(69g) Exploration of a Non-Traditional Assessment Method

The COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020 catapulted the nation into social distancing to slow the spread of the virus. In response, institutions of higher education pivoted to remote learning. While many brick-and-mortar classes were conducted as flipped classrooms or in other formats that allowed some remote learning, student assessments like exams could be administered face-to-face. The pivot to fully remote learning motivated the exploration of alternative assessment methods that accurately measure student learning outcomes, encourage creativity, eliminate the need for proctoring and don’t require face-to-face administration. In response to this need, a non-traditional approach to assessment in which students were expected to write an exam along with the solutions in place of a traditional exam was explored. The course is Fluid Mechanics, a sophomore level course in the chemical engineering curriculum. The instructor provided the students a detailed rubric and a practice exam. In earlier exam administrations, the practice exam and solutions gave the students the freedom to assess their own readiness for the actual exam. In the non-traditional exam, the practice exam served as a model exam, along with the rubric, to assist students in preparing a quality submission. In the referenced course, two of three regular exams were administered in a more traditional format before the pivot to remote learning. Thus, the previous two exams provide a baseline to compare student performance. The results of the study will be discussed.