Standard 9: Learning Activities and Assessment

The course learning activities and assessment serve to stimulate student interactions with the course content and determine how well student performance achieves the course goals and learning objectives.

A learning activity consists of one or more tasks to be completed by the learner, should have one or more learning objectives associated with it and may or may not be assessed. For example, a self-check quiz or non-graded reflection may be an effective non-assessed learning activity.

Frequently, assessments are used to provide evidence of how well the student performance on these activities achieves the course goals and learning objectives. Assessment strategies used to evaluate student performance on a learning activity should be consistent and congruent with the stated learning objectives.

Required evidence that this standard has been met includes:

  • The learning activities are clearly derived from the learning objectives.
  • The learning activities enable students who have completed the activities to master the related learning objective(s).
  • Analysis of related assessments indicates that the students have mastered the related learning objective(s).
  • Activities are planned so that students will be engaged in multiple ways with the course material, the instructor, and each other to reach course goals and objectives.
  • Specific and descriptive criteria are provided for the evaluation of students’ work and participation in the learning activities.

Suggested Best Practices:

  • Throughout the course, students are expected to complete learning activities that engage them with the course subject matter in order to help them achieve the course goals and objectives.
  • Learning activities engage students in various ways, including class discussions, team projects, research assignments, case studies, simulation exercises, practice quizzes, written exercises, etc.

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