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This resource describes a few CAT activities as well. Activities such as:
The One Sentence Summary
Application Cards

CATs are techniques teachers use to answer the question: “What are students thinking?”

CATs should be quick to use, easy to interpret, and provide information about students’ thinking.

CATs can answer questions like:

What do students come to my course
knowing (or thinking they know)?

What are they thinking at any moment in
class?

What did they get out of today’s class
compared to what I wanted them to get?

What are they thinking when they study (or
how did they go about answering a problem)?

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This resource describes specific strategies or activities to do with students.

Minute paper             Muddiest Point

Different CAT activities are designed to assess knowledge and skills at different stages of the learning process and at different DOK levels:

Assessing Prior Knowledge, Recall and Understanding

Assessing Skills in Application and Performance

Assessing Skill in Problem Solving

Assessing Skill in Analysis and Critical Thinking

Assessing Skill in Synthesis and Creative Thinking

There are CAT activities designed to assess student attitudes, values and self-awareness.

There are CAT activities designed to assess the learners’ thoughts about the effectiveness of instruction, the usefulness of information and resources, whether the way something was taught was useful, if they liked the textbook or the video, etc.

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CATS are simple, non-graded, in-class activities

Purpose: to give you and your students feedback on the teaching/learning process in “real-time”

Advantages:

You get “just-in-time” info about student understanding of concepts, where they need more help or practice, so you can address it during the lesson. They are quick and easy.

Allows the teacher to then switch gears and try a different approach if necessary with one or more students.

Students begin to learn how to monitor their own learning and evaluate their own understanding. Hopefully it gives them the confidence to speak up when they do not understand or need another example, more time to review, or more practice.

CATs can foster good rapport between teachers and students.

The hope is that students will not go on to independent practice without fully understanding the concept and end up practicing things “wrong,” only to find out the next day they just completed 15 problems and they are all wrong.

The hope is that instructors do not just move along to the next topic not knowing whether all students “get it.”

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Classroom Assessment Techniques: How Can I Tell What My Students Are Thinking?

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Classroom Assessment Techniques: How Can I Tell What My Students Are Thinking?

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Indiana University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

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Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

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How Can I Tell What My Students Are Thinking?

There are several ways to answer this important question. A general answer is that students often have enough time on their hands, even as they sit in class and listen, to think about several things at the same time. None of us puts 100 percent of our attention to a lecture for long periods of time. Instead, attention waxes and wanes.

We also know that students have seven developmental tasks they are working on during the college years: achieving intellectual, physical, and social competence; managing emotions; becoming autonomous; establishing identity; managing interpersonal relationships; clarifying purpose; and developing integrity (Chickering, 1969). At times, students are probably thinking about these other things, rather than about purely intellectual pursuits.

But good teachers will also want to know a more specific answer. In fact, a set of techniques has been developed to get at the question, "What are students thinking?" They are called Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), and were developed by Angelo and Cross (1993). There are many varied CATs that can be used. The most important things are that they are quick to use, easy to interpret, and provide a wealth of information about our students' thinking, so we can have a better idea of what is going on with our students.

Using a CAT is a little like asking a research question. Is there something you would like to know about your specific students in your specific course? CATs can get at:

What do students come to my course knowing (or thinking they know)?

What are they thinking at any moment in class?

What did they get out of today's class compared to what I wanted them to get?

What are they thinking when they study (or how did they go about answering a problem)?

Why Should I Use CATs?

For instructors, more frequent use of CATs can:

Provide short-term feedback about the day-to-day learning and teaching process at a time when it is still possible to make mid-course corrections.

Provide useful information about student learning with a much lower investment of time compared to tests, papers, and other traditional means of learning assessment.

Help to foster good rapport with students and increase the efficacy of teaching and learning.

Encourage the view that teaching is a formative process that evolves over time with feedback.

For students, more frequent use of CATs can:

Help them become better monitors of their own learning.

Help break down feelings of anonymity, especially in larger courses.

Point out the need to alter study skills.

Provide concrete evidence that the instructor cares about learning.

CATs are feedback devices to help us determine how much, how well, and simply how our students learn. Many faculty on the Bloomington campus use CATS regularly. Make an appointment with one of our consultants to help you identify the question you would like to ask about your students' learning and adapt a CAT to your topic.

Example CATs

References

Angelo, T. A., and Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chickering, A. (1969). Education and identity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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There are several ways to answer this important question. A general answer is that students often have enough time on their hands, even as they sit in class and listen, to think about several things at the same time. None of us puts 100 percent of our attention to a lecture for long periods of time.

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University of Kentucky, Center for the Advancement of Learning & Teaching

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I. Techniques for Assessing Course-Related Knowledge & Skills

A. Assessing Prior Knowledge, Recall, and Understanding

The CATs in this group focus on assessing declarative learning - the content of a particular subject.

Background Knowledge Probe: Short, simple questionnaires prepared by instructors for use at the beginning of a course or at the start of new units or topics; can serve as a pretest

Focused Listing: Focuses students' attention on a single important term, name, or concept from a lesson or class session and directs students to list ideas related to the "focus"

Misconception/Preconception Check: Intended to uncover prior knowledge or beliefs that may hinder or block new learning; can be designed to uncover incorrect or incomplete knowledge, attitudes, or values

Empty Outlines: In a limited amount of time students complete an empty or partially completed outline of an in-class presentation or homework assignment

Memory Matrix: Students complete a table about course content in which row and column headings are complete but cells are empty

Minute Paper: The most frequently used CAT; students answer 2 questions (What was the most important thing you learned during this class? What important question remains unanswered?)

Muddiest Point: Considered by many as the simplest CAT; students respond to the question "What was the most unclear or confusing point in (lecture, homework, discussion)?"

B. Assessing Skill in Analysis and Critical Thinking
The CATs in this group focus on analysis-the breaking down of information, questions, or problems to facilitate understanding and problem solving.

Categorizing Grid: Student complete a grid containing 2 or 3 overarching concepts and a variety of related subordinate elements associated with the larger concepts

Defining Features Matrix: Students categorize concepts according to the presence or absence of important defining features

Pro and Con Grid: Students list pros/cons, costs/benefits, advantages/disadvantages of an issue, question, or value of competing claims

Content, Form, and Function Outlines: In an outline form, students analyze the "what" (content), "how" (form), and "why" (function) of a particular message (e.g. poem, newspaper story, critical essay); also called "What, How, & Why Outlines

Analytic Memos: Students write a one- or two-page analysis of a specific problem or issue to help inform a decision-maker

C. Assessing Skill in Synthesis and Creative Thinking
The CATs in this group focus on synthesis - stimulating the student to create and allowing the faculty to assess original intellectual products that result from a synthesis of course content and the students' intelligence, judgment, knowledge, and skills.

One-Sentence Summary: Students answer the questions "Who does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?" (WDWWWWHW) about a given topic and then create a single informative, grammatical, and long summary sentence

Word Journal: Involves a 2 part response; 1st the student summarizes a short text in a single word and 2nd the student writes 1-2 paragraphs explaining the word choice

Approximate Analogies: Students simply complete the 2nd half of an analogy-a is to b as
? is to ?; described as approximate because the rigor of formal logic is not required

Concept Maps: Students draw or diagram the mental connections they make between a major concept and other concepts they have learned

Invented Dialogues: Students synthesize their knowledge of issues, personalities, and historical periods into the form of a carefully structured illustrative conversation; students can select and weave quotes from primary sources or invent reasonable quotes that fit characters and context

Annotated Portfolios: Students assemble a very limited number of examples of creative work and supplement them with their own commentary on the significance of examples

D. Assessing Skill in Problem Solving
The CATs in this group focus on problem solving skills - recognizing different types of problems, determining the principles and techniques to solve them, perceiving similarities of problem features, and being able to reflect and then alter solution strategies.

Problem Recognition Tasks: Students recognize and identify particular problem types

What's the Principle?: Students identify the principle or principles to solve problems of various types

Documented Problem Solutions: Students track in a written format the steps they take to solve problems as if for a "show & tell"

Audio- and Videotaped Protocols: Students work through a problem solving process and it is captured to allow instructors to assess metacognition (learner's awareness of and control of thinking)

E. Assessing Skill in Application and Performance
The CATs in this group focus on students' application of conditional knowledge - knowing when and where to apply what they know and can do.

Directed Paraphrasing: Students paraphrase part of a lesson for a specific audience demonstrating ability to translate highly specialized information into language the clients or customers can understand

Application Cards: Students generate examples of real-world applications for important principles, generalizations, theories, or procedures

Student-Generated Test Questions: Students generate test questions and model answers for critical areas of learning

Human Tableau or Class Modeling: Students transform and apply their learning into doing by physically modeling a process or representing an image.

Paper or Project Prospectus: Students create a brief plan for a paper or project based on your guiding questions

II. Techniques for Assessing Learner Attitudes, Values, and Self-Awareness
A. Assessing Students' Awareness of Their Attitudes and Values
The CATs in this group are designed to assist instructors in developing students' attitudes, opinions, values, and self-awareness within the course curriculum.

28. Classroom Opinion Polls: Students indicate degree of agreement or disagreement with a statement or prompt
29. Double-entry Journals: Students record and respond to significant passages of text
30. Profiles of Admiral Individuals: Students write a brief description of the characteristics of a person they admire in a field related to the course
31. Everyday Ethical Dilemma: Students respond to a case study that poses a discipline-related ethical dilemma
32. Course-related Self-Confidence Surveys: Students complete an anonymous survey indicating their level of confidence in mastering the course material

B. Assessing Students' Self-Awareness as Learners
The CATs in this group help students articulate their goals and self-concepts in order to make connections between their goals and those of the course.

33. Focused Autobiographical Sketches: Students write a brief description of a successful learning experience they had relevant to the course material
34. Interest/Knowledge/Skills Checklists: Students complete a checklist survey to indicate their knowledge, skills and interest in various course topics
35. Goal Ranking and Matching: Students list and prioritize 3 to 5 goals they have for their own learning in the course
36. Self-Assessment Ways of Learning: Students compare themselves with several different "learning styles" profiles to find the most likely match

C. Assessing Course-Related Learning and Study Skills, Strategies, and Behaviors
The CATs in this group assist students in focusing attention on the behaviors they engage in when trying to learn.

37. Productive Study-Time Logs: Students complete a study log to record the quantity and quality of time spent studying for a specific course
38. Punctuated Lectures: Students briefly reflect then create a written record of their listening level of a lecture. Repeat twice in the same lecture and 2- 3 times over 2 to 3 weeks
39. Process Analysis: Students outline the process they take in completing a specified assignment
40. Diagnostic Learning Logs: Students write to learn by identifying, diagnosing, and prescribing solutions to their own learning problems

III. Techniques for Assessing Learner Reactions to Instruction
A. Assessing Learner Reactions to Teachers and Teaching
The CATS in this group are designed to provide context-specific feedback that can improve teaching within a course.

41. Chain Notes: On an index card that is distributed in advance, each student responds to an open-ended prompt about his or her mental activity that is answered in less than a minute
42. Electronic Survey Feedback: Students respond to a question or short series of questions about the effectiveness of the course.
43. Teacher-designed Feedback Forms: Students respond to specific questions through a focused feedback form about the effectiveness of a particular class session
44. Group Instructional Feedback Technique: Students respond to three questions related to their learning in the course (basically, what works, what doesn't, and how can it be improved)
45. Classroom Assessment Quality Circles: A group or groups of students provide the instructor with ongoing assessment of the course through structured interactions

B. Assessing Learner Reactions to Class Activities, Assignments, and Materials
The CATS in this group are designed to provide instructors with information that will help them improve their course materials and assignments.

46. RSQC2 (Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect and Comment): Students write brief statements that recall, summarize, question, connect and comment on meaningful points from previous class
47. Group-Work Evaluation: Students complete a brief survey about how their group is functioning and make suggestions for improving the group process
48. Reading Rating Sheets: Students complete a form that rates the effectiveness of the assigned readings
49. Assignment Assessments: Students respond to 2 or 3 open-ended questions about the value of an assignment to their learning
50. Exam Evaluations: Students provide feedback about an exam's learning value and/or format

Source: Angelo, T. & Cross, K.P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd Edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (Available in the CELT library, room 518, King Building)

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50 Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

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I. Techniques for Assessing Course-Related Knowledge & Skills A. Assessing Prior Knowledge, Recall, and Understanding The CATs in this group focus on assessing declarative learning - the content of a particular subject.

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Vonne and Mary

How can we help students assess their own learning accurately and let them feel like they have some input into the process?

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Classroom Assessment Techniques Teaching Guide

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Classroom Assessment Techniques Teaching Guide

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Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching

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Print Version
What Are CATs?

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening.

Examples of CATs include the following.

The Background Knowledge Probe is a short, simple questionnaire given to students at the start of a course, or before the introduction of a new unit, lesson or topic. It is designed to uncover students' pre-conceptions.

The Minute Paper tests how students are gaining knowledge, or not. The instructor ends class by asking students to write a brief response to the following questions: "What was the most important thing you learned during this class?" and "What important question remains unanswered?"

The Muddiest Point is one of the simplest CATs to help assess where students are having difficulties. The technique consists of asking students to jot down a quick response to one question: "What was the muddiest point in [the lecture, discussion, homework assignment, film, etc.]?" The term "muddiest" means "most unclear" or "most confusing."

The What's the Principle? CAT is useful in courses requiring problem-solving. After students figure out what type of problem they are dealing with, they often must decide what principle(s) to apply in order to solve the problem. This CAT provides students with a few problems and asks them to state the principle that best applies to each problem.

Defining Features Matrix: Prepare a handout with a matrix of three columns and several rows. At the top of the first two columns, list two distinct concepts that have potentially confusing similarities (e.g. hurricanes vs. tornados, Picasso vs. Matisse). In the third column, list the important characteristics of both concepts in no particular order. Give your students the handout and have them use the matrix to identify which characteristics belong to each of the two concepts. Collect their responses, and you'll quickly find out which characteristics are giving your students the most trouble.

Why Should I Use CATs?

CATs can be used to improve the teaching and learning that occurs in a class. More frequent use of CATs can...

Provide just-in-time feedback about the teaching-learning process

Provide information about student learning with less work than traditional assignments (tests, papers, etc.)

Encourage the view that teaching is an ongoing process of inquiry, experimentation, and reflection

Help students become better monitors of their own learning

Help students feel less anonymous, even in large courses

Provide concrete evidence that the instructor cares about learning

How Should I Use CATs?

Results from CATs can guide teachers in fine-tuning their teaching strategies to better meet student needs. A good strategy for using CATs is the following.

1. Decide what you want to assess about your students' learning from a CAT.

2. Choose a CAT that provides this feedback, is consistent with your teaching style, and can be implemented easily in your class.

3. Explain the purpose of the activity to students, and then conduct it.

4. After class, review the results, determine what they tell you about your students' learning, and decide what changes to make, if any.

5. Let your students know what you learned from the CAT and how you will use this information.

Where Can I Find More CATs?

The standard references on CATs is Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition, by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-Bass, 1993). This book includes 50 CATs, indexed in a variety of useful ways. The book is available at the Center for Teaching library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

A number of web sites also feature information on and examples of CATs, including the following.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Print Version What Are CATs? Why Should I Use CATs? How Should I Use CATs? Where Can I Find More CATs? What Are CATs? Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are generally simple, non-graded, anonymous, in-class activities designed to give you and your students useful feedback on the teaching-learning process as it is happening.