Scaffolded Assessment Tips and Hints 

Here are a few tips to consider when creating or assessing your scaffolded assessments:

1) Assessment Format.
  • Try not to over-assess your students either in one particular format or overall.
  • Look at the assessment holistically over the whole course.
  • What do the timings, formats and range look like? 
2) Limit Quiz Attempts.
  • Think twice about allowing unlimited attempts.
  • This can cause students to spend a disproportionate time on the assessment to get it 100% correct.
  • You could limit the number of attempts to a specific number. 
3) Content of Assessments.
  • Try and make your assessments authentic.
  • Assessments should replicate real work tasks.
  • Consider providing scenarios and contextualising tasks or allowing students to relate to their own context.
4) Assessment Types.
  • Vary your assessment types.
  • Not varying the assessment type can have the adverse effect of favouring a particular group of students. 
  • Try designing assessment tasks that focus on showcasing different skill sets.
  • Try to to design out any potential for academic integrity issues. 
5) Inclusivity.
  • Have you built in inclusivity and accessibility?
  • Assessment tasks that have choices in terms of topic and format are more inclusive.
  • Making your assessments accessible often improves them for all students.
6) Provide a choice.
  • Give students choice where possible over topics and format.
  • Students can then relate their assessment to their contexts and play to their strengths. 
  • This can also help to increase motivation and engagement from students.
7) Accommodate Student Participation.
  • For participation tasks – think about how you accommodate students who are not there due to illness etc.  
  • Consider arranging catch up sessions or a choice of dates to participate to allow for individual student circumstances.
  • Consider taking, for example, the best 7 out of 10 marks, allowing students to miss a class or quiz and not be penalised.