Assessing instructional modules that accentuate student performance

Abstract

Assessment helps us understand which students learn best under what conditions. According to guidelines proposed by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE Assessment Forum, 1992), assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes. The important aspect here is to move away from a teaching paradigm to learning paradigm. In other words, the principle is to change classroom teaching styles from a teaching environment to an atmosphere that promotes learning paradigm, and create one that leads to discovery and metacognition. The role of the instructor will be more like a facilitator of a learning environment. In their paper published in 1992, Fleming and Mills suggested four categories that seemed to identify most students' learning behavior. The facilitator should try to accommodate VARK learning styles for the benefit of the learners. VARK is an acronym that stands for Visual, Auditory, Read (includes writing), and Kinesthetic sensory modalities that humans employ for learning and processing information. The author has previously discussed similar ideas in other ASEE publications. The principle here is to train faculty in alternative forms of instruction if they are expected to use diverse instructional methods. The author recommends administering a learning styles inventory to students as a part of a regular assessment process. In this presentation the author provides how he has utilized the ideas of these researchers to assess instructional modules that can accentuate student performance in the classroom as well as in a laboratory. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.