Ways to assess Spanish

I took the time yesterday to map out exactly what it is that the curriculum plans for me to teach in 1411, 1412, 2311 and 2312.  Whew.  It a lot of information.  According to the state of Texas, I need to be teaching students to speak, listen, read and write at different levels of proficiency dependent upon their level.

I explored the idea that 1411 could be considered a survey class--expose them to lots of ideas but expect mastery on a few.  Unfortunately, that's not how Spanish instruction is structured with the curriculum I chose.  They have to learn what's taught in 1411 during 1411 or they won't be prepared for 1412.

So, what next?  I think assessments are the next thing to address.  The assessment breakdown I inherited when I began teaching this class was 0% homework, 10% participation, 10% attendance, 10% oral proficiency exam, 20% quizzes, 30% tests (3 per semester, all 10% a piece) and 20% final exam.  It was fun to teach that way.  That was back in the old days when all students had a textbook in front of them and we did workbook activities listening to the audio during lab time.  I loved it because I got to truly teach concepts.

Here's what I've learned:  in this model, the student who comes to Spanish with experience from previous Spanish study or experience could pretty easily make an A.  Students who didn't have a good foundation previous (they took previously Spanish but it didn't "stick", they studied another language, they were an international student studying Spanish as a third language, etc) this assessment breakdown isn't great.  This model encouraged students to watch me like a TV screen during lectures and then hope to remember what I said on quizzes and tests.  My predecessor also allowed students to earn a lot of extra credit.  The extra credit was great, but it didn't serve to reflect mastery of the course. 

While still adjunct, I tutored Spanish as well.  I worked with a student in 1412 that had received an A in 1411.  She didn't know the vocabulary from 1411 nor could she use many of the concepts.  I knew changes needed to be made as I went forward.  Also, time passed and now most students purchase the ebook which makes lab time in person kind of silly.  We moved lab online so students can do lab activities on their own time.

The best practices I'm learning about in online teaching recommend using lots of low-stakes opportunities for retrieving information.  In my hybrid and face-to-face classes I make slide show presentations of certain concepts.  (Ex:  irregular forms of verbs that are featured in certain chapters) and we drill them in class.  I have posted those as videos in my online classes and encourage them to do the same and I hope they do.  I also create Quizlet sets to target very specific concepts.  Student feedback tells me this is very helpful.

As I'm building an online Spanish 1411 that is taught in 5 weeks instead of a normal 15 I have to be very thoughtful of the expectations I have for the students.  It's going to be a challenge to offer lots of low-stakes assessments due to the time element.  We need to cover a chapter a week.  Here is the current assessment breakdown I plan to use:

Projects:  20%--there will be 2.  1 to wrap up the semester, 1 about culture

Homework:  20%--these will be the online assignments in Connect (the online curriculum)

Quizzes:  20%--these will be in Connect & Canvas

Participation:  10% (this is include discussion boards, general assignments on Canvas that aren't content-specific)

Midterm:  10% (covers Ch 1&2)

Final:  10% (covers Ch 3,4,5)

Spoken assignments:  10% (these will be done in pairs using the Connect curriculum)

This is my working model.  So far I'm at peace with it.