

Submission folders allow students to submit work privately to you. They work well for sharing rough drafts or other early-stage components of larger projects for peer review or for certain journaling assignments. Discussionsĭiscussions allow students to share short pieces of writing or other media with you and their classmates. View quiz statistics to see if the class is struggling with a particular concept and review that topic with them. For low-stakes assignments, you may want to allow students to review the questions and their answers after they take the quiz. Quizzes are often used for multiple-choice or other objective question types because they can be graded automatically, allowing students to get feedback immediately. D2L tools will help you to implement low-stakes assignments in all types of courses and course modalities. In Flex classes, it can also be more challenging to pick up on nonverbal cues among in-person students if also trying to monitor engagement and participation among remote students at the same time. D2L Tools for Low-Stakes Assignments

In a online and Flex courses, instructors may have more difficulty picking up these cues from students, especially if they don't always have their cameras on or you're not meeting synchronously. In a face-to-face classroom, instructors may assess student learning in informal ways using nonverbal cues-a puzzled look or an affirming nod, for example. While all classes can benefit from frequent low-stakes assignments, it's especially important in online and Flex modalities. Low Stakes-Assignments in Online and Flex Modality Courses Increase the likelihood that students will attend class and be active and engaged.Give students an opportunity to be active participants in the evaluation of their own learning.Allow instructors to direct students to resources if they need further assistance or support.Provide feedback for instructors on how well students are absorbing information and progressing in their skill development.Open up lines of communication between students and their instructors, and may increase students' willingness to ask for help.Give students a realistic idea of their performance early in the term, enabling them to seek appropriate resources as needed.Early feedback also enables faculty to useĭePaul's BlueStar system to identify students who may need additional assistance and share that information with the students and their academic advisors.

At DePaul, there is a general expectation that students will be given feedback early in the quarter or term, and low-stakes assignments are a powerful method of doing so.įor students in their first year, whether as freshmen or transfers, such feedback is especially important in order to help them understand the expectations at DePaul. Low-stakes assignments tend to work best when they generate formative feedback regarding where students are in the course, what they are doing well, and where they may need development to ultimately succeed in the class. The purpose of low-stakes assignments is to provide students with an indication of their performance while taking a course and give students an opportunity to improve their performance prior to receiving a final grade, either on an assignment or in a course.Ĭompleting College: Rethinking Institutional Action (2012), "To be effective, assessments must be frequent, early, and formative." At colleges and universities recognized by the National Survey on Student Engagement for their success in promoting student's active engagement in their learning: "Feedback from faculty to students is timely and frequent, as documented both by NSSE data and by interviews with students and faculty members" (Kuh, et al. Low-stakes assignments are forms of evaluation that do not heavily impact students’ final grades or other educational outcomes.
