Schoology Test Banks and Learning Objective Alignment Take Assessment to the Next Level

This Week’s Topic in Focus:  Schoology

Test Banks

Each month our Digital Learning Team will take a look at a Schoology feature that will hopefully empower you to dive deeper into you use of this powerful tool.  

Assessment should be a tool in our classrooms that not only informs educators and students of the learning that is taking place but it can also empower learners as a part of the learning process. If you want to learn more about how to design effective assessments and want to know how to develop assessments as learning, Assessment that Matters by: Kim Meldrum is a great read worthy of your time.

Typically the three primary reasons why assessment stays affixed as an of learning rather than an as learning process are 1) Formative assessment is not used frequently enough, 2) Assessment results are not processed quickly enough for just in time learning 3) There are not enough banked questions to provide variation within any given assessment where the assessment can be used repeatedly and still remain reliable.  

Schoology provides a solution to all three of these typical roadblocks by combining its online Test/Quiz feature with its Question Bank feature.  Schoology’s Test/Quiz Feature allows educators to quickly build assessments that provide learners with immediate and customizable feedback.  When combined with the power of the test bank feature assessments can be built that strategically pull from banks of questions that are aligned to learning targets or sets of questions that all revolve around a specific skill.

Test Banks are an underutilized but super helpful feature in Schoology.  To learn how to create and use test banks check out the Test Banks Tutorial on Schoology.  Once you’ve learned how to create test banks for your classes, the next step will be to decide how to organize your test banks in order to best serve you as you build your assessments.  I suggest that you create your test bank in packets specific to each learning target (by objective or specific skill) so that when it comes time to create an assessment (or a checkpoint/formative assessments and a then a culminating assessment) using your test banks you can set the assessment(s) to randomly select a certain number of those questions from each of your test banks that are strategically aligned to the skills and learning targets you want to assess.

By creating assessments this way, you provide your learners with a strategic assessment within targeted skills and can allow learners to take the same assessment multiple times if necessary while still maintaining valid because of the variation from the test banks. Allowing multiple attempts at proving skill acquisition is one of the first steps toward as learning assessments.

Speaking of learning targets.  Did you know that you can use the Align Learning Objectives feature to tag your questions with specific learning targets (Common Core and all state standards are already pre-populated in Schoology)?  This allows you to use the Mastery Tool to see how your students are performing on each of the learning targets you have aligned.  

FHSD educators:  Contact your  building’s Digital Learning Specialist for assistance and coaching.  

All educators: Feel free to use the comment feature to share how you are currently using assessment in your classroom especially if it relates to Schoology’s Test/Quiz , Test Banks and/or Align Learning Objectives Features.

Contributed by Kyle Mack @ProfKyleMack