High-stakes assignments are used to gage a student’s learning at the end of a course or a major portion of a course, involve evaluation of a complete product, and have significant weight on a student’s grade. They are summative and require demonstration that a student has mastered the material and has learned key course concepts and skills. Examples include midterm or final exams, term papers, or other major projects.
However, relying on one or two assignments to assess student learning can be problematic. When students’ grades are based almost exclusively on a few major assignments, students often feel anxiety and may even become so desperate that they are tempted commit academic integrity violations. An alternative is to assign low stakes assessments that do not have a major impact of the final course grade. The focus of these formative assignments is measuring student progress. According to the Cal State Fullerton Faculty Development Center, research has shown that balancing the use of low and high stakes assignments tends to improve the performance of students, especially those from historically underrepresented or marginalized groups.
When developing alternative assessments, as with all assessments, it is helpful for an instructor to think about what they want to assess. Do they want to assess acquisition of specific knowledge, application of information, writing skills, speaking skills, creativity, ability to work in a group, and so on? Whatever is chosen should be consistent with course learning objectives. Alternatives to high-stakes tests and assignments can accomplish the same goals while reducing student anxiety and stress and emphasizing learning and feedback.
Low-stakes assignments work best when they generate formative feedback regarding where students are in the course, what they are doing well, and where they may need to ultimately succeed in the class Providing students with an indication of their performance while they are taking a course may give students an opportunity to improve their performance prior to receiving a final grade, either on an assignment or in a course. Thus, benefits of low stakes assessments include
- Giving students a realistic idea of their performance early in the term, enabling them to seek needed resources
- Opening lines of communication between students and their instructors
- Providing feedback for instructors on how well students are learning
- Allowing instructors to direct students to resources if they need further assistance or support
- Giving students an opportunity to be active participants in the evaluation of their own learning
- Increasing the likelihood that students will attend class and be active and engaged
Additionally, Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation recommended the use of low stakes assessments to decrease the likelihood of student cheating. A high-stakes assessment creates significant pressure on students because there is so much riding it and any mistakes can affect their grade. Using low stakes assessments, an instructor gets “several samples of student work, evolving over time, and the students get spaced practice and feedback. If low-stakes assessments are combined with timely and constructive feedback on strengths as well as concrete suggestions for improvement, they will facilitate learning and build student confidence for later high-stakes assessments, thus reducing the likelihood of cheating.”
Examples of low stakes assessments include the following:
- Frequent, short quizzes. Break the content of a high-stakes exam into more frequent, low-stakes quizzes. Rather than have a single midterm worth 40%, consider giving four quizzes (in Weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8, for example) worth 10% each.
- Alternative ways to demonstrate understanding. These may include short-term projects or creative ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge, including creating a poster, infographic, video, blog, or podcast.
- Breaking major writing assignment into portions. These can be turned in at intervals throughout the term. They include preliminary topic proposal, thesis statement, outline, bibliography, specific sections of final project (e.g., introduction, methods, literature review), and draft of entire paper.
- Professional presentation. This may beof the kind that would be presented at a academic conference, community group, business, or professional organization and include video, audio, or PowerPoint.
- Poster Sessions. Students pick a topic, develop a hypothesis, and perform library research to support or refute their hypothesis. They present their research during a poster session during the last class period.
- Annotated Anthology or course reader. Students prepare a selection of works they have read during the term as a thematic anthology. Using a theme thy create, they choose the works, write a paragraph introducing to each, as well as an introduction to the anthology.
- Annotated portfolio of work throughout the term. Students compile their best or representative work from the term, write a critical introduction to the portfolio and a brief introduction to each piece.
- Annotated research bibliography with introduction. Rather than writing a research paper, students compile a bibliography on a problem or question. They must read the works, evaluate their accuracy and helpfulness, and provide an explanatory introduction to the bibliography. Each entry contains an explanatory and/or evaluative paragraph.
- Reflective paper. These involve a description and critique of their experience that is tied to theory or themes in the course so that it is not only a description of personal feelings.
- Fact sheet. A one-page fact sheet on a topic that has students explain facts clearly and concisely.
- Short Writing Assignments. Give students a prompt that corresponds to a class reading assignment, concept, or activity and have them turn in a short, written response. Return the students’ responses with your brief feedback, indicating whether the students are on track or not (a simple “check plus” or “check minus” could be used)
- Discussion Questions. Post open-ended questions designed to promote engagement with the current course content or an upcoming project or assignment. Invite students to ask questions and identify areas of confusion, and answer the questions posted by their peers
Sources
DePaul University Teaching Commons
Low-Stakes Assignments
Cal State Fullerton Faculty Development Center
Balancing Low Stakes vs. High Stakes Assessments
Utah State University Teach
High-Stakes Assignments
Indiana University/Bloomington Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
Alternatives to Traditional Exams and Papers
Caltech Center for Teaching, Learning, & Outreach
Alternatives to High-Stakes Assignments
University of California/Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning
Alternatives to Traditional Testing
Cal State University Long Beach Keep Teaching
High Stake Assessments
Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation
Student Cheating