As an open enrollment institution, anyone can sign up to take a class at Harvard Extension. If you’ve taught at Extension before, you know that this can be one of the best parts of the teaching experience: students from different backgrounds with different perspectives sharing ideas with one another. You might have students who already have expertise in the field you’re teaching or you might have those who are new to your field but bring with them other life experiences that they can contribute to your course.
But it can also be a challenge for students to assess whether they have signed up for a class that matches their current skill level.
You can help them by giving them a low-stakes “skills check” in the first week of class so that they can make an informed decision before the drop deadline. Here are some ideas.
More Technical Fields
If having a command of prerequisite knowledge is crucial to success in your course (particular math skills or programming languages, for example), students need to know whether they have the background to succeed.
Ungraded Self-Assessment
Give students a brief, ungraded quiz to check whether they have the necessary background knowledge. Use question types that Canvas can auto-grade so students can get immediate feedback.
Skills Survey
Give students a survey of the necessary pre-requisite skills in your course and have them rate their level of familiarity with the term. Consider using a scale such as
- I am unfamiliar with the term
- I have heard of the term
- I could define it
- I could explain it to someone else
- I can use it to solve problems
This won’t be a foolproof assessment of student knowledge, but you can provide them with guidelines for judging when the course might be too difficult, i.e. they’re mostly unfamiliar with terms or have only vaguely heard of them.
Less Technical Fields
If specific pre-requisite knowledge is not as crucial to your course, you can still do an informal skills assessment to help students know if they’re in the right class.
Goal Setting
Ask students to write a paragraph that lets you know what they’re hoping to get out of the course. Not only will this provide you useful information about your students and give them a chance to define their own goals, it can also alert you to students whose goals do not align with the course you’re planning to teach. Quickly review all goals before the drop deadline and make sure to let students whose goals don’t align with the course know that they’re outside of the scope of your class. This way they can make an informed decision and avoid frustration.
Introductory Posts
Ask students to write quick introductions to themselves on a discussion board. This is a great way to build community , but can also alert you to students who might not have the writing skills to succeed. If you see someone who might struggle with writing, let them know if this will be a significant component of your course.
Set the Tone
For skills assessments to be helpful rather than stressful for students
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Make sure that they are ungraded and low-stakes. Explicitly tell students that this assignment designed to help them self-assess their skills.
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Get feedback to students before the drop deadline so that they can make an informed decision about whether to stay in the course.
- If you find students who are struggling, let them know that they’re welcome to stay in the course but that you want to see them succeed so they might want to consider taking another course first