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Assessment Checklist for Course Developers

Make Assessment the Focus

Assessments are an essential and initial component of the process of teaching and learning, and should be part of our thinking and planning (and our creation of course materials) from the very start. 

  • If we want our students to be able to do certain things (or think in certain ways) after they have taken our course, we should have those end goals in mind from the beginning.
  • Assessments are not just about assigning a grade at the end of a course — the intent is to help students do the things we want them to be able to do, not to penalize them. 
  • Finally, the objectives that you define at the outset of the course should match the skills/abilities that you will assess at the end.  Therefore, the weight you attach to the various assignments and assessments should roughly correspond to the importance you attach to each of the objectives you have set.

To encourage students to learn, our assessments should help them identify and address common misunderstandings, faulty mental models, and mistaken assumptions, that they may bring into a course with them. That’s why including a pre-assessment at the start of a course can be so helpful. 

As the course progresses, assessment should focus on enabling the student’s progress.  Embedded assessment items should help to gradually develop skills and abilities, and refine those through extensive and regular feedback.  Frequent “knowledge checks” (brief, low-stakes, easy-to-answer questions) are a good way to help students make sure they understand what you’ve just presented. For more information about classroom assessment techniques, visit the Learning Assessments page

Match Assessments with Applications

When developing a course for working professionals, assessments should match the real-world ways that students will use the information/skills. Some options to assess student learning beyond tests and quizzes include problem-based exercises, projects, group work, and portfolios. Additionally, consider the context of assessment: if students will need to use their learning in collaborative professional settings, then the assessment should mirror that setting as much as possible.  

Thinking in advance about what students should be able to do when they finish the course will also clarify what level of skill or proficiency you will accept as meeting basic course requirements.  If you use these principles when developing your course, with assessment at the forefront, it will help to create more powerful course materials, and provide a more effective learning experience for students.

Course Development Checklist

  • We examined prior course evaluations by students (for this or similar courses)
    • Note: Prior student evaluations for this or related courses/programs may be available through UWC2 Program Managers or Instructional Designers.  Be sure to access/request these materials before starting to develop your course.

A. [NORM-REFERENCED APPROACH TO GRADING]

Course assumes that students will finish at varying levels of proficiency, so we will grade them “on the curve” (a few get “A”s, more get “B”s, most get “C”s, etc.)

B. [CRITERION-REFERENCED APPROACH TO GRADING]

Course assumes that all students have achieved a common level of proficiency that accords with business/industry norms, so we will grade them with “pass” or “satisfactory” on completion of the course (provided that they reach our pre-defined level of proficiency).

  • We confirm that our students understand basic ideas as they move along
    • Note: Knowledge Checks are not the same as quiz or exam questions – they should be fairly easy for students to answer correctly if they have been following course material. Knowledge checks are a type of formative assessment, and are useful for students and instructors (in confirming that the concepts have been well presented).
    • Each major concept in our course is accompanied by at least one short (and relatively easy) knowledge check question to provide confirming feedback to students that they have understood the material.
    • When we present complex concepts, they are accompanied by multiple knowledge check questions to confirm that students understand component parts the material.
  • We build students’ skills progressively
    • Our course gives students opportunities to apply what they’ve learned to new settings and/or to novel kinds of problems.
    • Where we want students to apply ideas and concepts to a specific kind of task, we model that as a part of the course.
    • Where we want students to apply course concepts to solve new kinds of problems, we give them prompts so they can understand what sort of application we expect.

  • We are clear about how we expect students to satisfy course requirements
    • We announce clearly how we will assess students’ work and what factors will be included (including all assignments, projects, meeting deadlines, English grammar and usage, etc.)
    • We give practice questions, examples of good answers/solutions, models of past successful projects, etc.
  • We do our best to reduce subjectivity
    • We reduce variation in how student work is assessed by using a rubric to make sure we are considering comparable aspects of each student’s work.
    • If students wish to contest a grade or evaluation, we have given clear instructions for how they can do so
  • We encourage students to link their learning to what they’ve learned in prior courses, and we build a foundation for what they’ll learn in following courses
    • We provide reviews of the content of prior course(s) as needed.
    • We provide a summary at the end of our course.
    • We give an overview of following course(s), and suggest how students can prepare.
  • We align our course content and assessment approaches with external standards
    • We have checked sources of external (board, certificate, etc.) exams and provided links to their practice questions, sample exams, etc., for our students.
    • We help students prepare for external (board, certificate, etc.) exams by matching as closely as possible our assessment items and performance expectations with those used in the external exam.
  • We weight our assessments to match what we cover in our course
    • Our course content matches our Course Map/Table of Specifications.
    • The number and weight of assessment items matches what we intended at the start of this course development process.

More Resources on Assessment and Grading


Updated 05/14/21