Designing Gradekeeper for Instructors: A Guide to Equity-Minded Assessment

Inclusive, transparent, rigorous, authentic, and relevant - these five principles form the foundation of equity-minded assessment in education. As instructors, it is crucial to design assessments that cater to diverse learners, promoting fairness and accuracy in evaluating student performance. This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to create gradekeepers for instructors, highlighting best practices and practical strategies for crafting exams that are inclusive, transparent, rigorous, authentic, and relevant.

First and foremost, inclusivity is key when designing assessments. Scenarios, names, or contexts should reflect the lived experiences of diverse students, without assuming specific cultural knowledge. Providing practice questions that illustrate the types of questions they may encounter on the exam can especially help international and first-generation students who may be unfamiliar with predominant assessment strategies. For instance, including examples of real-world problems or scenarios that are relevant to students' interests and skills can make exams more engaging and accessible.

Transparency is another essential aspect of equity-minded assessment. Explicitly stating what knowledge and skills are being tested in the exam helps students understand the expectations and prepares them for success. This can involve multi-step problem-solving or requiring students to justify a given answer through reasoning. By doing so, instructors can ensure that students have a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

Rigor is also critical when designing assessments. Rather than focusing on recollection of facts, questions should test the application of skills or creation of new knowledge to novel or complex situations. This approach allows instructors to assess a range of learning outcomes, from lower-order cognitive skills such as recollection and understanding to higher-order cognitive skills like evaluation and application of concepts.

Authenticity is another important principle in equity-minded assessment. Exam questions should require students to apply skills that may be utilized in their professional and personal lives. For instance, critical thinking and collaboration are essential skills that can be assessed through case studies or problem-solving exercises.

Finally, relevance is crucial when designing assessments. Test concepts should align with course learning objectives, making exam questions meaningful and relevant to students' interests and skills.

In conclusion, designing gradekeepers for instructors requires a thoughtful and intentional approach to equity-minded assessment. By incorporating principles of inclusivity, transparency, rigor, authenticity, and relevance into exam design, instructors can create assessments that promote fairness, accuracy, and student success. Additionally, these principles can be applied to formative assessments, providing valuable insights into student learning throughout the course.

Types of Assessments

Exams can take various forms, including multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, labeling diagrams, or short answer questions. By incorporating a range of question formats, instructors can cater to diverse learners and make exams more engaging and accessible. When designing assessments, it is essential to consider the principles of equity-minded assessment and provide suggestions for ways to design these assessments to be inclusive, transparent, rigorous, authentic, and relevant.

Gradekeeper for instructors