template suggests outlining the process and expectations for the assignment or activity. I’d add a list of the formats students can use to submit their work. Not only does this support choice, as recommended by universal design for learning principles, but it also addresses issues of access. For example, if students only have a smartphone, then perhaps allow them to write an essay with pen and paper, and record themselves reading the essay as a voicemail message on a free Google voice phone number.
For the Criteria, or the How question, the template suggests providing checklists and examples as tools for students to check their work. Rather than criteria for success, I’d call it resources for success. I’d add links to any tutorials students might need to complete the tasks; links to academic support units like the library, the tutoring center, or the technology help desk; and links to non-academic support, like the wellness center or psychological services for students who need help with anxiety.

Activity 2.2

Now we’re going to practice using the Transparent Assignment Template as a tool to clarify instructions for class activities, assignments and assessments in a flexible course environment.

You’re going to use the Transparent Assignment Template Worksheet to create activity instructions that provide learners with the information they need to complete assignments during a flexible course experience.

If you’re in the room with me or if you’re online in real-time, I’ll give you about 10 minutes to download and begin completing the Transparent Assignment Template Worksheet. We’ll have a brief discussion about any observations you made or questions you have. You may not complete the entire worksheet in real-time, which is okay. You can finish on your own.
If you’re working on your own time, please download the Transparent Assignment Template Worksheet and complete it. When you are finished, return to the Micro-Lesson 2.2 video. You’ll hear the real-time participants begin a brief conversation about the template, and we’ll finish this discussion together with you online.

When you're ready, visit the Activity 2.2 discussion and share the before and after versions of your newly revised, flexible assessment strategies. If you want specific feedback, include that request in your post.