It is great to see even more support of CATs as a way to formatively assess student learning. The connection between Kolb's Experiential Learning theory, Bloom's Taxonomy, and an emphasis on creating critical thinking skills in students is powerful. As instructors, we need to be sure that students are in fact mastering the objectives, and not just regurgitating basic knowledge. If CATs are used properly, we can consistently move our students to higher order thinking by adding personal experiences, real world problems, and Socratic questioning. Adding self reflections is another way for us to gauge how our students are doing. Thank you for adding to the CATs repertoire.

Rick,

Thank you for the response.  I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on CATs and I was sold.  Although, I use it, and the participation by students is around 40 to 50%, I believe if we tie "points" to responding, we will indeed receive more participation and a better gauge of the students' understanding of the concepts and objectives and then we will be better able to move the students to another level of thinking. 

Hello Swinton:

Thank you for producing an edifying paper regarding the effective use of formative assessments, and how such assessments relate to a students' ability to transfer the knowledge gained within the classroom into a real world setting. One of the major complains business leaders posit about recent graduates is they lack the ability to function within an organizational construct: handle complexity, incorporate feedback, think critically, and understand nuanced situations. Part of the problem certainly lies within the realm of higher education in which adherence to a paradigm of recollecting the prescribed material, rather than identifying if students are actually learning, has held primacy. By incorporating CATs within our classrooms, as you have suggested, we can ensure that our student leave our classrooms with both the knowledge and skill sets to meet the demands propagated by business leaders who need their employees to function in a highly complex and competitive marketplace.

Thank you,

Eric Nordin

Review posted for Mark Dame; please see attached.

Swinton,

I thoroughly enjoyed your paper and appreciate the movement toward formative assessments as a means of preparing students for the real world.  The struggle I often face as an instructor, is making students understand the purpose for such teaching methods.  In particular, collaborative learning projects always tend to receive the most push-back from students who want to argue the purpose of such projects as they relate to the real world.  Ironically, I find nothing relates better to the real world team projects that we all face at some point in our careers, than the CLC projects.   Thanks again for your good work. 

Eric,

Thank you for response and confirmation on the functionality and usefulness of CATs.  Your additional points provide me with additional information which can be incorporated into the paper.

Jean, thank Mark for his comprehensive critique for me.  This critique provides many valuable points which I am reviewing for possible incorporation into the paper.

Suzanne, thank you for your review and critique. CLCs are important to the students as they will most likely be working in collaborative teams.  The experience they gain from CLCs will always be beneficial to them where ever they are employed. Team word creates an innovative and creative approach to  problem solving.  Even working as a manager, I always solicited feedback from my peers and employees before moving forward, much as we do in the university setting.  The adult learning model is based on experience and we gain much of our experience from the experiences of other.

Hi Swinton,

I liked your paper about classroom assessment techniques and how they are good for business. I think it is important and effective to combine summative assessments with formative assessments to enhance the learning experience for students. From my experiences in utilizing formative assessments in my own courses, I have to concur that it definitely enhances the learning experiences for our students. Great work!

Kristen, thank you for the positvie and supportive comments.  The more information I gather, the more I am convinced that the benefits for the student is positive.  The more I interact with businesses, the more I am finding what skills are desired.  Hmmm. I think I can feel a need for an in-depth study. Again, thank you for the comments as it has my creative juices stimulated.

Hello Swinton,

Please find my review attached. I enjoyed reading your paper.

Gigi Servis

Hello Swinton,

I enjoyed reading your article.  I took the liberty to add a few comments of my own in the margins of your essay.  Please take a moment to peruse my comments.  Please see attached.

Thank you.

Janice Norris

Hello Swinton, I appreciate your sharing your paper on CATs as a tool to foster teaching and learning in the classroom. A combination of both formative and summative assessments is critcal in the overall evaluations of teaching and learning for an online instructor like myself. As I facilitate a five week long course, I introduce both assessments. This is because, in formative assessessment, I assess whether students understand a DQ based on their responses in the posts. This helps me to introduce lead questions that help increase their understanding of a DQ.. Each learner could then share from a personal or professional encounters on a presenting subject. In the process, I can provide a summation of a student's overall understaning on the issue in discussion. This approach has greatly fostered critical thinking among my students, and assisted me in my summative assessments of students work each week! Thanks.    

Swinton:

Thank you for a great article on preparing students for business. Your title was very eye-catching for me. As a three-time business owner and 15 year business professor, I enjoyed seeing the business aspect in your paper.  I agree with another reviewer that perhaps the closest thing we have to real-world business settings are the CLC requirements in some courses. I often think that both educators and students are too focused on getting through the hoops of coursework and exams, without much focus on practical application. My suggestions to you include continuation of this theme in future research.  We need to prepare our students for practical application of concepts in the real world. The difficulty is to find a way to capture this in assessments. You have hit upon a very important topic here. Lastly, I would also suggest that you find more business-related articles to add to your reference list. Perhaps if we view this topic from a business standpoint, as well, we can reconcile academic and business viewpoints on this issue. I enjoyed reading your article.

Much success to you,

Doula Zaharopoulos

Gigi and  Janice thank you for critiquing my manuscript.  Both of you had some valid points and caught some of my errors (how I missed it, I have not a clue).  You can be sure your comments will be included in the final work.

Moses, thank you for the comments.  I feel the same as you and my approach is much  like yours. 

Doula, thank you for the kind comments.  As for more documents for support, that is something I will research.  Good idea!  This paper has posed additional questions for me and I feel a more in-depth study could and should be undertaken.  I do have a plan and hope to move forward with in this summer.  Again, thank you for the comments.

Hi Swinton,

I thoroughly enjoyed your paper on classroom assessments. It is very much on target for what is happening in K-12 education today. The CAT implementation in the higher education classrooms is a mirror of what is happening in progressive K-12 classrooms using the standards based approach. In these classrooms, using formative and summative assessments are an expectation. Teachers see the value of the formative assessments as they implement them with fidelity in their classrooms.

Another reason your article is on point is because of the teaching techniques that are required to successfully facilitate the new Common Core Standards. Teachers are required to use higher order questioning techniques to bring out the crtical thinking, problem solving and writing skills that students must have in order to be successful in the 21st century work force. These skills must be taught across subject areas including the career and technology courses.  The new emphasis is on making sure that every student graduates from high school prepared to enter college or a career path for work. This is why the large businesses suport the new standards because they see a better prepared worker coming into the workforce. As we prepare teachers, leaders and those going directly into the business world for employment, the use of CAT is another tool to make this journey complete for the GCU graduates.  I will increase what I do with CAT in my courses. There have been very little response to the questions when I use them in the weekly summary. Perhaps I will move them and see what happens.

Great job,

Barbara Lee

Swinton,

Healthcare education has experianced a dramatic shift over the past 10 years with an emphasis being placed on student-centered, evidence-based assessments.  The CATs that you describe in business have their place across many disciplines.  Currently, one of the techniques we use is problem-based learning, which provides a diagnosis and allows students to critically think backwards to find the problem and solution.  Kolb's experiential model would also have a place in this type of learning.  It seems that students beleive that we are to provide them all the information they need to be great when in realization we can provide a foundation but there is a requirement of accountability on their end.  Rather then teaching towards a test we should be focusing on the concepts of reflection and observation.  If they can interpret information based on lectures, interactive lessons and personal experiances they will not only be more successful in the classroom but also be more prepared to enter the workforce.  It is interesting that across disciplines the message remains the same.  From healthcare to business we are all trying to provide out students with the best information possible, teach them to assess it and use it appropriatly based on their experiances and feedback.  I enjoyed reading your paper.  Thanks

Aaron Fried       

Hello Swinton,

Very good article on CATS, especially as they are applicable to the "real world." Interestingly, in today's globalized economy, I believe that the most basic of Angelo and Cross's structured CATS is the most effective. Checking for prior knowledge is quite possibly the most critical stage in the instructional process. In an academic sense, having an accurate assessment of what is already known allows the instructor to streamline instruction and proceed to new material. In a business sense, especially with new hires, it behooves a corporate trainer or manager to know such things as: "Does this individual know what the cultural practices in country "x," where we do business are?" Or, "Looking through the new hire's resume, they should know how to accomplish this task, but do we need to train them additionally?" In both realms, checking prior knowledge saves precious time, and in the latter, money. 

Hello Swinton,

I thoroughly enjoyed your paper about the advantages of using CAT's. There was one particular statement about how true learning occurs when the theories and concepts transfer from the short-term memory to the long-term memory, which I enjoyed. The reason why I highlighted this, is that the advantage of CATs, is that allows us to not only help them learn these concepts (by reinforcing concepts and theories) but that we help them to maintain mental pliability so that when they are hired they have the ability to adjust to the new demands that their employer requires of them. As your paper highlighted, Angelo & Cross' 50 different CATs has the ability to encourage this mental dexterity in order for them to be successful in the real world. It just requires us as the educators to use them correctly. Great paper Swinton.

Regards, Anthony

Hello Swinton!

CATS are always a favorite around here :)  You addressed the use of CATs thoroughly here, and this is a great read for someone who is not familiar with the use of CATs or why they are important for both students as well as universities/instructors.   Have you considered adding in even more practical application of CATS to this review?  For example, information and examples from specific disciplines on how and why CATS are utilized?

I am attaching a few embedded comments for you to consider as well :)

Best,

Amanda Laster-Loftus, MAS

Dear Swinton,

the manuscript gives a very good intro to formative and summative assessment and overall reads extremely well (little typo on last paragraph of page 6, "effect" instead than "affect"). It also establishes a connection between formative assessment and the workplace. However, it is more a "commercial" for CATs than a critique. A couple of question that popped in my head and where not addressed in the paper are:

- What are the pitfalls of CATs?

- How do I sell it to the student?

Maybe these questions could be addressed in the Conclusion section or maybe not at all. It was just something that I thought of while reading your, very good, manuscript,

Blessings,

Filippo

Hello Swinton,

Thank you for your thoughts on CATs. As has been stated above, classroom assessment techniques are truly valued in the traditional and online classroom. As a teacher by trade, I was taught the importance of formative assessments. Although taught in theory, the American education system still has an infatuation with summative assessments, specifically standardized testing. Those much more creative than myself have labeled these "postmortem assessments". I think you get the picture. You mention in paragraph one that companies "need graduates who can work in teams, collaborate". What types of CATs do you use that encourage collaborative learning? How do you do accomplish this in the online platform? Most educators are aware of Blooms Taxonomy. We talk about it often and we share the "Blooms Verbs", but do we truly have an understanding of the depth of Blooms? There is debate today on whether Blooms does what we think it does. Have you heard of the SOLO taxonomy? SOLO stands for Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome. According to Biggs and Collis (1982) as found in Dewitt (2014) there are five stages: Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational, and Extended Abstract. In simplified terms concerned to student learning they would be: No idea, One idea, Many ideas, Relate, and Extend. You can read more at the link below.  In your conclusion you mention that instructors can use the feedback to make mid course changes or adjustments. What about online courses where the curriculum is set. How will/can you make those changes? I might be a good idea to add a limitations sections with this information. Overall I like the directions of your research and would like to see more detail on the types of CAT specifically you use or you think can/should be used to increase students attractiveness to employers.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2014/02/whats_our_best_taxonomy_blooms_or_solo.html

This was an informative paper discussing the various assessments that I use in my classroom to evaluate whether students are actually transfering the learning that are reading about into their own "learning bank".  As the author stated the purpose of learning is for the student to be able to utilize learning in their workplace.   As professors, we need to be able to assess whether the students are capturing the learning and applying it in their work positions.  In other words, students need to apply learning not just acquire it.  I would like to read future articles that the authors compile.

I have become a believer in CATS and have taken the faculty development course on CATS.  It is a great way to help develop critical thinking skills and to help us assess learning.  This is a valuable article for more than just business educators.   Pastors also need these skills to build their ministry.  We can no longer merely preach and visit members and feel that we are fulfilling our duties.  Whether it is a small, rural church, or a large suburban church, we are responsible for building ministry.  We need to move from the status quo of a consumer oriented industry to real ministry that fulfills the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.  This requires that the pastor be a leader with critical decision making skills, collaboration and appropriate analysis skills.

I think we all agree that CATS must play a key role in our classroom.  The question remains how do we inspire the students to get on board?  Many of my online students are full-time employees, parents, or both.  Some are adult learners of advanced age.  Many are in school to meet the requirements and get the grade.  I use CATS to help students build their participation grade.  However, I get only a 30-40% participation rate when using CATS.  I have embedded them into a DQ thread, added and optional DQ, and used CATS and Bloom's questions in responding to my students' initial DQ post.  I still have problems building participation.

Swinton,

Your manuscript on CATs was very well-researched. You referred to it as a critique; it would be helpful to add a bit more critiquing to the paper. 
Another suggestion I have is that you use an APA block quotation on page 6 for the quote that is over 40 words. 
Thank you for adding to my knowledge of such an important concept.

Cheryl 

Hi Swinton, You did an excellent job of explaining how the proper use of CAT's aids in critical thinking and analysis among student's by establishing a formative learning environment. Having used CAT's extensively in the online environment I can attest to the wisdom of the research you have presented. A major benefit for the instructor is that it allows him or her to adjust the focus to concepts that student's are not fully grasping. I can envision the benefit to employers of the availability of graduates who can analyze and apply knowledge to diverse situations. Thank you for providing a well-researched article on the benefits of CAT's.

Ron Steadman

I think one of the key things with regards to the general scope of what is going on education wise is that we get away from just regurgitaion of information. I am working on my Phd at University of New Mexico and this regurgitation of information still seems to be prevalent in courses I am taking. Hopefully, CATS can do the trick!!!

Daniel Krywaruczenko