Assessments That Actually Measure Thinking

The first lesson of this course is free to read. No signup, no card. Open lesson 1.1 in the curriculum below.

Course Overview

Purpose

Most classroom assessments measure recall, recognition, or procedure-following—not thinking. This course teaches educators to design and evaluate assessments that require students to apply judgment, evaluate evidence, make decisions under uncertainty, and transfer knowledge. Participants learn to audit existing assessments, write rigorous items, and build assessment systems that actually tell you whether students can think.

Audience

K-12 teachers, assessment coordinators, instructional coaches, curriculum writers. Especially valuable for anyone who suspects their tests are measuring memory instead of understanding.

Prerequisites

None. No assessment or psychometrics background required.

Estimated Time

6-8 hours

Learning Outcomes

• Distinguish between assessments that measure recall, procedure-following, and genuine thinking, using concrete examples.
• Audit existing assessment items for the cognitive demand they actually require versus the cognitive demand they claim.
• Design scenario-based assessment items that require application of judgment, not just retrieval of facts.
• Write effective distractors that reveal specific misconceptions rather than tricking students.
• Construct assessments with varied item types (MCQ, select-all, matching, sequencing, multi-part) appropriate to the thinking being measured.
• Evaluate assessment items for ambiguity, bias, and alignment to learning objectives.
• Design self-grading assessments that maintain rigor while eliminating the need for manual scoring.
• Use assessment results diagnostically to identify patterns in student thinking, not just assign grades.

What’s inside

6 sections, 18 lessons and 7 quizzes — roughly 6–8 hours of work, taken at your own pace with no expiry.

1. The Assessment Honesty Problem
2. Scenario-Based Item Design
3. The Art of the Distractor
4. Self-Grading Assessments That Maintain Rigor
5. Assessment Bias and Alignment
6. Using Assessment Results to Actually Learn Something

Certificate of completion

Finish the course and a printable certificate is generated automatically, showing your name, the course title, the completion date and contact hours — suitable for professional development records. View your certificates.

Who teaches this

Corey Christen, PhD, teaches biology, anatomy and physiology, and related sciences asynchronously to college students across the United States. These courses come out of that work rather than from research about it — the failure modes described here are ones encountered in real classes, and the fixes are ones that survived contact with them. More about the instructor.

Keep going

If this course was useful, The Anti-Burnout Kit for New and Seasoned Teachers covers the workload and burnout side of the same problem.

You can also browse the full course catalog, or read The Price of Illiteracy — my book on why science literacy matters.

Buying for more than one teacher? Group pricing starts at two seats and we accept purchase orders. See pricing for schools and districts.