Spotlight is published twice each semester by the Office of Assessment and Continuous Improvement in the College of Education to highlight promising practices in assessment and continuous improvement.

This edition of the Spotlight examines directed paraphrasing as a classroom assessment, preferences for online or in-person services, and encouraging a growth mindset in students.

Classroom Assessment Tidbit

Try a New Classroom Assessment Technique such as Directed Paraphrasing

Communicating complex information to different audiences is important across many disciplines but can be very challenging. Examples of communicating complex information might include a teacher describing a student’s learning to a parent, a health care provider explaining a diagnosis, or an educational test professional interpreting a test result to a teacher.

The direct paraphrasing classroom assessment, as described by Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross in Classroom Assessment Techniques, a Handbook for College Teachers (1993) provides an opportunity for students to practice the communication of complex information while simultaneously giving instructors a view into students’ understanding of the topic.

To use this assessment, instructors first identify an important concept that students will need to explain and the audience who will receive the explanation. For instance, students in a teacher preparation program might be asked to explain a reading ability screening test result to the parents of a 2nd grade student.

Next, determine the purpose, length, and desired readability for the paraphrase. What message should the audience receive from the paraphrase? What is the maximum number of words students should use in creating their paraphrase? What goals are there for such as reading or oral comprehension ability for the receiving audience (such as a 6th-grade reading level)?

Before giving the assignment to students, test it out yourself as the instructor. Is it possible to create the paraphrase with the limits you created? What are the critical elements that need to be included in the paraphrase to be effective?

Give the assignment to students and indicate their intended audience, the purpose of the paraphrase, and the limits on the paraphrase such as length. If you are giving the assignment during class, give students a time limit for completing the assignment (such as 5-8 minutes).

If you collect the assignments on physical paper, you can quickly grade them by sorting them into three to four piles based on performance levels (e.g., low, average, excellent). If you have collected assignments electronically you can do something similar by dragging and dropping files into separate folders on your computer’s desktop. Next, quickly scan through the responses in these piles to capture themes of what students know about the topic and how they communicate it to a specific audience. For grading, Angelo and Cross (1993) suggest providing feedback across three characteristics: accuracy of the paraphrase, suitability for the intended audience, and effectiveness in fulfilling the purpose. Some of the best examples, or the example you created, can be shared with students (with permission) as exemplars to inform future development of this skill.

Variations of this classroom assessment technique include using different audiences for the same topic or using different communication mechanisms (such as an oral statement, an email response, or a social media posting).

Angelo and Cross (1993) note that success with using this classroom assessment technique requires careful planning and should be used more than once during the semester to give students a chance to build their ability to communicate important information with the audiences they will serve in the future.