Determining+Assessments

Consider the principles of effective assessment design described in Chapter 6 of //Instructional Design//, as well as in the article, “Seven Practices for Effective Learning.” Think about the characteristics of effective assessment instruments and the different formats available. Based on your knowledge, which format(s) do you think is/are best suited for your group’s curriculum? What type of items do you think should be included within these formats to assess learners’ achievement of the learning objectives?


 * //By Monday//**, the Week 3 Facilitator should create a page in the group wiki designated for “Assessments.”

Return to your group wiki and review the assessment suggestions posted by your group members. How do your ideas compare with those of your colleagues? Do some ideas overlap? Do the ideas of your colleagues cause you to have a different perspective?
 * //By Wednesday//**, post to your group wiki a description of 1–3 assessment instruments that you think should be included in your group’s curriculum design proposal. For each instrument, identify its format, describe the general content it would include, and incorporate at least one sample item. Include a brief rationale explaining why you believe each of your suggestions would be effective.

It is the responsibility of the Week 3 Facilitator to review each group member’s suggestion and create a final set of assessment instruments that reflects the majority opinion.
 * //By Friday//**, each group member should post his or her suggestion for the group’s final assessment instruments (the group must present at least two in the proposal). These suggestions should reflect a combination of what you consider to be the best ideas from all group members.


 * //By Sunday//**, the Week 3 Facilitator should post the final list of assessment instruments to the group wiki. Each assessment instrument should be accompanied by a description of its format and general content, at least one example of an item that would be included within it, and a brief rationale for why it would be effective. Group members should visit the wiki, review the list, and use the wiki or other communication means to resolve any disagreements. In addition, the Facilitator should post the URL of this wiki content to the Week 3 area of the Group Project discussion board.

Your Instructor will visit your group’s wiki to ensure that all group members participated in this assignment and to approve your group’s assessment instruments.

** Trevor’s Proposed Assessments **

** Observation of On-the-Job Performance ** This would require the assistance of an experienced employee of the museum or an equally experienced volunteer who would then “shadow” the volunteer while they were on a shift and use either a rating system (to be designed) or keep general notes of each volunteer’s performance after completing the new training course. Last week’s goals and objectives could be used to create a rating system. It could consist of a scale from 1 to 5 with each number representing a degree of proficiency (5 being the highest). This would be useful in determining not only the effects of the new training course but also the general level of proficiency each volunteer has and in establishing a performance standard for the future.

** Rationale ** I believe this would be effective because it is simple, direct, and I’ve seen it used commonly in places I’ve personally worked in. Numbers always seem to help bring clarity. It also gives management and training far more specific feedback as to what employees are doing right or wrong on the job. This kind of information can be very difficult to acquire any other way.

** Pencil and Paper Test ** Questions could be written and scenarios proposed which would deliberately challenge volunteer’s abilities and force them to recall the key points of their training. Formats could vary between multiple choice and short essay questions asking such things as “Who should you forward an upset customer’s phone call to?” (in the case of multiple choice) or “Describe how to access, edit, and save customer information in the Excel database”.

** Rationale ** This would be a far less time consuming method of assessing each volunteer’s level of understanding and general proficiency after the new training course. It would also be extremely cost-efficient as volunteers could all take the test together at the same time thus saving the expense of a paid employee following each one around in order to observe them. Also, the pressure of taking a test may show such things as how the volunteers respond to stress and how well they can retain information. = = =__Suzanne's Proposed Assesments__= Goals 1 and 2 Rationale: **This will allow the coordinator to gauge the volunteers knowledge, performance and comfort level in working with guests.**
 * Assessment**
 * Walk through and Observation - Volunteer will give a guided tour the volunteer coordinator. During this tour the volunteer will be able to talk about the artists, influences and mediums, and be asked questions typical of a museum guest.**


 * Goal 3**

**Assessment**

 * Multiple Choice Quiz: museum policies and exhibits.**


 * Goals 4 and 5**
 * Assessment**
 * Hand On Lab - Use a pre-constructed Excel workbook and give the volunteer a series of tasks they must achieve. These tasks will consists of the skills necessary to maintain the museum database. In addition, the volunteer will be given an email exercise.**
 * Rationale: This will not only test the volunteer's knowledge but will also give them additional hands on experience before working with official museum records.**

Kyong's Assessments **1.**** Observation of On-the-Job Performance Assessment: **

The on-the-job performance assessment provides validity and reliability to the skills and knowledge congruent to the learning objectives. Each volunteer can demonstrate the role and responsibilities acquired from the learning goals and objective, such as goal #1 and #3. The director can observe and measure whether the volunteers are competent or not in describing, identifying the specialized paintings, and show proficiency in using Excel program to add, edit, and search patrons information. A rating scale or checklist instrument can assess the evaluation of completeness and consistency of learning.

** Rationale: ** This item of performance assessment provides validity, reliability, and practicality to the skills and knowledge congruent to the learning objectives. In addition, the rating scale or checklist can be applied for future volunteers.

**2.** ** Recall and recognition items assessments: ** The form of multiple choices, short answers, and fill in the blank questions assess knowledge from memorization demonstrating declarative knowledge and higher intellectual skills. These items are good learning assessments for number 2, 3, and 4 learning goals and objectives.

** Rationale: ** These items provide simpler and quick assessment when time and costs are factor in the learning assessment of the learning objectives, which the trade-off practicality in performance for validity and reliability in learning skills.

The on the job performance assessment will require the assistance of a more experienced volunteer. Each volunteer will team with an experience volunteer to conduct their first tour of the museum. Each new volunteer would have to demonstrate their knowledge gained through the training process. A training checklist can be used to gain an assessment of their knowledge through training.
 * Lita’s Assessment **
 * Observation of On-the-Job Performance **

Newly hired staff members are often teamed with more experienced team members to train and identify knowledge gained through training. The more experienced volunteers can observe the consistency, and confidence of the volunteer. This method of assessment is often used.
 * Rationale **:

This assessment and can be given in the form of a multiple choice questions, video simulation where there is a pause to allow a response or scenarios where each volunteer is allow to participate and respond to situations they may encounter.
 * Recall Assessment **

In this assessment, the items are constructed in ways that the volunteer has to respond and can relate to real-life situations. The Director can assess knowledge from memory
 * Rationale **:

**Assessments (Ann)**:

**Goals #1** Given resource materials about 19th and 20th century American painters, volunteers will describe the paintings when leading a museum tour.

Objectives: Objective 1: Given handout sheets and slide on 19th and 20th century American painters, volunteers can identify, recall, and match the paintings to the correct artists and identify the medium.

This objective is stating that: upon completion of the instruction, learners will be able to “Identify” “recall” and “match” the paintings to the correct artists and identify the medium. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, I determined that the action verb “identify” indicates “evaluation,” and both “recall” and “match” indicate knowledge. So, based on the objective, we are stating that we want to assess different learning outcomes with this objective (i.e. evaluation and knowledge). In this situation, I suggest a pencil and paper test, where we can develop different question types to assess both “declarative knowledge” on whether the leaner can recall or match the paintings with the correct artists; and we could also build in some “constructed answer” type questions to assess the “higher intellectual skills” required to show evaluation learning outcomes (Ragan and Smith, 2005).

**Rationale:** The pencil and paper assessment makes the most sense for this goal because it will allow us to assess both knowledge and evaluation using just one assessment tool (Ragan and Smith, 2005).

Reference: Ragan, T. J., & Smith, P. L. (2005) Instructional design (3rd ed.).Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Bloom, Benjamin (1956) Verbs to Use in Creating Educational Objectives (Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) Retrieved June 22, 2011, from EDUC-3004-1 Curriculum Design, Document Sharing, @http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/dcs/DocView.learn?CourseID=5307662&47=7081468&dt=6%2F22%2F2011+11%3A25%3A28+PM&DocID=28480002&DocCollab_PK=39090419&Name=blooms%5Ftax%5Fverbs.pdf

 **Goals 1 and 2**  **Assessment**  **Walk through and Observation - Volunteer will give a guided tour the volunteer coordinator. During this tour the volunteer will be able to talk about the artists, influences and mediums, and be asked questions typical of a museum guest.**  **Rationale: This will allow the coordinator to gauge the volunteers knowledge, performance and comfort level in working with guests.**  **Goal 3**  **Multiple Choice Quiz: museum policies and exhibits.**  **Goals 4 and 5**  **Assessment**  **Hand On Lab - Use a pre-constructed Excel workbook and give the volunteer a series of tasks they must achieve. These tasks will consists of the skills necessary to maintain the museum database. In addition, the volunteer will be given an email exercise.**  **Rationale: This will not only test the volunteer's knowledge but will also give them additional hands on experience before working with official museum records.**