How to Create an Effective Lesson Assessment

Overview:

An essential component of any successful learning experience is a well-designed assessment that evaluates student understanding and mastery of the material. A carefully crafted assessment provides valuable feedback to both students and instructors. This reading will guide you on how to create an effective lesson assessment that accurately assesses student knowledge and comprehension.

Question Categories:

When developing your assessment, it is helpful to group questions into three categories:

1. Mastery Questions: These questions assess students' ability to recall and memorize key facts or concepts from the core readings. Include a minimum of 8 mastery questions in your assessment.
2. Comprehension Questions: These questions evaluate students' understanding and application of the new knowledge they have acquired. Comprehension questions may require students to analyze, interpret, or apply concepts. Include a minimum of 8 comprehension questions in your assessment.
3. Honors Questions: These questions challenge students with more difficult or advanced content. They may come from extended learning assets such as podcasts or videos. Include a minimum of 5 honors questions in your assessment.  Honors questions are not used in Lesson Gigs for children under 8 years of age.

Questions will be provided to students in a random selection, in a random order, and with the answers in a random order. Students may retake the assessment if they do not pass.

Tips for Writing Multiple Choice Questions:

• Ensure clarity: Write clear and concise questions that can be easily understood by students.
• Avoid trickery: Do not try to deceive or confuse test takers with overly complex or misleading questions.
• Avoid obvious incorrect answers: Make sure incorrect answer options are plausible but not silly or easily dismissed.
• Use varied answer lengths: Avoid patterns where the correct answer is always the longest or shortest option.
• Provide plausible distractors: Craft incorrect answer options that are similar to the correct answer but contain common misconceptions.
• Avoid excessive use of "all of the above" or "none of the above" options.
• Review and proofread: Check for grammatical errors, ensure clarity, and validate the accuracy of the answers.

Sample Assessment Questions:

Mastery Questions:

1. [Question]

Correct Answer: [Answer]

Incorrect Answers: [Incorrect Answer 1], [Incorrect Answer 2], [Incorrect Answer 3]

Comprehension Questions:

1. [Question]

Correct Answer: [Answer]

Incorrect Answers: [Incorrect Answer 1], [Incorrect Answer 2], [Incorrect Answer 3]

Honors Questions:

1. [Question]

Correct Answer: [Answer]

Incorrect Answers: [Incorrect Answer 1], [Incorrect Answer 2], [Incorrect Answer 3]