1. Classroom Assessment Techniques
Dr. Steve Sorden
Director, CTLE-Prescott
Faculty Brownbag Session
September 25, 2012

2. The Value of Using CATs in the
Classroom
http://youtu.be/Cz2bbW1S5o8
WMV | FLV

3. Agenda
• Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Invited Speakers
– Brian Davis
– Julio Benavides
– Angela Beck
– Quentin Bailey
• Discussion

4. The Classic on CATs
The standard reference on CATs is Classroom
Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College
Teachers,
Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-
Bass, 1993).
Contains 50 college-level CATs that
are indexed in a variety of ways.

5. Classroom Assessment Techniques
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally
simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities
designed to give you and your students useful feedback on
how well students are learning or are prepared to learn the
class material.
Most are designed to be quick and easy to use and each
CAT provides different kinds of information.

6. Levels of Assessment
• Summative Assessment
– Course Level
– Program Level
• Formative Assessment
– Classroom assessment is both a teaching approach and a
set of techniques.
– The more you know about what and how students are
learning, the better you can plan learning activities to
structure your teaching.

7. Why should I use CATs?
CATs can be used to improve the teaching and learning that
occurs in a class. More frequent use of CATs can…
– Provide just-in-time feedback about the teaching-learning process
– Provide information about student learning with less work than
traditional assignments (tests, papers, etc.)
– Encourage the view that teaching is an ongoing process of inquiry,
experimentation, and reflection
– Help students become better monitors of their own learning
– Help students feel less anonymous, even in large courses
– Provide concrete evidence that the instructor cares about learning

8. Why CATs Are Important
ASU Physics Professor David Hestenes had taught the
fundamental concept of force to thousands of undergraduates.
The students could recite Newton’s Third Law and apply it to
solving problems, but when posed a real-world event like a
collision between a heavy truck and a light car, many firmly
declared that the heavy truck exerts a larger force.
This, despite being taught repeatedly during the semester that
an object’s weight is irrelevant to the force exerted.

9. Eric Mazur at Harvard
Mazur did a classroom assessment with his own
physics students at Harvard. The first question one of
his students asked:
“How should I answer these questions—according to
what you taught me, or how I usually think about these
things.”

10. How Should I use CATs
1. Decide what you want to assess about your students’
learning from a CAT.
2. Choose a CAT that provides this feedback, is consistent with
your teaching style, and can be implemented easily in your
class.
3. Explain the purpose of the activity to students, and then
conduct it.
4. After class, review the results, determine what they tell you
about your students’ learning, and decide what changes to
make, if any.
5. Let your students know what you learned from the CAT and
how you will use this information.

11. Examples of CATs
• The Muddiest Point • Keystroke Reports
• The Minute Paper • Defining Features
• Background Knowledge Matrix
Probe • Online CATs
• Self-Confidence • Classroom Response
Surveys Systems
• Empty Outlines

12. The Muddiest Point

13. The Minute Paper
Tests how students are learning, or not.
The instructor ends class by asking students to write a
brief response to the following question on a half sheet
of paper:
What is the most important thing I learned today
and what did I understand the least?

14. Online Version of the Minute Paper
1. What is the one thing that helped you most in this
week's activities?
2. What is the one thing in this course that is least
helpful to your learning?
Useful as a quick
ungraded assessment
for the teacher, a
reflective opportunity
for the student, and a
chance for mentoring
and dialog with other
students.

15. Two Minute Paper

16. The Background Knowledge Probe
The Background
Knowledge Probe is
a short, simple
questionnaire given
to students at the
start of a course, or
before the
introduction of a new
unit, lesson or topic.
It is designed to
uncover students’
pre-conceptions.

17. Empty Outlines
In a limited amount of time, outline some portion of the
lecture or lesson.

18. Keystroke reports for technology
With a partner, record the steps need to perform a task
using a specific tool

19. What’s the Principle?
Useful in courses requiring problem-solving. After
students figure out what type of problem they are
dealing with, they often must decide what principle(s)
to apply in order to solve the problem.
This CAT provides students with a few problems and
asks them to state the principle that best applies to
each problem.

20. Defining Features Matrix
Best used in courses that require student to distinguish
between closely related or seeming similar items or
concepts.
• Psychology – Freudian and behaviorist views
• Political Science – Federalism in U.S., Germany &
Canada
• Biology – Neanderthals and Homo sapiens

21. Defining Features Matrix
Features Institutional Classroom
Assessment Assessment
Teacher-designed and directed - +
Large sample sizes required + -
Sophisticated statistical data analysis required + -
Standardized and validated instruments preferred + -
Focused o classroom teaching and learning - +
Replicable and comparable + -
Useful to students and teachers - +
Useful to administrators + -
Aims to improve quality of education + +

22. Double-Entry Journals
• Provides detailed feedback on how students read,
analyze, and respond to assigned texts, problems,
and formulas.

23. Online CATs
• Email
• Surveys in Blackboard
• Surveys in Google Docs
• Journals in Blackboard

24. Classroom Response Systems (Clickers)
• Poll Anywhere (mobile phones, twitter, texting and
the web)
• Top Hat Monocle - http://www.tophatmonocle.com
• Socrative (apps for iOS & Android)
• i>clickers

25. Resources
Field Tested Learning Assessment Guide:
CATs for Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology
Instructors
http://www.flaguide.org/cat/cat.php
Classroom Assessment Techniques. Vanderbilt University.
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/assessment/cats
Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College
Teachers. Angelo & Cross, 1993.

26. Classroom Assessment Techniques
Dr. Steve Sorden
Director, CTLE-Prescott
Faculty Brownbag Session
September 25, 2012