Dear Content Contributor,

I sincerely congratulate the Management and staff of this great citadel of learning for the smooth running of the first semester of the 2014/2015 academic session and the preparation for examinations, which marks the end of the semester.

Assessment of teaching and learning involves proper organisation of continuous assessment (CA), setting of examination questions that will cover the course contents, preparation of marking schemes, fulfilling the learning outcomes and also improving the success rate in our students. All these are essential to take note under ourinternal quality assurance. For more information kindly click HERE.

I honestly want to share some critical issues in educational assessment that we can reflect on as we are entering into an assessment period in FUNAAB. Firstly, I will like to implore us to look at a published article on “seven mistakes to avoid while writing multiple choice questions” since majority of our large classes are being examined using multiple choice e-exams. In the article, Jim Sibley observes that the goal of any well-constructed test is to test students’ expertise on a topic and not their test-taking skills per se. We need to eliminate as many flaws in our questions as we can to “provide a level playing field for test-wise and not-so-test wise students. The probability of answering a question correctly should relate to an examinee’s expertise on the topic and should not relate to their expertise on test-taking strategies”. Read More

Secondly, let us share in the experiences of Victoria Smith and Stephanie Maher Palenque in their published article titled Ten Tips for More Efficient and Effective Grading. It was found out that many instructors dread grading, not just because grading takes up a sizeable amount of time and can prove to be a tedious task, but also because instructors struggle with grading effectively and efficiently. However, effective grading does not have to take inordinate amount of time, nor does one need to sacrifice quality for speed. The following tips can help instructors grade more effectively while enhancing student learning. Read More

Lastly, the utmost aim of our effective teaching and learning strategy is for our students to perform well in their examinations and to be equipped with the adequate skills and knowledge, which that particular course needed to imbibe in them. John Orlando, in his published article titled “To Improve Student Performance, Start Thinking like a Coach”, made a confession that he was wrong that he once thought that teaching was lecturing, simply because that was how his graduate mentors taught him to teach Read more

However, as we are rounding-up our lectures, it is good for us “to allow our students to evaluate our activities in each subject taught by lecturers,” this will allow us to get feedbacks from them and will allow us to improve on our teaching and learning methods so as to excel. You can adopt the assessment form attached to this mail.

You can read our previous Weekly Tips from HERE.

I wish you Happy Easter Celebration!

Dr.  O. Folorunso
Director, Centre for Innovation and Strategy in Learning and Teaching