Summary of Best Practices

What are some overall best practices for assessment plans?

Here are some practices we recommend for effective development and use of assessment plans:

• Align your assessment plan with your instruction and with the assessment plan or assessment requirements of your program.
• Work with educators of the same courses or courses at adjacent levels in your program when designing your assessment plan to support alignment and articulation.
• Consider whether external, standardized proficiency assessments may be appropriate and feasible to use with your students. You can search for available assessments based on language, grade level and proficiency level, intended test use, and skills tested in the Foreign Language Assessment Directory.
• Use performance-based assessment tasks to assess the communicative modes and to embed assessment of intercultural communication and cultural knowledge.
• Include alternative forms of assessment that can facilitate self-assessment, peer assessment, and reflection and demonstrate growth over time.
• Share assessment requirements, rubrics, and policies with your students and provide ongoing, meaningful feedback on all assessments to create a culture of learning through assessment.