Project Based Assessment: Right for Your Class?

Concurrent Session 9

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Project based assessment can coherently incorporate gen ed and program learning goals into your course.

Archivist Notes

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Jennifer Bradley, Northampton Community College

Jen teaches psychology and applied psychology courses at Northampton Community College at the Monroe Campus, where she has been a full-time faculty member since 2011. Jen teaches a wide variety of online classes, on a year-round basis. She is responsible for creating and continuously updating 3 'master courses' in psychology for the college. Her research interests focus on the flipped/blended approach, student engagement, and utilizing OER to increase accessibility for community college students.

Extended Abstract

Instructors routinely struggle with covering content and also crafting assignments that enable students to build essential employability skills, as well as develop facility in discipline-specific conventions. Project based assessment can be a creative, enjoyable way for students to "show what they know" while also developing these skills. Because project based assessment increases engagement, students will work harder to develop a finished product that shows higher-level thinking. Knowledge and skills meld organically.

This session will review some of the gen ed and program goals for psychology, and demonstrate how those objectives were incorporated into a project for Introduction to Psychology. Instructors will then consider their own "beyond-the-course" learning objectives and various means to teach these with project requirements. Instructors will share their insights with the group to build an idea bank.