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Alternatives to Assessing Students with Quizzes/Exams

Start by reviewing your course objectives. Think about how else you might measure achievement of those goals. 

What about:

Presentations/Projects

  • assign topics or allow students to propose their own relevant and authentic ideas. Require cited research but allow students to pick their presentation method i.e. PPT, video, etc.

Interview

  • Meet with each student in Zoom for a 5 minute oral quiz

Forum Text Discussion

  • Cleverly crafted questions and mandatory peer replies can turn an essay response into a lively and informative conversation.

Role Play

  • Encourage students to look at an issue from the viewpoint of another by assigning roles based

on course objectives. Require students to respond to questions on the discussion board by answering them in character.

Assignment

  • Assign topics or allow students to propose their own. Require cited research when appropriate. 

VoiceThread Presentation/Discussion/Oral Interview

  • VT is integrated with Moodle and allows for asynchronous interaction between you and your students, and between students with the added enhancement of video and/or audio. Plus media is easily shared from a variety of sources.

Debate

  • Use any one of a variety of methods to have your students choose a side and defend it. Debates can take place synchronously or asynchronously with Zoom or within a Moodle discussion forum. Create Groups of enrolled users and either assign students to groups or use the Choice activity to allow them to team up on the side they prefer. Require cited research.

Guest Speaker

  • Use any one of a variety of methods to bring expertise to your class either synchronously or asynchronously with Zoom or a Google Doc. Require students to ask/submit thoughtful questions.

More ideas:

Oral interviews
Writing samples
Exhibitions
Experiments
Observation
Producing a commercial
Composing a song
Creating a flyer
Debating
Portfolios

Send an email to helpdesk@clarkson.edu and ask the TLC to help design your authentic assessment alternative to tests!

Learn more about Authentic Assessments.

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