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Inclusive assessment design plays a key role in supporting neurodivergent students throughout their academic journey. By offering varied and flexible assessment formats, educators can reduce anxiety, promote clarity, and foster continuous engagement. Here you have information on a variety of formats and tools to make your assessment plan more inclusive.
Practical Tips
Now that you understand the reasons behind these strategies, it's time to explore how to put them into practice. Below, you will find a series of tips and techniques designed to guide you in applying the concepts effectively. These practical suggestions will help you implement what you've learned in a way that works for you and your students.
When designing assessments for neurodivergent students, it's important to focus on flexibility and clarity to accommodate diverse learning styles and needs. Traditional assessment methods, such as timed exams or heavily written tasks, may create barriers for some students. By diversifying assessment formats, you ensure that all students have an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding in ways that suit their strengths. Additionally, providing clear instructions, well-structured rubrics, and appropriate accommodations can reduce anxiety and allow neurodivergent students to focus on showcasing their knowledge rather than navigating complex or unclear instructions. However, it remains important that the core of the assessment still adhere to the constructive alignment of the course and the quality criteria validity, reliability and transparency.
Tips for Designing Assessments:
Diversify assessment methods: Use a mix of formats (e.g., written assignments, presentations, projects, oral exams) to allow students to demonstrate their learning in different ways.
Provide clear, structured instructions: Ensure that all assessment instructions are straightforward and include step-by-step breakdowns of expectations.
Offer flexible time frames: Allow extended time or breaks, particularly for high-stakes assessments, to reduce pressure and support focus.
Use rubrics: Provide detailed rubrics that outline specific expectations for each component of the assignment, helping students understand how they will be assessed.
Include opportunities for formative assessment: Offer regular, low-stakes assessments to give students feedback on their progress and to reduce the anxiety of summative assessments.
Ensure accessibility when possible: Ensure accessibility through accommodations like alternative formats or assistive technology. Equally important is open communication with students to understand their needs during the learning process. Especially in ongoing projects, such as a thesis, regular check-ins can help identify barriers early and tailor support effectively. Moreover, it is important to be aware of the practical small things as well.
Feedback is a vital component of the learning process, and for neurodivergent students, it can serve as a crucial tool for growth and development. Clear, specific, and constructive feedback helps students understand their strengths and areas for improvement. However, it’s important to ensure that feedback is framed in a way that is actionable and encouraging rather than overwhelming. When providing feedback, consider the student’s processing style because some may need more time to reflect on feedback, while others may benefit from detailed, step-by-step guidance. Regular, timely feedback, paired with clear expectations, no implicit assumptions, and regular check-ins, helps students stay engaged, motivated, and confident in their ability to improve.
Tips for Providing Effective Feedback:
Be specific and constructive: Focus on clear, actionable suggestions that highlight what was done well and how improvements can be made.
Use positive language: Frame feedback in a way that motivates, emphasizing progress and strengths to build students’ confidence.
Provide feedback in multiple formats: Some students may prefer oral feedback (or alternatively autio/visual recordings) or written comments, so offering both can cater to different needs.
Allow time for reflection: After giving feedback, encourage students to reflect on it and ask questions if something isn’t clear.
Be timely: Provide feedback as soon as possible after assignments or activities to ensure it is relevant and actionable.
Offer follow-up support: If necessary, offer students the opportunity for one-on-one clarification or additional guidance, especially if they are struggling to implement the feedback.
Mock practice: Before working on graded assignments, provide feedback to mock practices developed in the classroom.
Thesis feedback: Working with neurodivergent students during their thesis trajectory may require adaptations. Talk to your student and check how you can better structure their feedback and how they want to discuss it. Some students might take benefit of a face-to-face meeting before getting the written feedback. Other students may not deal well with fragmented comments.
Low-stakes assessment are designed to help students engage with course content and demostrate basic understanding. Those forms of assessment, including formative and pass/fail approaches, can be especially beneficial for neurodivergent students. These assessment methods reduce the pressure and anxiety often associated with traditional grading systems, focusing on learning progress rather than comparative performance. Formative assessments allow students to demonstrate their understanding incrementally, with feedback that encourages improvement rather than penalizing mistakes. Pass/fail assessments, on the other hand, eliminate the stress of competing for high grades and allow students to focus on mastering the content. By setting clear minimum standards and providing ongoing feedback, students can better track their progress and work towards meeting achievable goals.
Tips for Using Low-Stakes Assessment:
Set clear and achievable criteria aligned with your learning goals: For pass/fail assessments, ensure that students know exactly what is required to pass, focusing on mastery of core concepts.
Focus on the bottom approaches of Bloom's taxonomy: For Pass/fail assessments, ask students for what they remember or/and understand from course content.
Use a simple rubric: By focusing on remembering and/or understanding, you will be able to provide a straightforward rubric.
Offer continuous formative assessments: Use quizzes, short assignments, or activities throughout the course to gauge progress and provide feedback, allowing students to improve gradually.
Provide constructive feedback: Even in pass/fail assessments, offer specific feedback to guide students on how they can reach the minimum threshold and improve.
Reduce performance anxiety: By using pass/fail grading, students can focus on their learning rather than the stress of ranking, encouraging a more relaxed and inclusive environment.
Support reflection: Encourage students to reflect on their learning through self-assessments or check-ins, helping them see their own progress beyond grades.
Before designing a Pass/Fail Assessment for your course, check the TER of your faculty to better understand how this format can be used in your course. There is usually a limitation of how many points can be attributed or further regulations that should be applied.
Group work tends to be challenging for all students, but for neurodivergent students there is an extra layer added given that many of them have issues with social interaction. Students may also be afraid of being judged by their colleagues because of their skills. Neurodivergent students take benefit of a clear structure and task based group assignments. Extra guidance on how to distribute the workload may also help them in the process.
Tips for Group Work
Forming groups: Keep group sizes relatively small. There is no clear consensus on whether students prefer teacher-assigned or self-selected groups. If possible, try to observe your classroom dynamics before assigning groups. One approach is to let students initially form their own groups for a few activities and then rotate members. This can be especially useful when students are still getting to know each other.
Organisation of tasks: Provide clear, written instructions on how students can structure and divide their group work. One effective option is to assign each student a specific role or task within the group.
Setting internal deadlines: It can be helpful to guide students in setting internal deadlines for completing their assignments. You might also consider establishing these deadlines yourself and designating one student per group to report back on progress.
Consider extra accommodations: Neurodivergent students, as well as those with disabilities or mental health challenges, may require specific accommodations depending on the nature of the assignment. For example, students with dyslexia might feel uncomfortable typing during group work. Those who experience difficulty with social interaction may need additional guidance—or even an alternative assignment. Students dealing with social anxiety or other challenges related to public speaking might need opportunities to contribute in other ways, if possible.
It is important that assignments are not only explained orally in the classroom, but that written descriptions are added for later consultation. When working on your assignment descriptions on Canvas, include at least a minimum amount of information that will allow students to understand what is asked from them. Common assignments are: written essays, quizzes, and presentations. Below you can find the basic information that should be available for each assignment.
Written Essay
Topic: What is the essay about? Can students select from different topics?
Goals: What are the specific goals you would like students to reach with this assignment?
Literature: What is expected from students in relation to the course literature and/or extra literature? Is there a minimum amount of sources requested?
Practical information: Deadline, submission format, and weight of assignment, word count.
Extra information: Do you want to suggest a structure that students can follow? Do you want to suggest a reading that students can use as an inspiration source? Do you want to provide a step-by-step process that students can use to write the assignment?
Written essays tend to be the favorite format of assignment among neurodivergent students. To make it more engaging, allow students to combine course elements with elements of their own interest/choice. Many neurodivergent students tend to have a hyperfocus and they feel motivated when it can be used.
Quiz
Topic: What is the quiz about?
Content: What are students expect to know?
Format: What is the number of questions? Is it an open book or closed book quiz?
Question style: Provide information on what students can expect from the questions asked, if possible, add one or two examples.
Platform: What is the platform used? ANS? Canvas? Other platform? Students who are not familiar with the platforms might take some benefit out of a mock practice before the quiz.
Practical information: Deadline, time, weight of quiz.
Consider whether students with disabilities will need accommodations for in-class quizzes. For instance, students with learning disabilities read better when printed quizzes have a larger font size. They also may need a paper copy if quizzes will be applied in the computer.
Presentation
Topic: What is the presentation about? Can students select from different topics?
Goals: What are students expected to cover during the presentation?
Format: Is there a specific format you want students to use? A pecha-kucha? A talkshow?
Literature: How is literature expected to be incorporated during the presentation?
Length: For how long are students expected to present? If a discussion is expected, does it count towards the time of the presentation? Are students expected to segment the presentation in different parts (i.e. if presenting an empirical analysis, would you have a specific amount of time destinated to the analysis?)
Practical information: Deadline, submission format, weight of assignment.
Work distribution: If the presentation is a group work, provide guidelines that can help students to work together. Add whether all students are expected to present or not.
Grading procedure: Explain whether students will be graded as a group or individually.
Extra information: Do you want students to follow a specific structure when presenting?
When working with presentations, be particularly mindful of students who struggle with disabilities and social anxiety (or other mental health conditions). They might need extra time or an alternative mode to present. For instance, students who stutter may need accommodations to present; students with social anxiety might feel more comfortable either presenting first or in the very last group. If presenting/public speaking is not part of your learning goals, consider providing an structure in which students are not forced to present, but can contribute in other ways.
