Develop a balanced assessment plan
Once you’ve decided what types of assessments will best allow your students to demonstrate their learning and meet the course’s learning outcomes, the next step is to create a plan that considers the number of assignments, their diversity, weight and timing.
Key elements to consider for developing your assessment plan
- As you finalize each of the assessments for your course, you will need to consider them as a whole and determine if your strategy is balanced in relation to your learning outcomes and diverse in the methods you use.
- The weight of each assessment should be related to the effort of work required and the portion of the learning outcomes being assessed.
- The timing of assessments is influenced by many factors including the effort, pacing of the content and opportunities for feedback.
- When all your assessments measure specific learning outcomes and all of the learning outcomes are evaluated, you have achieved alignment.
Develop your assessment plan
An assessment plan is the list of the assignments, projects, quizzes, and exams, their descriptions, and the respective weightings and due dates for a specific course. Given that this information is required in all course syllabi, your assessment plan should include all of these elements.
Each assignment, test or exam should directly target one or more of your learning outcomes. Learn more in about planning your