– Hi everyone, I’m Niya Bond, the Faculty Developer here at OneHE, and I am so excited to be joined today by Caleb Curfman. Caleb and I are gonna be talking about Alternative Assessments, something that’s near and dear to my heart, and I know to yours, Caleb. But before we begin, can you introduce yourself to the community, tell them a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you got interested in this topic?

– Hi, well, I am Caleb Curfman. I teach at Northland Community and Technical College. I’m a History Instructor, and I, from the beginning, really wanted to find ways to connect my topic, like we all want to, to our students, and specifically to students who maybe didn’t enjoy history prior. I heard that a lot. I do a survey at the beginning of my classes and, “Oh, I’m not very good at history.” And, I started to realize that the skills of history were so important in comparison to knowing names and dates. And so I started looking at different ways to assess learners through more authentic and alternative opportunities, and just kinda grew from there. So, I’ve been working on this for about nine years, and it’s still going very strong.

– Well, amazing, we’re glad to have you and your expertise here. Now, Authentic Assessments is also something near and dear to my heart in the world of English, with all of those skills that you mentioned. But for anyone in the community who doesn’t know what an Authentic Assessment is, could you just break it down for us and tell us?

– Yeah, so there’s really kind of two fields of thought on this. One, is that it is practical things that you would do within your field or discipline. So, in history, for example, it would include some research, some different types of ways of things that historians actually produce, whether it’s a presentation, a poster. But there’s another form, another school of thought that I tend to really find myself in more so, and that is finding things that are unique to those students and having them express their knowledge in a way that is comfortable and is familiar to them. And so, just to give a quick example, what that might look like. In a class where they are doing some research, now, not everybody’s gonna write a five page paper in their careers, but you might have a student that is going into web design, so why not let them create a website that furthers a historical argument in some way? So again, it’s finding their kind of tools, their talents, and putting it to the learning outcomes of the course.

– Well, and what I love about what you just said in the point you made earlier is that this really is so learner-focused. You know, you said you started with a survey, learners gave you feedback, and you wanted a way to kind of help them feel more confident, and realize that they have skills, maybe that they’re bringing or that they can learn and apply in ways that are meaningful to them. Kind of inviting their lives into the classroom as an important element of learning.

– Yeah, absolutely, you know, and that’s where, whenever we get ready for one of these assignments, and I like to give very practical tips. Some would be, “Scaffold these things,” in other words, have steps to it. Don’t just say, “Great, I wanna do an Authentic Assignment. Do whatever you want students,” right? What that ends up doing is it creates maybe even more anxiety. And so the first thing I ask students to do is tell me what you’re interested in. Tell me what you like to do. And it’s usually, “What do you like to do outside of school?” And that gets them thinking. And a lot of times maybe it doesn’t feel like it connects. The one example I’ll give is a student said, “I really love superheroes.” I said, “Great, how can we make this work with our US History course?” And they ended up creating a comic book, right? And so you, you find those things they love and kinda shift the way that they see school in many ways.

– Yeah, that’s so cool. So, I’m thinking about your discipline and my discipline, and we may, I’ll assume, tell me if I’m wrong, have sometimes smaller sized classrooms than other disciplines. So, that kind of one-on-one attention, where maybe you could riff with a student and figure out how to bring comic books in, I think would work well, at least in English, sounds like for history for you too. Is it a more time intensive process, you know, or are there ways to make it manageable for others who have larger courses?

– Yeah, so, you know, yes, smaller classes is something I have the benefit of, but I have used Authentic Assessments in classes up to 75 students. And the way that that I have found to make that manageable is, again, we sometimes have to give something up to embrace this. And so the grading load could be a lot, the interaction could be a lot, but we need to, if you’re going to do something like this, take that time in the class. Maybe have students work in small groups to talk about their ideas. And if you’re fortunate enough to have a TA, they could kind of have the same kind of prompts that I was just giving. You know, “What are you interested in?” And kind of get that going. So, in a way, I would say that my grading, compared to when I was doing more traditional assessments, you know, the exam-type style, it’s not really more, it’s just different. And so it’s reframing. And you know, another aspect of this, and I think this is something we can all, you know, appreciate is as you teach, you start building this huge collection of things and knowledge and things you want your students to know and have, and you have to kind of step back and say, “Okay, what is the core of this course? What do I want to get out of this class?” And what that means in a practical setting is maybe I have a few less assignments, but I have them very meaningful. And so I can take that extra time, give that extra feedback. And at first that might feel uncomfortable, like you’re cheating the class in some way of, “Oh, we didn’t do this exactly like that.” But again, the rewards of having students who are engaged and the wonderful assignments that come out of it, it’s well worth it. So, I kind of scooted the question, but I guess what my point is, take something away.

– [Niya] Yeah.

– And provide the time for this. And so it’s not really more, it’s just different.

– I like that, “it’s not really more, it’s just different.” Now, you mentioned being really practical and laying out kind of step-by-step to help learners understand. For anyone in our community who maybe wants to try something like this, what are some practicalities we can share with them? For instance, one thing I think about is, “Okay, if every student could potentially do something different, how do you build a rubric or, you know, if you are grading by traditional standards, how do you kind of apply that evaluation equally?”

– Yeah, so I will answer that in two ways. I will do the traditional grader and I will do ungrader.

– [Niya] Okay.

– Because, I have done both. From a traditional grading standpoint, I have a rubric that really focuses on, you know, first of all, are you making an argument? What is the main thing we’re trying to do in this? And in this class it’s making an argument. So, that is a huge part of it. Every student, no matter how they represent their learning, they have to make an argument.

– [Niya] Okay.

– And so whatever your discipline is, make sure, you know, what is that key learning outcome, how are they getting that and make that very generic. But make it, you know, make it clear. You know, you don’t need to say, “They will make an argument in writing.” Say, you know, “They will make an argument Of historical significance.” Another criteria within that rubric is effort. Now, effort is different than, you know, how good the project is at the end. A lot of times students will say, “Well, I’m not really good at, for example, drawing a picture. Am I gonna be graded on that?” And I grade effort by having some journals along the way of their process. So, they do that initial, “What are you interested in?” Step two is picking a topic, you know? And so these are structured assignments, where they have to choose a topic, and then they provide me with a bibliography that they’re going to use.

– [Niya] Okay.

– And so these are some of those steps that help manage that a bit. And it also makes some consistency. So, even though you might be doing a podcast and I’m doing a painting, we do some of these structured assignments first. The other piece that is critical is no matter what they do, I require a reflection piece. I call it the, “Artist Statement.” And it is a commentary that they explain what their argument was, why they did what they did, and what they learned from it. And so I really grade quite heavily on that, and I don’t really worry how the production value was. Now, the effort piece comes in, if you draw a stick figure and say, “This is what I’m doing,” versus somebody that does a five minute podcast, you know, that’s where we have those kind of discrepancies of, “Okay, let’s look at your process journal. What did you get, and how are you doing this over time?” The on-grading version, I have the students create a rubric. I have the pieces that I would normally use, so we still have the argument, but then I say, “Okay, what would be a successful project at the end? What do you want to get out of this? What are your objectives outside of the learning?” So, I had one student who really wanted to learn how to weld. They were in a welding class. And so they welded together a tank from World War II, a little miniature replica. But one of their things was if it was clean, and if it was clean lines. Again, things I don’t understand as a historian, but as a welder, he did.

– [Niya] Yeah.

– And then we would have those more conference-style end of the assignment, “How did it go?” Again, that’s for a smaller class, that’s for an ungraded class. But again, having it broad enough to fit all of those, but yet also hitting on your objectives for the assignment is probably the most important.

– Wonderful, well, those are really helpful tips. I’m wondering, you mentioned doing a survey at the start of the course. Do you do one at the end, and, you know, ask learners about how this went for them, and make adjustments as you go based on that?

– Yes, absolutely. I like to tell my students, “You’re going to be polled more than people during elections.”

– Because I wanna know how they’re doing. And these are anonymous. But at the end of the semester, I often get students that say, “I didn’t know this is possible. I didn’t know this was a way, and I’ve learned so much.” And of course that’s anecdotal, because it’s just what they’re saying, but you can see it through the process that they are learning. Some things I’ve changed over time. At first, I didn’t have any examples, and so it was a little harder. At the end now, I have a piece of that “Artist Statement,” that says, “Are you willing to have this as an example for the class?” And so now, I have a huge repository of student examples of different types of assignments. That was something that really helps students now not be so scared about what is it supposed to look like?

– [Niya] Yeah.

– The other thing is, at first I gave them a list of possible options for this Authentic Assignment. And students were simply doing what I had put on that paper because they felt, “Oh, these are the options.” So, just from some of that feedback, I moved away from that. And students over the last couple of semesters have really enjoyed the freedom of choosing what they wanna do, as well as some of the criticisms, if you will, would be, they felt like they didn’t have enough structure. So, I’ve changed some things to have those scaffolded assignments, so that they always kinda know where they’re at. The students that tend to really excel from the beginning are students who feel that they’ve struggled in previous classes. Students who tend to struggle at, you know, from the very start, are the ones who know how to, quote, “Do school.” And they’re like, “Well, what do I need to do? What do I need to do?” And so some of it has just been taking some time in class to talk about, you know, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, to bring some of that comfort. But definitely the surveys help a lot, and it’s continuously changing. I said, I’ve been doing this for nine years, it hasn’t looked the same really for any of them. It’s always kinda moving and changing. Also, with the technology and the way that the world is changing.

– That makes sense. And I really like that at the heart of all that is just transparency and dialogue with learners the whole time.

– Yes, absolutely, I mean, if I’m not doing this, yes, I enjoy grading them. I mean, that’s a perk. It’s a lot more fun than reading, you know, 60 essays of the same thing. But I’m doing it to show them the skills that they have and to kinda build them up in some ways. And so that ongoing feedback, that ongoing feedback loop, closing that loop is really one of the most important aspects of the assignment. And something that really makes me feel, even if it is a class of 75 or even more, you know, I can have that continued dialogue which again, one of the pieces that keeps coming back is I might not be able to spend three days talking about the American Revolution. We, you know, we do kinda more of a traditional lecture. We do some active learning, and then maybe we do a workshop day, where we talk about our projects. I reinforce, you know, the transparency. You know, “What is our purpose here? Why are we doing it?”

– Yeah, well, you touched a little bit on some joyful elements for learners and yourself, and I was hoping we could maybe end today on another joyful moment. You know, what has this done for you as an educator? You know, how is it empowering, and why does that inspire you to continue?

– Yeah, you know, the thing that inspires me most about these projects, again, it goes back to seeing the students who come into the class with that fear of, “Well, this isn’t a, what do you mean there’s no right answers? You know, in certain disciplines, the humanities, you know, there may not be one right answer, and how do I know I’m getting it right?” And by the end, students are coming up and saying, “Look at this resource I just found.” You know, they’re excited about the learning, and they’re excited about the opportunities. And for me, I want people to be interested. I think one of the things we need to grow in colleges is the idea of being interested, being critical thinkers. And I’m seeing it play out in front of me, and it just brings me to that next semester where I can’t wait to get started again.

– Well, that’s so inspirational, and I know many of our community members are going to love this interview and love trying something like this in their own educational spaces. So, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your experiences with us.

– Absolutely, thank you so much for the opportunity.