Aligning Assessment with Learning

Julie Schell, EdD
Director of OnRamps and Strategic Initiatives, Office of Strategy and Policy
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy
The University of Texas at Austin
 

Why do students spend hours and hours studying, only fail to reach their potential on high-stakes assessments? Most students develop their personal learning strategies over an extended period, through trial and error, by observing others, and with limited instruction on how to learn effectively. As a result, students' learning strategies fundamentally misaligned with how faculty assess learning during exams. This misalignment is rarely, if ever interrupted during a student's educational experience. 

Learning Objectives: 

-Explain how student learning and testing are fundamentally misaligned
-Design assessment strategies to address this misalignment
-Use assessment to both cause and to evaluate student learning 
-Interrupt students' ineffective approaches to learning for tests