Mayo’s Clinic: Assessment Methods, Part II
Tuesday, 07 October 2014 13:10
This second installment in a four-part series on assessment methods focuses on oral presentations and class participation.
By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT
Last month, we discussed several assessment methods: attendance, open-book tests and take-home examinations. This month, we will discuss two complicated areas: oral presentations and class participation. Next month, we will examine evaluating food preparation, dining-room service and teamwork, and in December, we will discuss the topic of assessment criteria and rubrics.
Details of Oral Presentations
In many of our classes, we ask students to develop and deliver oral presentations, which are a great strategy to help students learn material and build public-speaking skills. Sometimes, the presentations include PowerPoint or Prezi slides and other times they only include talking and gesturing.
While these assignments make sense as teaching strategies, they can be extra hard for students if we do not provide details about the assignment and the ways in which it will be evaluated. Simply asking students to make a presentation does not give them enough information to do it well. Therefore, tell them what you expect in the format of the presentation: a 10-minute talk with handouts, a presentation with 9x9 presentation (nine slides with nine lines per slide and no paragraphs), or a 15-minute presentation without notes or slides.