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As formative as my time at the New College of Florida was – and as liberating as a fully pass/fail college with narrative evaluations instead of numerical quantification was… Today I am going to tell you about one of my most memorable experiences involving assessment before I transferred to New College. 

I was initially at the State College of Florida (SCF), having started classes through a high school early admission program, I continued on a work-study scholarship dedicating time in the ceramics lab. I had recently shifted my academic focus from chemistry and engineering to art, ceramics, and glaze chemistry. Looking back now, it seems rather clear that my core interests were very similar in both disciplines, but I selected the route with less math and more interdisciplinary opportunities! 

After taking all of the sculptural classes available to me, I was still desperate to grow my knowledge of ceramics, glazes, and figurative sculpture. Luckily a professor, Taylor, was willing to take on an independent study with me for the objective of studying anatomy through figurative ceramic sculpture. Since Taylor’s own specialties lay elsewhere in the sculptural world, I relied on a recommendation from another instructor art SCF and sought out instructional videos by a master sculptor for the technical anatomical content, while Taylor facilitated the actual learning environment. 

The process for sculpting a basic figurative bust was meticulous. It started with a loose representation of a skeleton, then with muscle groups layered one by one before completing the figure with a final layer of “skin” softening out the underlying structures.  

This meme depicts how I felt about that masterpiece.

After discussing my process, Taylor calmly reached out with a flat hand. While still casually leaning one elbow on the standing height steel table, she compressed the wet clay into a crumbled lump. It was a dramatic gesture, clearly a memorable moment, accompanied by a piece of advice I still remind myself of today – yet still struggle to implement. 

“You made it once, you can make it again. And the next one will be better.”

This is my impression of that slow squash.

Shocked and speechless, I listened as she explained that you have to learn through repetition and refuse to be afraid that the next sculpture might be worse than the last. She could tell I was way too attached to this creation. It was better than anything I had created up until that point! With a smashed lump of clay, I had to let it go, try again, and learn to trust myself in the process. 

I dusted off my clay-coated reference materials and followed the process over again: block out the skeleton, layer in the muscle groups, wrap with skin. I remade the bust in an astonishing speed compared to my laborious first try. Taylor had been quietly watching from afar as she moseyed around the room helping other students. When she retired to review my “second draft,” she instructed me to to destroy it!

For those who have not yet experienced it, intentionally destroying your own artwork is profoundly liberating. 

I might not have had this level of enthusiasm until the “third draft”…

Perhaps Taylor was checking to make sure I actually knew how to create the bust on my own (even with reference material in hand), but more importantly, her assessment of my process caught a crucial flaw that was preventing me from further growth. I needed to learn how to learn as a self-directed learner and artist. I had to develop my own resilience, iterative practice, and self-assessment skills. 

Through this experience, I slowly began to learn that there are two major barriers that treating an artwork as too “precious” can cause:

1. It is better to focus on iteration and experimentation over a single artefact – especially early in the learning process. Perfectionism is a barrier to learning because truly learning anatomy to the point of muscle memory (no pun initially intended) can only be achieved through repetition. While I must confess, perfectionism plagues me today, the experience revealed to me that learning is iterative.
2. Feedback is only as effective as your ability to listen to it and implement it. When a creation is too “precious,” critique can feel like a personal attack, but by letting the emotional attachment go, the artefact remains an independent object that can be viewed as separate from self-worth. Emotional attachment to an artefact hinders the ability to critically self-assess in the pursuit of improvement. 

Assessing anatomical accuracy might not have been Taylor’s primary expertise, but effective teaching is a distinct skill set that she exercised with grace and humor. She knew I was not ready to hear harsh criticism as I was just developing my confidence and had a lengthy learning journey ahead. She gamified the repetitive process of recreating over and over through gamified challenges like time restrictions, different poses, half scale or other size differences. This helped teach not just in a motivating and confidence building manner, but also helped me to learn strategies for learning independently, echoing many of the ideas from Malcolm Knowles’ idea of self-directed learning (1975). Through dismembering the clay bust, she helped me to dismantle the psychological barriers that kept me comfortable but stagnant, and to build the strategies to learn independently for the future. 

As Shepard (2000) describes, effective assessment for learning supports the learning process and must include dynamic practices, continuous feedback, and actively foster self-evaluation. Taylor was well-versed in leveraging the zone of proximal development while expertly delivering feedback that kept me challenged, motivated, and confident. She was skilled in the art of gentle, guiding feedback that balanced motivation and self-confidence with corrective feedback. Perhaps the best way to build a student up is to teach them how to tear their work down. 

References

Knowles, M. S. (1975). Self-directed learning: A guide for learners and teachers. Cambridge, The Adult Education Co.. 

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29 (7), 4-14. A

Image Credits

Author created meme using template “My-Precious-Gollum” on ImgFlip. https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/30137861/My-precious-Gollum

Canadian Broadcasting Company. (2020). Schitt’s Creek Comedy GIF by CBC [Animated gif]. Giphy. https://giphy.com/gifs/cbc-schitts-creek-URkVaXX4cubqCxLYma

No author. (2016). Hydraulic press crushing rubber duck [Animated gif]. https://giphy.com/gifs/press-rubber-squished-9wIMQtSaKjoaI

Published May 25 and last modified May 30, 2026.

All too often, education focuses narrowly on assessing outcomes rather than embedding assessment into the learning process in a student-centric manner. To leverage assessment, we must pivot the focus to the former of assessing for the purpose of supporting the learner’s learning.

I believe it is crucial to first acknowledge the learner’s prior experiences and the wider cultural context of high-stakes assessment before I can cultivate a positive low-stakes approach to assessment. Particularly in the United States of America, assessment has long carried with it outdated hereditarian theory, social efficiency models, behaviorism and a misguided emphasis on objective measurements of intelligence and memorization of information. These persistent beliefs and prior experiences create psychological risks to students’ self-worth and confidence in learning. As Shepard (2000) explains, utilizing assessment to enhance learning demands a shift in the learning culture and social meaning of evaluation.

To truly leverage assessment that supports the learning process, it must pivot towards supporting each and every learner’s journey through a foundation of trust, equity, and a collaborative approach. Through cultivating a learning environment that is collaborative, learner-centered, and setting a tone of mutual support, trust between the instructor and learner can be built.

To actively support the learning process, assessment must be timely and actionable. When assessment is on-going and embedded throughout the learning experience, feedback becomes a dynamic part of the learner’s experience. When assessment is embedded into the continuous loop of learning, the learner is able to gauge their progress and understand what actions or focus is necessary to move forward, while also providing valuable information for the instructor to provide scaffolding, strategies, or possibly to adjust the learning design entirely to support all the learners.

Further, assessment must be actionable rather than passive. Without utility in the information created, the assessment risks devolving into mundane busy-work. When grounded in a growth mindset of continuous development, actionable feedback ensures that all learners whether they are already meeting the learning objectives or not, are able to develop their self-directed learning skills, to push their boundaries, and stretch their capabilities in exciting directions. Ensuring that assessments are actionable and useful requires intentional and thoughtful design.

To provide effective, well designed assessment, I utilize Backwards Design and Iterative Design methods. Starting with measurable and clear learning objectives and working backwards ensures that the assessment is aligned with learning and creates useful data that can be applied to enhance outcomes. Yet, we as instructors must not only utilize iteration and improvement focused practices, we must also embody and model them for the learners. Through modeling and displaying how assessment is used to iterate and improve your own teaching, the learner gains valuable insights into how they are a part of the collaborative learning environment. When instructors demonstrate using an assessment to improve themselves or the course itself, the learner can truly transform their perspective on the role of assessment in their learning and become a catalyst for demonstrating to all the value that assessment holds for the learning experience.

References

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29 (7), 4-14. 

Image Attribution

Anemone123. (2017). Team spririt teamwork community [Photograph]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/team-spirit-teamwork-community-2447163/

Andrey_and_Olesya. (2023). Lamp beam table lamp reading [Illustration]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/lamp-beam-table-lamp-reading-7898064/

Once upon a time, young Jamie enthusiastically enrolled in a high school course about HTML (hypertext markup language), through the fairly new Florida Virtual School (FLVS). My affluent public school did not have any computer programming related classes and at that time, Florida was pushing for students across the state to enroll in FLVS to supplement their public school course offerings. Using a personal laptop I already had access to, and with the help of my school, I created my FLVS account and signed up to learn all about HTML and I could not wait to get started!

Except I hated the course.

I was provided Dreamweaver, a professional web-development program by Adobe, yet none of the assignments were to use it and worse, I wasn’t even supposed to open the program. For what felt like an eternity, I wrote HTML code with CSS styles for formatting and created text document after text document following instructions and writing code that replicated a dictated hypothetical website without actually getting to publish a website.¹ It was all rather confusing, terribly boring, easy but tedious, and I didn’t know where the course was headed and if I would ever get to open Dreamweaver and make the website of my dreams! I avoided the course, didn’t open email, and consumed myself with other clubs, activities, a job, and forgot I was even taking an online course. In the last week of the semester I finished about 75% of the course after being on hiatus for a while and begged to drop out of the second semester.² What happened to my enthusiasm to learn HTML?

Fast forward through a few more poor online learning experiences and primarily face-to-face classes, and I am now a graduate student in the Masters of Learning Experience Design at Michigan State University. Over the spring semester, I have taken CEP 820, Online Teaching and Learning. Throughout this course, I have gotten the chance to re-evaluate those prior online learning experiences with a new perspective and more sophisticated lens. During CEP 820, I’ve learned why some online courses excel beyond a traditional counterpart and why some fall so short. I have developed a much better understanding of not just the why but also the how of humanizing online learning, refining and revising learning objectives, making engaging and accessible activities, creating assessment and supporting the learner throughout the process.

Although in 2026 our lives are filled with video and audio, back in 2009, Zoom would not even be a product for another four years. FLVS’ idea of humanizing online learning was through email communications with the instructor. Peer-to-peer interactions had not been implemented yet in FLVS. Perhaps videos would have helped me to feel less isolated, but I must admit I am personally not fond of learning through videos. Perhaps I did not get much exposure to educational videos other than substitute teachers rolling out a TV cart to fill the time.

I lost a tooth in front of a TV cart just like this one.

In a meta-analysis of flipped learning in higher education, Bredow et al. (2021) created criteria for inclusion in the analysis that took me by surprise. The first criteria is audio visual lecture content, or vodcasts, which they believe are “pedagogically distinct from other forms of preclass content dissemination” (2021, p. 879). The sheer volume of courses that met this requirement prompted a significant pause in my reading to consider my own absence of video based instruction for online content. The study served as a catalyst for my ongoing re-examination of the impact that lecture videos hold.

Perhaps we can forgive FLVS for its lack of vodcasting as the word was rather new at the time, but going past technology itself there is so much more that could have been improved. During CEP 820, I got a chance to learn about, study, and apply a variety of design principles and design frameworks for quality online courses such as OSCQR, Quality Matters, and Universal Design for Learning 3.0 (UDL). Although each carries its own merit, UDL resonated with me the most. The UDL guidelines are based around centering the learner, fostering learner autonomy, and designing for access, support, and executive function. It focuses on designing multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression to be approachable and effective across cultures, backgrounds, and neurotypes. The support and executive function framing has stuck with me the most and will continue to inform all of my future learning designs as I have benefited from these the most during my CEP 820 experience. 

So what went wrong in young Jamie’s online HTML course? At the time I was convinced that there was no instructor on the other side of the screen as I felt that the email communications were clearly automated and I had little evidence to the contrary until I wanted to drop the second semester. Suddenly, the instructor even had a phone call with me to try and convince me to stay in the course!³ Yet, I still did not see the “why” and there did not seem to be a path to learning that fancy web software. I was told it would look good on a college application. You are almost there just keep going! None of those reasons resonated with young Jamie’s undiagnosed ADHD. Looking back with the tool of UDL, it seems so clear. 

1. Purely text based technical content was not engaging.
2. Email communication was formal, infrequent, and not encouraged. 
3. There was no peer engagement. 
4. The learning goals and course path was not made clear.
5. There were not real world connections or ability to customize the content to my applications.
6. There were no reflective exercises.
7. There was no structure of timing or schedule of activities. 
8. There were no progress checks, accountability, or support for sustaining motivation.

Of course undiagnosed young Jamie struggled to conjure up a care for learning HTML!

At the start of the spring semester, I understood many reasons why young Jamie’s HTML course was such drudgery, but now I know I could could redesign that course in a way that would have gotten young Jamie into computer science about seven years earlier. Along with video and a functional learner management system (LMS), I would prioritize clear and meaningful goals and objectives, multimedia content, peer interactions, assignments that can be related to various topics of interest or personalized for different goals, and would provide many opportunities to connect the content to real world applications. Online learning is not about digitizing content, it is a process of building comprehension and constructing knowledge which is highly personal, social and active rather than passive. 

In CEP 820, I never doubted my instructor’s existence – even in the new age of generative AI deepfakes! I had an exceptionally positive experience with the amount of support and executive function support that was woven throughout the course from clear time estimates for learning activities, accountability through a shared class tracking spreadsheet of completed assignments, practical applications and practice, and scaffolding for assignments. One of my favorite design elements was the Design Guide – a document that provided guided activities corresponding to consent and larger assignments. Moving from practice with scaffolding to practical implementation of a learning design pushed my comprehension and helped me develop further than reading content ever could – because learning through doing is at the heart of my pedagogy.⁴

I created a unit called “Flat Fabrication: 2D Digital Fabrication” a unit that teaches one to use 2D vector design for digital fabrication using tools like a laser cutter or electronic cutting machine. Incorporating Design for Fabrication, Iterative Design, and prototyping fundamentals, this unit takes the learner from completing a basic tutorial to creating their own designs, learning various digital fabrication technologies, and exploring material possibilities as well as limitations. I focused on the initial two modules of this hypothetical project. 

Relying heavily on my own teaching and learning experiences, and empowered with UDL 3.0, I designed my unit to be highly interactive, humanized, and foster learner agency. What this looks like in practice is a module dedicated to setting the tone, access, learning about the learners, and helping the learners begin to relate to me as the instructor. Using short engaging videos, clear learning objectives, multimedia content with reflection and other guided questions, customizable activities for different methods of learning and allowing the learner to fit the activity to their goals and interests. Each module includes at least one instructor video, road map of the module, rich content with reflection opportunities, engaging hands-on projects, scaffolded reflection activities, and wraps up with a Check Point Survey for accountability and frequent feedback and communication. If you’d like, you can hear more about my Flat Fabrication learning design and Canvas course in the video below this paragraph.

Click the “Watch on YouTube” button for full transcript and captions.

As my unit came to fruition, I took some time to review videos I made for my position at the Makerspace and was aghast at how few of my newfound guidelines were in place! I am looking forward to revising and iterating with newfound knowledge and a functioning video creation process.

Perhaps if UDL was incorporated in that HTML course, young Jamie might have stayed for the second semester. But would she have turned into a learning designer? Perhaps not.

Footnotes

1. No knowledge from that HTML courses aided me in the creation of this webpage. I used Google Gemini for guidance to attempt to embed a script or iframe code which is unfortunately blocked by WordPress on accounts that are not self-hosted, such as mine. ↩︎
2. In the 2007 comprehensive assessment of FLVS by the Florida TaxWatch Center for Educational Performance and Accountability, data from the academic year of 2005-2006 depicts high withdrawal rates when compared to traditional school enrollments. Withdrawals in the subjects of computer science and business technology are notable in Chart 34 on page 65 (2007). ↩︎
3.  Based on the 2009 report by Mackey, K. and Horn, M.B., it seems that the primary motivation of FLVS was to reduce the cost of education in the state of Florida and effectiveness was measured by quantity of enrollment which resulted in the program’s funding allocation. Studies had not been conducted to compare FLVS learning outcomes against traditional high school courses (2009). ↩︎
4. For more about my online teaching pedagogy, see my Online Learning Manifesto. ↩︎

References

Bredow, C. A., Roehling, P. V., Knorp, A. J. & Sweet, A. M. (2021). To flip or not to flip? A meta-analysis of the efficacy of flipped learning in higher education. Review of Educational Research. 91(6), 878–918. doi/10.3102/00346543211019122 

CAST. (n.d.). The UDL guidelines. CAST.org. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0 [graphic organizer]. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/static/udlg3-graphicorganizer-digital-nonumbers-a11y.pdf 

Florida TaxWatch Center for Educational Performance and Accountability. (2007, October 31). Final report: a comprehensive assessment of Florida Virtual School. https://floridataxwatch.org/DesktopModules/EasyDNNNews/DocumentDownload.ashx?portalid=210&moduleid=35706&articleid=16048&documentid=930 

Mackey, K., & Horn, M. B. (2009, October). Florida Virtual School: Building the first statewide, internet-based public high school. [Case Study]. Innosight Institute, Inc. https://www.flvs.net/docs/default-source/research/flvs-innosight.pdf

Moriarty, J. (2026, May 2). CEP 820 – screencast of ultimate unit flat fabrication [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/rK0GbheJDfg

SUNY OSCQR. (n.d.). OSCQR – SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric. https://oscqr.suny.edu/ Quality Matters. (2023). Specific review Standards from the QM higher education rubric. Seventh Edition. https://www.qualitymatters.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/StandardsfromtheQMHigherEducationRubric.pdf