Higher education has traditionally privileged language-based text as evidence of students' levels of critical thinking and literacy. Twenty-first century education at all levels however, has focused on multimodal literacies and how educators can engage students who are seeing the world through diverse representations and a myriad of forms. Many…

Competency-based learning requires making changes in the higher education model in response to current socio-educational demands. Rubrics are an innovative educational tool for competence evaluation, for both students and educators. Ever since arriving at the university systems, the application of rubrics in evaluation programs has grown…

Purpose: In light of growing interest in the maker movement and electronic textiles (e-textiles) as an educational technology, the purpose of this paper is to characterize competence change in undergraduate students who participated in a semester-length course that used e-textiles. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative and exploratory…

This paper outlines the process and results of an authentic assessment of student work using a revised version of the AAC&U's Information Literacy VALUE rubric. This rigorous assessment, which included the scoring of nearly 900 student papers from four different stages across the undergraduate curriculum, revealed much about the process of…

Employers look for professionals able to work in a team, able to approach problems, with the capacity to analyze and resolve problems, under the constant renewal of knowledge and competencies. In this paper, a group of University teachers from different areas of knowledge presents an experience to introduce key employability skills in the higher…

This study describes the multifaceted components of an assessment process. The paper explains a novel approach in which an advisory council participated in a "fun," hands-on activity to rank-order learning outcomes. The top ranked learning competency, as identified by the advisory council, was the need for students to gain a better…

Consisting of items from the 1998 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment as well as some items created specifically for the Practice Test, this Practice Test intends to be representative of the type of test and contain items similar to those that appear on actual grade 5 reading tests. These practice tests are not intended to be psychometrically…

Consisting of items from the 1998 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment as well as some items created specifically for the Practice Test, this Practice Test intends to be representative of the type of test and contain items similar to those that appear on actual grade 3 reading tests. These practice tests are not intended to be psychometrically…

Describes six rubrics for appraising the assessments teacher interns create and use in student teaching. The rubrics help teacher educators make judgements about student teachers' knowledge and skill in developing assessments. The six criteria are: alignment with learning outcomes, clarity/understanding of assessment, reliability, feasibility,…

This article addresses an important problem that faces educators in assessing students' competence levels in learned tasks. Data from 165 students from Massachusetts and Minnesota in the United States are used to examine the validity of five assessment modes (multiple choice test, scenario, portfolio, self-assessment and supervisor rating) in…