Guidelines for Faculty for Assessment

As with any type of assessment, assessment of experiential learning activities should always be conducted with the goals of the activity in mind. Backwards design, as the process is called, involves setting out specific learning objectives for a unit, planning student activities and assignments in order to achieve those objectives, and assessing student work as evidence of their progress toward those objectives. 

For faculty teaching undergraduate courses, the learning outcomes of the BU Hub provide a natural starting point for this kind of backwards design. Within this approach, a group project with experiential learning culminating in a final slideshow and presentation to an outside client may be assessed differently depending on the focus of the learning outcomes in different courses.

If the course has specific learning outcomes in teamwork and collaboration, for example, faculty will want to assess students’ teamwork explicitly. If the course has a digital/multimedia expression learning outcome, more emphasis may be placed, in assessment, on the slides themselves. If the course is focused on oral and signed communication learning outcomes, on the other hand, assessment may place more emphasis on students’ delivery of the presentation accompanying the slides. For each different set of learning outcomes, therefore, faculty will want to use specific criteria and rubrics that assess those outcomes.

Individual and/or Group Assessment

Faculty will need to decide between individual and group assessment (or a combination of the two), based in part on the structure of their experiential learning task and their purpose for including it in the course. Note that many, though by no means all, experiential learning projects are group-based; in those contexts, instructors may decide to assess only the group work (sometimes including process as well as final products/deliverables) or the group work plus an adjustment to the grade based on individual contributions (sometimes based on peer assessments from a student’s groupmates).

• BU’s own Questrom Team Learning site provides a robust collection of resources and rubrics for faculty assessing teamwork and group final products. These resources are particularly applicable for longer-term group projects, and they include samples of team contracts, peer assessments, and video clips about the importance of an equitable and inclusive approach to assessment, as well as how to grade team performance or assess team learning. 
• Tufts University offers insights for deciding when to use groups, forming groups, attending to group dynamics, and grading. Tufts also shares ways to encourage students to learn from each other in groups, detailing types such as buzz groups (discussion focused), or jigsaw groups (each person completes a discrete task).]
• Albertus Magnus College provides guidance and examples on how to assess a student’s learning during a group activity/project as well as the content knowledge acquired after the group activity/project. 

Ungrading and Nontraditional Assessment

In some cases, faculty will prioritize ungrading and nontraditional assessment over formal, traditional grading. For faculty looking for resources on equitable and inclusive assessment:

• Alternative Approaches to Traditional Grading provides an overview of nontraditional assessment
• The College of Arts & Sciences Writing Department has created this Equity in Writing Assessment Guide centered on alternative grading techniques
• The department also links to an instructor guide that includes example projects with assessment and reflection tools, and another one that guides you in working with students to create a rubric together for oral presentations

There are also many short videos in the Center for Teaching & Learning-Digital Learning & Innovation lightning talk video library exploring different ways of assessing and reflecting. 

• Reimagining the Grading Paradigm is a series of five short virtual talks on different aspects of ungrading
• Learn some tips for summative assessment that center around peer feedback in this talk
  

Rubrics

When developing rubrics, or adapting some of the samples linked below, faculty will need to consider whether to use student-created rubrics, instructor-created, or a combination of the two. In some cases, instructors may ask students to identify particular areas for growth for themselves (individually or as a group) and may then assess students specifically on their progress in those areas. At other times, instructors (or even outside partners) have specific criteria in mind for the final product, and these final criteria might translate naturally to a rubric.

MetroBridge offers resources and support for faculty who want to include experiential learning in their courses while collaborating with outside partners. The resources provided are very helpful for faculty who are not sure where to begin assessing experiential learning when the product is designed for an outside partner.

• Longer-term projects may also be assessed differently–with a greater emphasis on process and on team contributions, perhaps–than a one-shot project that is shorter in duration
• Larger classes, with up to 200 students engaged in similar projects, may have a different approach to assessment than smaller classes, as faculty will need to consider how many peer or self-evaluations they can realistically review and consider as part of their grading process.

In all cases, though, faculty should approach assessment transparently and with an eye to potential equity concerns; some of the resources linked in the section below specifically address these concerns.

Additional Note on Assessment and the BU Hub

Many courses that use experiential learning activities carry Hub unit of Teamwork/Collaboration, which emphasizes “the ability to collaborate with these diverse groups …[and] to collaborate with people from different backgrounds and with different perspectives, build consensus, and compromise for the good of a broader purpose.”

Given the learning outcomes for this Hub unit, faculty will want to ensure that students don’t merely work in teams to complete an assignment, but that they are actually able “to identify the characteristics of a well-functioning team” (LO1), “assign and undertake roles and responsibilities amongst members of a team; give and receive feedback within their own team and to meaningfully process this and other feedback, such as from additional teams, from an instructor, and/or in self-reflection; [and]… engage in meaningful group reflection.”

Additional Hub units that are relevant for assessing experiential learning activities range from Oral/Signed Communication to Creativity/Innovation, and more; faculty will want to carefully consider their primary course learning outcomes in order to decide which aspects of an experiential learning project to emphasize in assessment.