14 How do We Make Assessment More Equitable?

Assessment refers to all formative and summative assignments, quizzes, discussions, group projects, etc. that students complete to achieve the learning objectives in your course.

There are many ways in which we can make our assessments more equitable, starting with ensuring the course structure is clear, that students are aware of the relevance and practical application of the learning, that more hands-on activities and less rote memorization are used, and the assessment emphasizes skill-building and problem-solving. Other examples include:

Transparent descriptions and evaluation criteria

Provide detailed descriptions of assessment items, including the purpose, how-to instructions, evaluation criteria, and examples. This will increase your teaching transparency and show that you care about students’ success. Consider this Transparent Assignment Template as an example of how to describe the assessment items.

Co-creating expectations

Involve students in co-creating evaluation expectations and suggesting questions for exams.

Submission format flexibility

Offer choice and flexibility of submission format that might align better with students’ interests, needs, and skills, and increase their agency. Can the assignment be submitted in the form of a video, podcast, sketch-noting illustration, think-aloud map, or poem? UDL and Assessment is a great resource to explore this topic further.

Multiple attempts

Give options to resubmit work. Could students have two attempts to complete an assignment? They receive your or peers’ thoughtful feedback for learning  on their first attempt, revise their work, and resubmit to obtain the final grade with additional feedback on their progress and additional areas of improvement.

Due date flexibility

Enable flexibility in submission dates. How important is it to you that all students submit the assignment by midnight on Sunday? Can there be a grace period which they can leverage just in case life happens or they need more time to do the final tweaks? Could students propose their own submission deadlines? Could you offer ‘do it another day’ as does Maha Bali in her compassionate design approach informed by Muslim fasting?

Reflecting on learning

Incorporate the practice of reflecting on learning in your assessment scheme. This will help students develop self-awareness about what they know and don’t yet know, as well as use that knowledge to help direct their future learning. It also helps make students’ learning visible to you. Just make sure to offer flexibility in the format of expression through written text, audio, or video, while at the same time providing detailed instructions and guiding questions for those who need them. Watch this video for an example of the what-so what-now what model of reflecting on learning:

Download the transcript of the What, So What, Now What Model video