Choose Your Own Assessment

Have you heard of Professor John Boyer? Charismatic, beloved by students and a victim of his own success, this Virginia Tech geography professor regularly teaches sections of over 2,000 students which has inspired some innovations in teaching style and assessment worth sharing here. Using what he calls the "flipped syllabus" students in Boyer's classes work their way up to their grade (rather than starting at 100% from which they can only go down) by choosing from a wide variety of activities and assessments. "This method allows the students to choose assignments that interest them personally, that takes advantage of natural abilities, express individual creativity, and demonstrate world geography knowledge and skill." Not only does this allow students to personalize their learning experience in large classes, it makes the logistics of handling so many students more manageable for teachers.

The options for graded assignments include: Traditional avenues (i.e., weekly quizzes, atlas-based quizzes, midterm/final exams, and current events papers), Social media avenues (i.e., World Leader Shadow twitter assignment, international news online commenting conversations, “flash” podcast quizzes, international film reviews), and Sociocultural avenues (e.g., out-of-class international events attendance, travel correspondence and reporting).