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.