Alternative assessments in Math education

There are numerous ways of assessing students’ learning. New technologies, open education, work integrated learning, experiential learning among many other factors bring a wealth of new possibilities to assess students in a more meaningful and creative way. Issues of equity, accessibility, and inclusion highlight the imminent need to design alternative ways of assessment. Way before the pandemic, many instructors have been using alternative assessment but in the last two years, the pandemic encouraged almost every instructor to be more innovative with their assessment designs.

As part of our research on alternative assessment, we wanted to examine the types of alternative assessments that instructors are using in mathematics education. We also wanted to explore how educators can make math assessment more equitable. In this presentation, we summarize the different alternative assessments used in mathematical education and we discuss what equity in mathematical assessment looks like. We also discuss the impact of our findings on the future of assessment design in higher education.