Online Assessment: Checklists of Skills

Checklists are assessment tools that set out specific criteria, which educators and students may use to gauge skill development or progress. Generally speaking, checklists consist of a set of statements that correspond to specific criteria; the answer to each statement is either "Yes" or "No", or "Done" or "Not Done". Checklists can also be used to communicate a student's learning to his/her parents.

To create a checklist, a teacher should:

• Take the current learning outcomes for the curriculum into account
• Ensure that descriptors are clear, specific, and easy to observe
• Ensure that checklists are dated in order to document progress
• Ensure that checklists provide space for anecdotal comments

This method is common among Career and Technical Institutes. For example, Pennsylvania sets competency task grids for each area of study and teachers record the proficiency of each student as they achieve that task. A task list like this could be modified for a unit in any course by using observable and measurable objectives.