Assessment Plan Overview

• Formative: 
• Our formative assessments will start with learners completing a self-assessment where they will be asked to answer a prompt that asks them to write about their previous knowledge of the sub-topics, to give us (the instructors) an idea of how much the learners already know.
• Lesson Activity: Learners are encouraged to engage in lesson activities to culminate the information they have learned from the sub-topics. These activities through the four sub-topics include questions or charts pertaining to sleep tracking, quizzes, and powerpoint activities. These learning activities will be submitted for a small grade, with feedback from the instructor to guide their Short Answer Evaluation.
• Short Answer Evaluation: This will be a written assessment where the students are expected to combine the knowledge of their sleep study and the sub-topics. Each sub-topic includes the combination of a sleep study and an evaluation of the knowledge provided in relation to the learners own sleep.
• Discussion: There will be a online forum to give an opportunity for discussion between the learners and the instructor for every sub-topic. Learners can tell the instructor how they felt about the learning activities and assessment. Learners can also give their instructor feedback and recall their own experiences, thereby helping them remember the concepts they learned. Students can also suggest ways they can improve their sleep through the information learned in the sub-topics.
• Summative:
• The summative assessment is a final two page reflection/essay. Learners will choose their favorite sub-topic and write why they chose to write about that sub-topic and how this topic has impacted their sleep the most, and how they want to improve their sleep patterns. This assessment is expected to use a mix of personal reflection, while also using information from the videos and articles provided by this course.
• Grading: According to the grading scale below, learning activities must be passed with at least a 50% to be deemed acceptable to pass the course. The cumulative performance of the formative (75%) and summative assessments (25%) will be combined to complete the overall score of each individual learner in the course. Each formative assessment will be marked out of ten points. The discussion forum will be marked out of five points, purely for participation. The summative assessment will be marked out of 30 points.   
• BC Grading Scale:

• Assessment Rationale: 
• Grading Scale: For a short course like this one we decided to use a BC Secondary School Grading scale that utilizes letter grades and percentages that our learners are already familiar with. This specific scale offers a wide range of percentages, allowing more flexibility in the way learners are evaluated (because all learners have differing abilities and needs that affect their grades). We do not intend for the grades to define learners’ experience, rather their experience from the activities. 
• Formative: We intend for the content provided in the learning activities to match the learning outcomes, and the formative assessments are meant to offer feedback upon a real-life approach to the content. This real-life approach is designed from the Inquiry-Based Learning Approach, which we have based our course off of.     
• By incorporating more of a variety of assessments with a short answer evaluation and a discussion, we decided to have a mix of traditional and authentic assessment, as we feel that both kinds are appropriate for this course (Tanner, 2001). For the short answer evaluation learners are being asked to engage with the material by drawing from their own real life experiences (the constructivist theory). The online forum for discussion allows for peer, instructor, and individual feedback, as well as individual reflection.
• Summative: The summative assessment is meant to reflect an overall combination of knowledge from the formative assessments and learning outcomes. Because of the formative assessments, the summative assessment is not meant to exert great pressure, rather act as a closing to the work and feedback students have received. This kind of closing and reflection can be related to what the University of Calgary’s Learning Module says Eportfolios do, which is force learners to see how far they’ve come (University of Calgary).  
• Goal w/ the Course: Our learning activities and assessments were designed with the intention of prioritising learning the content through scenarios that increase critical thinking skills and involve personal reflection on the effects of sleep on several aspects of daily life.
• End of Course: At the end of the course learners will receive a letter grade, along with official certification that can be sent via email. Learners can therefore have official proof of their completion after passing the course.  

References

David Thompson Secondary School (2024), https://www.vsb.bc.ca/david-thompson/page/1128/letter-grades-and-work-habits. 

Tanner, E. David (2001). “Authentic Assessment: A Solution, or Part of the Problem? The High School Journal, Vol 85, No. 1, pp. 24-29, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40364377. 

University of Calgary, Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, “Learning Module: Designing Student Assessments, https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/module/designing-online-assessment/understanding-alignment-assessment.