Assessment Plan

Assessment Plan: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century

Annotation

Context and Conditions

This project was completed in Summer 2006 as a product of my experience in Assessment of Learning Outcomes under the guidance of Dr. Abdou Ndoye. In this project, I utilized strategies for developing assessment items based on the desired learning outcomes for an online professional development course for teachers. The foundation for this plan came from Linn and Miller’s Measurement and Assessment in Teaching (2002). The plan includes a proposal describing the plan goals, a description of expected learning outcomes and aligning assessments, and actual tools that would be used to measure participant achievement.

Scope

This project served as an assessment plan for an online course that I developed in MIT 515: Web Teaching – Design and Development. The course was designed as a way of increasing teacher awareness of the North Carolina State Board of Education’s new strategic plan, “Future Ready Students for the 21st Century,” as one component of a systemic change initiative. The assessment plan outlines methods that will be used to measure teacher understanding of the initiative. It provides strategies for course instructors to determine participant understanding of the initiative and drive instructional methods within the course. The final assessment will segue into a content-based second course that will focus on change at a more personal level. The purpose of the online course series is to facilitate change at not only the state level, but the district, school and classroom levels as well. While the online course and assessment plan have been developed, the course has not yet been implemented in Pender County Schools. The system has selected a learning management system and will begin to offer online courses to teachers. This course and assessment plan will be used in the next year.

Role

For both the course and assessment plan, I served as both instructional designer and developer. For the plan, I articulated all learning outcomes, aligned assessment strategies to the goals and developed assessment tools for instructors to use when teaching the online course.

Reflection

This project increased my understanding of assessment within the domains of instructional design and evaluation. The development of assessment activities and tools aligned to intended course outcomes helped me to deliver a course that was measurable. This will provide change agents with a common language and perspective about teacher understanding to inform stages of the change process. As a result of this course, my ability to develop effective measurement techniques has improved and my knowledge of assessment and evaluation has increased. Information about different ways of assessing a variety of learning outcomes has proved invaluable in my instructional designs.