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Presuming Competence By Design • A Tutorial for Systems, Environment, Curricular, and Materials Design in Learning Systems

Requirements

Universally-Designed Assessments

 

Separate Ends from Means

 

It is nearly that simple - separate ends from means - when it comes to designing universally designed assessments for your classroom. What does that mean? Let's explore:

 

When you separate ends from means, you clearly delineate the "what" should be learned or demonstrated from the "how" it should be demonstrated. Effective assessment definitions will clearly articulate "what" knowledge or skills should be demonstrated and leave the "how" they can be demonstrated open and flexible. The "what" doesn't change - that's the "stuff" we want our learners to walk away with. The "how" does and can and should change.

Clearly Defined Ends, Flexible Means

Notice how the instructor separated the format the final project should take from the content. Check out the Assignment section of this example syllabus (PDF, used with permission from the instructor).

Exercise

On one side of a piece of paper, write WHAT you want your students to demonstrate in their assessments, tests or final projects. Do know write ANY statements of "how" they will demonstrate that. You can be as detailed as you want on the how.

Once you have your statement of WHAT written, review it - delete anything having to do with the format or form it should take. Did you say they will write a paper? If so, that's a means, not an end. Did you say they complete a quiz or complete a quiz using clickers? The first one is just fine - the quiz has not taken any form yet. The second one, however, pre-specified the means. Identify any places where you pre-specify the means and remove that part (or rewrite your statement so it is not constructed around a single mean).

 

Now, on the other side of the paper, create a column for HOW. For each WHAT you wrote, make a list of the different means a student could use for demonstrating that knowledge or skill to you.

Now consider - If there is a single mean, what will you do for students who have difficulty in that medium? What accommodations exist that you can identify early? Is it important that you use only that mean, or are there other possibilities?