Good teaching can only be occurring if students are effectively learning. Effective student learning depends on the instructor having a well developed set of goals for the course and an effective pedagogical plan to meet those goals. Additionally, though, faculty need to know if in fact students are learning as they are presuming they are. The information gathered about student learning in turn affects the direction of future teaching by informing the goals, sequencing, and activities employed by the faculty member. This iterative process, diagrammed below, is what classroom assessment is all about.
Faculty have many techniques at their disposal for gathering information about student learning.
Much of what the instructor is already doing may be a rich source of information on student learning. For example, the pre-class writing assignments and cooperative learning techniques discussed previously also provide valuable information for the instructor. Any classroom technique, whether it's lecture, small group work, etc. is going to be more effective if it takes into account the state of the learner. In this technique, students take out a piece of paper at the end of class and write down the one part of class that is still most confusing for them. The instructor picks the papers up as students are leaving, and reads them over after class to determine which points need to be addressed in more detail next time.