Friday was really fun and helpful! Today in my senior thesis class I tried something a little different. In mid class I told students I'd be asking them at the end of class for a statement of what they learned. I was thinking that this would trigger their meta-cognition, and reinforce their learning. I think it helped-- I got more specific information in this series of 1 minute papers than usual. I also asked them specifically what databases they would be using, and again, got very specific and diverse responses.

Currently, I do what I call "assessment by walking around." My classes are primarily hands on, and this allows me to rove the room observing what students are actually doing in response to my prompts. It allows students to ask individual questions as they arise, and it allows me to provide individualized feedback based on what I'm seeing. When I see that several students are having problems with a particular activity, I can take appropriate corrective action on my part. In the past, I have tried the 3-minute paper and muddiest point techniques, as well as testing for the acquisition of particular knowledge. I personally prefer the "walking around" method because in encourages greater interaction and engagement.

I use a lot of online evals for my hands-on classes, such as http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J8CP3NG. I also do the "assessment by walking around" Pat describes above - thanks, Pat, for reminding me that this walking around IS assessment! I find that I revise my classes each time at least a little bit based on feedback.

I do the 1-min assessment where they answer two questions, "what was the most important thing you learned today?" and "do you have any other questions?". After class I compile all the questions, answer them, and send out a doc with all the questions/answers to the class teacher to forward to the students.

Recently I switched from using index cards for these assessments to having them online, but I found that far fewer students took the assessment when it was online than when they were given index cards. So I switched back to the cards. Michael, do you get a lot of responses with your online survey?

Hi Lisa - our online evals or in the context of a hands-on class where folks are at a PC already. Generally most if not all folks fill them out, tho not all respond to all the questions.