Moving Forward: Teaching in Uncertain Times

Community Blog on online, hybrid, and F2F teaching during the pandemic

Small Teaching: Using Frequent, Low-Stakes Assessments

A laptop with stickers, a student planner, a backpack on a table You may have already encountered the term “Small Teaching” by now, whether it was in a previous blog post or in a CETLOE workshop, but if not, a simple overview would be that it is  a pedagogical theory and practice described by James Lang in his book Small Teaching:  Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (2016) and expanded upon with Flower Darby in Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes (2019).  In his original book, Lang describes how teachers can use small, frequent, and flexible interventions in teaching to have big, positive impacts on student learning.  Without delving too deep into the science here (though I highly recommend reading the book!), Lang argues that people learn best with repeated practice and self-testing.  In one study, students who had repeated testing before an exam retained the information at higher rates a week after the assessment compared to students who had repeated study sessions but only one self-test. So, Lang argues, rather than passively “studying”, students should engage with the material using the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and then have the chance to test their own learning in frequent, low-stakes assessments.  So what does that look like in the classroom and online?

When and How to Use Frequent, Low-Stakes Assessments

Low-stakes assessments, typically formative, involve frequent opportunities to assess students (or have students assess themselves) with little to no effect on final grades. Lang identifies three major “parts” of learning  predictionretrieval, and interleaving, and these can roughly be parsed into the stages of a class or lesson: preparing to learn and “activating” prior knowledge, practicing and assessing that learning, and finally applying the knowledge in order to making connection with prior and future learning.  To help students engage and learn on a deeper level, instructors can build in short, quick assessment activities that prompt prediction, retrieval, and interleaving.

Preparing to Learn (prediction)

Preparing to learn includes the work students do before class (homework, reading) and the first few minutes of a class (or the first “topic” in an iCollege module).

One Small Teaching strategy to help students prepare to learn is to activate prior knowledge: ask the students what they already know about the topic, or what they recall from the previous class or online module that connects to this topic.  In the face-to-face classroom this could be a “1-minute paper at the beginning of class; online this could be a survey or quiz.

Another strategy is to have students  predict how the new material (that they have potentially already read about in preparation for class) will connect to the previous content or skills they learned. In an in-person class, this could be an anonymous online poll (using Poll Everywhere for example); in iCollege this could be a discussion board post or a survey.

“Hit Pause”: Understanding, Practicing and Self-Assessing (retrieval)

In a face-to-face class, we can often tell when the students are confused or are not engaging and we know we need to “hit pause” and check their learning.  We might do this with a quick quiz, an engagement exercise like a think-pair-share, or using clickers on an online poll. In the online setting, we need to build-in moments for students to check and practice their learning.  One way to do this is a self-assessment rubric in which students assess their mastery of a concept.

Another option is to build in small, short, low- or no-grade quiz that is required to unlock the next module. (Read how to do this using the “conditional release function” HERE). You can set the next module to only release on until the student achieves 100% on the mastery quiz and allow the student to re-take the quiz as many times as they need. Be sure to make the quiz short and low-stakes. You could decide for it not to count for or against the final grade, but that 100% unlocks the next part of the assignment or module. 

Application and Connection (interleaving)

Ideally, we know that before students leave our class, we should give them time to reflect on what they’ve learned and make connections to other contexts.  Instructors who do this often use 1-minute reflection papers, “exit ticket” quizzes, or homework assignments that prompt students to make connections in their learning. Online we can use the same strategies, asking students to summarize key concepts, reflect on what they’ve learned and identify areas of confusion. In iCollege, instructors can use Voice Threads, discussion board posts, or external tools (see a great list here). Again, these should all be short and low-stakes, but they give the student the chance to check their learning and you the ability to monitor their progress.

For more ideas for ways to include small teaching strategies in your course, check out this Small Teaching Inventory. Good luck!

kcrowther • February 9, 2021


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