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In this final section of the workshop, we offer a checklist for evaluating your own teaching methods and a step-by-step guide to redesigning your classroom.
Checklist for Evaluating Your Teaching Methods
Step-by-Step Guide to Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign

Checklist for Evaluating Your Teaching Methods

A detailed and fresh look at your teaching methods is crucial for self-assessment and self-evaluation. Our goal is to ensure that your method of course assessment aligns with your method of teaching.

Determine How You Teach

You can print out and use the following chart to evaluate your teaching methods and see if they align with your method of assessment. The first and second columns offer you a checklist of teaching styles. Check those that apply to your work. The third column has verbs that describe the desired reactions from students for each approach. You should write a brief description of the performance assessments you currently use in the last column. This will become a guide that you can refer to during the rest of the workshop.

What students can do
Performance assessments
1. Didactic/Direct Instruction
Receive, take in, respond  
Observe, attempt, practice, refine  
Listen, watch, take notes, question  
Answer, give response  
2. Coaching
  Refine skills, deepen understanding  
  Listen, consider, practice, retry, refine  
Guided practice  
  Revise, reflect, refine, recycle through  
3. Facilitative/Reflective
  Construct, examine, extend meaning  
Concept attainment
  Compare, induce, define, generalize  
Cooperative learning
  Collaborate, support others, teach  
  Listen, question, consider, explain  
Experimental inquiry
  Hypothesize, gather data, analyze  
Graphic representation
  Visualize, connect, map relationships  
Guided inquiry
  Question, research, conclude, support  
Problem-based learning
  Pose/define problems, solve, evaluate  
Questions (open-ended)
  Answer and explain, reflect, rethink  
Reciprocal teaching
  Clarify, question, predict, teach  
Simulation (e.g., mock trial)
  Examine, consider, challenge, debate  
Socratic seminar
  Consider, explain, challenge, justify  
Writing process
  Brainstorm, organize, draft, revise  

This chart was adapted from UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, 1998, figure 10.2, pp 160, Alexandria, Va. Published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Copyright © ASCD. Reprint by Permission. All rights reserved.

The kinds of teaching methods you use will be different for each distinct course of study, grade level, and classroom. A healthy curriculum, generally, would be tilted toward more evaluation and less recall. An over-emphasis on didactic/direct instruction may not afford students much opportunity to demonstrate mastery of complex learning.


Workshop: Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign
Explanation | Demonstration | Exploration | Implementation


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