How to Start and Other Issues to Consider When Designing Accessible, Flexible and Equitable Assessment and Resources
Designing inclusive and accessible assessments is a time-consuming process that involves several steps. It is not one that should be performed by a single member in your department. The following are some recommendations to help make this important and vital task less overwhelming.
Planning Stages
- Consult your colleagues and agree on which alternative assessments are acceptable and appropriate for your field. Consider creating your own departmental Canvas resources portal and/or Google Doc with a list of options, examples and sample activities.
- Use culturally relevant and representative materials: Integrate diverse perspectives and experiences into assessment design and course materials, such as using examples and case studies that represent different cultures, abilities and backgrounds.
- Support metacognition, the awareness of one’s own thoughts and learning processes, by providing learning style questionnaires, self-assessment opportunities and reflection questions for learning development (i.e., strengths, weaknesses, what to do differently in the future, etc.); build it into the course evaluation and connect it to specific assignments (e.g., exam “wrappers”).
- Provide a variety of options when possible, but not too many. Limit the student choices to 2-3 per assignment; having to deal with too many choices will increase cognitive load. For example, if you have a variety of options to demonstrate knowledge (e.g., podcast, poster, essay, video, performance piece, etc.), for one assignment give 3 options and for the next, offer 3 different ones.
- Remediate (i.e., make compliant with ADA standards) all existing Word docs, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations.
- Use the built-in Canvas feature, UDOIT to verify the accessibility of all Canvas portals.
Assessment Criteria
- Provide assessment criteria: Ensure that students are aware of the assessment criteria and expectations for each task by providing clear guidelines and rubrics.
- When allowing alternatives for how to demonstrate knowledge, use a rubric with common expectations that specifies what needs to be addressed.
- Consider cultural biases: Be mindful of potential cultural biases in assessment questions and rubrics, and ensure that they are fair and equitable for all students.
Assessment Implementation
- Consider more frequent formative testing, such as “low-stakes” quizzes, to promote long-term retention, identify gaps in knowledge, improve transfer of knowledge to new contexts, etc.
- Provide opportunities for practice and feedback: Offer opportunities for students to practice assessment tasks and receive feedback before formal assessment to help them develop their skills and confidence.
- Provide culturally sensitive feedback: Offer feedback that is sensitive to students' cultural backgrounds and identities to promote a sense of belonging and respect
- Provide timely and constructive feedback: Offer regular and specific feedback on student work, using clear and actionable language that promotes learning and improvement.
- Use multiple feedback methods: Employ a variety of feedback methods, such as written comments, verbal feedback, peer feedback, color-coding for different categories of errors and self-assessment to cater to different learning styles and preferences.
- Create a safe and supportive feedback environment: Foster a classroom culture where students feel comfortable receiving and providing feedback and promote open communication and a growth mindset.
- Facilitate open communication: Encourage open communication between students and instructors regarding assessment procedures and expectations and address any questions or concerns.