TBers, 

 

I also found this interesting and thought many of you would enjoy it.
Bill Cerbin is a professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin
La Crosse. 

 

Jim Greenberg

 

 

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March 2009
A different way to think about assessment of student learning
This month's Carnegie Perspectives is written by Bill Cerbin. He was a
Carnegie Scholar, participating in the Carnegie Academy for the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in 1998 and 2003. He is professor
of psychology and director of the Center for Advancing Teaching &
Learning at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse where he also directs
the College Lesson Study Project
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=169e5afc0b&e=86cec7bb91> . 

We invite you to respond to the author of this piece through 
[log in to unmask] or you can join a public discussion
at Carnegie Conversations
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=7551f99359&e=86cec7bb91> .

________________________________


Assessing How Students Learn
By Bill Cerbin

In higher education the dominant mode of assessment is to measure what
students have learned in a course or program. By measuring what students
learn educators can monitor student progress, determine learning gaps
and gains, and document achievement. 

But measuring what students learn is of limited use if our goal is to
improve their future performance. It is akin to taking a person's
temperature. You may learn the individual has a fever but the
measurement produces no insight into the cause. Suppose we find that
students score in the 60th percentile on a standardized test or that
half the students in a course have significant writing problems. What
should we do to improve future performance? Unfortunately, the
assessment data provide little direction. The result is a kind of
guesswork by which we consider alternative teaching practices or
programs without understanding how or why they would work better than
standard approaches.

To reduce the guesswork we need assessment that reveals how students
learn-how they interpret and make sense of the subject, where they
stumble, what they do when they do not understand the material, how they
respond to different instructional practices, and so on. Understanding
the basis of student performance can help us identify appropriate
teaching practices or approaches. 

A compelling example of this form of assessment is the Berkeley calculus
project which took place more than 25 years ago. At the time there was a
large disparity between the performance of African American students and
other students in introductory calculus at UC Berkeley. About 40 percent
of African American students received grades of D or F in calculus
compared to about 5-6 percent of Caucasian and Asian students. Concerned
about the disparity, mathematics educator Uri Treisman decided to
explore the problem by focusing on how students learn. He wanted to
understand 

. . . how students actually learn calculus. Do they use the textbook?
With whom and why do they discuss homework assignments? What do they do
when they get stuck on a problem?-the really basic questions about how
students learn mathematics. (Uri Treisman's Dolciani Lecture
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=7d2f84d2ab&e=86cec7bb91> )


Treisman observed 40 students (20 African American and 20 Chinese
American) as they went about studying and learning calculus. He was able
to identify key differences in the ways that successful and unsuccessful
students tried to learn mathematics. For example, Chinese students
formed study groups outside of class and devoted their time to the most
difficult material rather than simply reviewing the mathematics they
already knew. They compared solutions, tested one another, and talked
through difficult concepts. The African American students also invested
a lot of time studying calculus, but did it alone. Only two ever studied
with classmates. 

Based on a detailed understanding of these patterns, Treisman
established a program to alter the way students learned calculus in the
course. It included, for example, "honors sections" of the course in
which small groups of students worked on particularly challenging
mathematics problems. The program addressed each obstacle that had been
uncovered by observing the students. After the changes were fully
implemented the percentage of D and F grades for African American
students dropped to 4 percent, a stunning improvement. (See a
contemporary version of the project at Emerging Scholars Program
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=c43e92ec7c&e=86cec7bb91> .)
   
A large scale study like the Berkeley project is not a practical option
for most teachers. However, assessing how students learn can be
integrated with classroom teaching. Teachers can scale down to examine
how students learn during a single exercise, assignment, or class
period, or focus on how they learn a specific concept, skill, or
ability. (See the Carnegie sponsored project, Strengthening
Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=d3c9163d74&e=86cec7bb91> .) 

Consider several methods accessible to most classroom teachers.

Observations of Student Learning. As the venerable American philosopher
Yogi Berra put it, "You can observe a lot just by watching." What better
way to explore how students learn than to observe them engaged in
learning during a class period? Teachers can do this during class
discussions, group work, active learning exercises, online chat or
discussion forums. Better yet, instructors can do periodic observations
of student learning in one another's classes and then meet to discuss
their findings.   

Think Aloud. The think aloud is a procedure during which students say
out loud what they are thinking while working on a task. Think aloud
pair problem solving involves student pairs, in which one student acts
as problem solver, the other as listener. The instructor circulates
among the pairs to observe students thinking aloud as they work on an
assigned task. 

Lesson Study. In lesson study several instructors jointly plan, teach,
observe and analyze student learning in the context of a single lesson.
As one member of the group teaches the lesson, the others observe
students and collect evidence of their learning. Lesson study allows
instructors to observe the interaction between instructional activities
and student learning during an entire class period. (See examples of
lesson studies by instructors at University of Wisconsin campuses at 
College Lesson Study Project
<http://carnegiefoundation.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a431e187233d197
870ff6cb18&id=b9bc88e409&e=86cec7bb91> .) 

Strategies that probe the learning process offer close up views of
students grappling with new material, engaging in complex thinking and
responding to instruction in the classroom. For example, when asked to
explain social behavior college students tend to rely on a single
dominant factor such as a person's upbringing or a personality trait.
Psychology instructors at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse used
lesson study to explore ways to move students beyond these everyday
theories of behavior. They designed a lesson in which students produced
more varied and comprehensive explanations consistent with
discipline-based models of behavior. But exposing students to the
"correct theory" and engaging them in more complex theorizing did not
change their minds. As one student said, "There may be all these other
factors but I still believe the way you act depends on what kind of
person you are." The episode prompted the instructor to develop sets of
mini-cases in which students used psychological principles to explain
behavior in "real life like" situations throughout the course.     

College teachers are aware of gaps in student learning as a result of
routinely grading their students' work. Encouraging teachers to assess
student learning as it takes place in the classroom can help them answer
questions about how and why the gaps exist. Assessing how students learn
can lead to the kind of information we need to make decisions about how
to improve teaching and learning.

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