WAI Inspired Wednesdays: Designing authentic assessments (CTE7010)

Location: Online

Facilitator: Katherine Lithgow (Centre for Teaching Excellence) and Trevor Holmes (Centre for Teaching Excellence)

Description

Pre-pandemic, CTE offered the annual Waterloo Assessment Institute (WAI) focusing on the assignment as a means of assessing student learning. Through peer feedback and guided work time over a two-day intensive retreat, WAI  helped individuals and program teams redesign key assignments in their courses. Whether you are an individual seeking to improve an assignment, or a team seeking to link an assignment or assignments "horizontally" (across courses in a term) or "vertically" (across courses in different terms or years), the WAI provides space, time, expertise, and peer feedback. We do plan to offer this again in the future when we can come together face-to-face.

For Spring 2021, we are offering instead three shorter, modified, online experiences retaining key elements of the WAI, each session focusing on one of three themes (you can choose one or more based on your own intentions for your assignment or assignments). By the end of each session, participants will leave with a draft redesigned assignment based on feedback from peers and teaching and learning consultants. 

After you register for a session, you’ll be asked to fill out a pre-session worksheet to help facilitators best support you, and help you make the best use of your time with us.  You’ll be asked to fill out a worksheet for each session for which you’ve registered. 

Each session will begin with a 30-minute introduction to the theme to help us begin our work. The duration of the session will be a combination of small group work and facilitated work time designed to help you begin your work, gather feedback, and continue your work after the session. 

We invite participants to attend the optional drop-in sessions (July 14th , July 21st from 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. and July 28th from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.) to continue working on your assessment activities with a facilitator on hand to answer questions. 

WAI Inspired Wednesdays: Designing authentic assessments

This session focuses on designing assessments that require students to undertake tasks that are like those that a member of the discipline would perform.  We’ll look at the qualities of an authentic assessment and discuss ways these might scaffolded and assessed.  

Registration

Registration required (if this is your first time using GoSignMeUp, you will need to set up your account first). If you have changed roles at the University (e.g., graduate student to faculty) please updateyour "Participant Profile" in your GoSignMeUp account.

Cancellations

Many of our workshops have waiting lists, so if you've registered but can't attend, please cancel your registration well in advance through the registration system, so that someone else can fill your spot.

Accessibility

The University of Waterloo is committed to achieving barrier-free accessibility for persons with disabilities who are visiting, studying, or working at Waterloo. CTE’s online workshops are delivered through either WebEx, Microsoft Teams, or Bongo with the audio component available either as captioning or a transcript. CTE’s face-to-face workshops typically involve a mix of presentation and discussion-based activities, and we encourage a scent-free environment. We welcome accompanying assistants, interpreters, and note-takers. If you have questions concerning access, such as parking, building layouts, or obtaining workshop content in alternative formats, or wish to request accommodations for our programming, please let us know by emailing cte@uwaterloo.ca. Please note that some accommodations may require time to arrange.