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Classroom Assessment Techniques

By Lauri Dietz, Director of Pedagogy and Assessment

Now in its third edition, Classroom Assessment Techniques: Formative Feedback Tools for College and University Teachers (2024) by Thomas A. Angelo with Todd D. Zakrajsek builds on the formidable legacy of Cross and Angelo’s first (1988) and second (Angelo and Cross, 1993) editions. Even if an instructor is unfamiliar with the books themselves, there’s a good chance their pedagogy has been influenced by some of the 50+ evidence-based techniques found in their pages.

Thanks to Cross and Angelo, practices such as the minute paper, muddiest point, concept map, and background knowledge probe have become ubiquitous in higher education to help instructors and students gain timely feedback about student learning so that we can move from “assuming” learning is happening to “asking” (Angelo and Zakrajsek, 2024, p. 4). Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are “designed specifically to investigate how well students are learning” so that instructors and students can make adjustments in the initial and intermediate points of a learning experience (p. 5).

As with the prior editions, this latest installment offers practical, readily adaptable tools with step-by-step directions that typically take little effort to implement yet yield rich, actionable data about student learning. Plus, finding just the right CAT for your class is easy with new indices based on Bloom’s and Fink’s learning taxonomies. In addition to updates to prior CATS that add more research to support their efficacy and examples from diverse disciplines, Angelo and Zakrajsek include 15 new CATs, such as  

  • What’s Missing? or Who’s Missing? (CAT #18): When working on case studies, problem-solving, or generative AI created content, prompt students to identify what or who is missing to gain insights into why the missing elements might matter. 
  • Blooming (CAT #22):Ask students to map practice test questions to Bloom’s taxonomy to help them strategize test prep that goes beyond rote memorization. 
  • Course-Specific Mindset Assessment (CAT #39): Give this customizable questionnaire, based on Carol Dweck’s research, to help students and instructors see where students are starting with fixed and growth mindsets related to course content and learning outcomes. 

To learn about how to implement these CATs and more, the Searle Center’s Menges Library has copies for loan. 

 

Published Spring 2025