Assessing student assessment in a flipped classroom

Abstract

One of the many advantages of a flipped classroom is that it provides more time for instructors to work directly with students. Assessing students with in-class quizzes and/or exams effectively mitigates this advantage by replacing time spent on direct student/instructor interaction with non-interactive assessment. While assessment using quizzes and exams do not provide a direct learning experience, many students place a high value on such assessment techniques distributed throughout the course as opposed to having them concentrated at the end of the course. This paper describes a novel implementation of an intermediate digital design course taught in a flipped-type classroom using a studio-type format. The overall goal of this approach was to determine the efficacy of dedicating a portion of class time to student assessment distributed throughout the course. At the beginning of the course, students chose whether they wanted their course grade weighted on distributed assessment or have their assessment more heavily weighted on final exams. This approach effectively gave students who chose their assessment concentrated on final exams a potential advantage in that it allowed them a greater opportunity for instructor interaction compared to the other students since they could obtain help with course material while other students were taking exams and quizzes. This paper compares the overall performance of both sets of students in order to determine which assessment approach was more effective in helping the students learn the course material. This paper also addresses the question of whether distributed assessment provided true academic benefits or whether it simply acted as a mechanism to encourage students to remain current with the course's subject matter.