Feedback & Alternative Assessments

Feedback is a powerful form of providing students with information about their learning relative to their goals or outcomes of the course. Meaningful feedback redirects or refocuses the learner’s actions to achieve a goal by identifying strengths and areas of improvement that promote further learning. To provide equitable feedback, instructors should ensure this information is:

• Clear.
• Easy to understand for every language level.
• Free of cultural or gender-based content.
• Useful and usable by the student to make improvements and succeed.

Instructors can pair feedback with alternative assessments to support student learning and growth. These assessments can be more engaging for students as they provide opportunities for creativity and critical thinking. In addition, instructors can provide ongoing feedback throughout the assessment process focusing on the quality of work, areas for improvement, and specific strategies or resources to support learning.

Alternative Assessments

Alternative assessments differ from traditional assessments, such as multiple-choice tests, exams, or essays and often require students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in multiple ways. Alternative assessments can be more flexible and personalized to better align with students’ strengths and abilities. These assessments are:

• Accessible, e.g., are considerate of students’ diverse learning needs.
• Authentic, e.g., are related to student life and work environments (Villarroel et al., 2018).
• Co-created through a partnership with the instructor and student (O’Neill, 2011).
• Continuous, e.g., not limited to one high stake assessment.
• Culturally Responsive, e.g., are based on student groups, who they are, and what matters to them (Ebe, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2021; Snow et al., 2021).
• Engaging, e.g., cater to students’ learning interests.
• Have Multiple Forms, e.g., allow students to demonstrate their learning in different ways.
• Flexible, e.g. offer choice of assessment styles or types to support diverse student groups (Garside et al., 2009; Mogey et al., 2019; O’Neill, 2017).
• Interdisciplinary, e.g., connect students to learning to other courses, disciplines, and the real world.
• Renewable, e.g., add value to a student’s personal or professional experience, such as a portfolio of their work, art, or other forms of learning.

Examples of alternative assessments can include projects requiring students to apply what they have learned creatively, portfolios demonstrating student growth and learning over time, and interactive activities allowing students to apply their learning in a realistic context. In addition, problem-based assessments can engage students with real-world problems that they work to solve, or performance-based assessments require students to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in real-world settings.