Language of Assessment
Assessment: The process of
gathering information to make decisions. In an education
context, assessment is the process of observing learning:
describing, collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting
information about a student’s or one’s own learning.
Capstone: A culminating
educational experience that assesses the range of a student’s
learning over perhaps the entirety of his or her involvement in
a program or department.
Criteria: The particular
standards that will be considered when a task is judged.
Criteria are often defined in a rubric or scoring guide.
Department
Mission: An
educational unit’s general goals related to to student success.
Department
Objectives:
Specific activities a department will engage in to reach its
mission.
Performance-Based Assessment:
Systematic observation and rating of student performance of an
educational objective. Such assessment is often an ongoing
observation over a period of time and typically requires the
student to finish products. The assessment should be a
real-world performance generally assessed with a scoring guide
or rubric.
Portfolio: A collection of
student work that tells the story of the student’s growth as a
learner over a period of time such as a quarter or semester.
Portfolios may be assessed in a variety of ways. Each piece
might be individually scored, the portfolio might be assessed
merely for the presence of required pieces, or the portfolio
might be assessed holistically with an evaluation made on the
basis of an overall impression of the student’s collected work.
It is common for assessors to work together to establish
consensus about standards in order to insure greater uniformity
of evaluation.
Rubric: An established set of
criteria for scoring or rating student performance.
Student
Learning Outcomes:
Descriptions (in action terms) of what a student should know or
be able to do after completing an assignment, a unit, or even an
entire course.
Last updated:
November 15, 2007
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