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Equity and Assessment

At Northwestern, we seek to ensure that all students, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or gender, have equal opportunities to perform at their personal best. Assessments must therefore be designed to be inclusive. The following suggestions for making assessments culturally responsive are drawn from a paper put forth by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) in 2017, “Equity and Assessment: Moving Towards Culturally Responsive Assessment.”

• Involve students in developing the course learning objectives
• Help students reflect on their learning experiences
• Allow for variation in how learning is demonstrated
• Be mindful of personal biases when assessing student work and making use of assessment results