LASSO for Instructors
SUPPORTING INSTRUCTORS
LASSO is an NSF-funded platform that supports instructors collecting the empirical feedback they need to support their students growth throughout a course. It’s interface is designed to provide instructors with a quick and intuitive information about their students’ science knowledge, attitudes, and identities.
DOWNLOAD USER GUIDES FOR INSTRUCTORS
DOWNLOAD USER GUIDES FOR STUDENTS
CROSS – DEPARTMENT AND COLLEGE IMPLEMENTATION
LASSO can also be implemented across and within units, departments, and colleges, enabling institution-wide data and outcomes.
RECOMMENDED LASSO PRACTICES
To maximize student participation and the quality of the LASSO data, we recommend instructors:
- Provide points for participating
- Provide multiple reminder to participate (in and out of class)
- Communicate the goals
- Avoid time limits
- Do not share the answers or students’ scores
For more information about these recommendations and sample scripts that can be used, see Van Dusen et al. (2021) supplemental materials.
STEPS TO ASSESSING A COURSE USING THE LASSO PLATFORM.
ADD COURSE(S)
SELECT ASSESSMENT(S)
ADD STUDENTS
LAUNCH PRE-TEST
DOWNLOAD DATA
LAUNCH POST-TEST
DOWNLOAD DATA AND ANALSIS
WHAT DOES IMPLEMENTING LASSO LOOK LIKE?
POST-TEST
- During the final weeks of the course, instructors follow the same steps for launching and tracking their students’ progress on the post-tests as they did on the pre-test. Instructors can then download a spreadsheet with their students’ test responses as well as a final report. The spreadsheet also supports faculty who wish to research their own course outcomes or upload their results to another data analysis system.
- The final report is an assessment-specific PDF that provides instructors with an easy-to-understand analysis about their class’s performance.
PRE-TEST
- Instructors add their course(s) and answer a short series of questions aligned with the Postsecondary Instructional Practices Survey (Walter et al., 2016).
- Instructors select assessments from the LASSO repository to administer to their students. (As of the Fall ’23 term, LASSO hosts over 75 research-based conceptual and attitudinal assessments across STEM disciplines.)
- Instructors upload a course roster, select a deadline for the pretest, and launch the pretest.
- Each student receives an email with participation instructions including a personalized link to their online assessment. After going to the link, students are asked to share their anonymized data, complete a set of demographics questions, and take the RBA.
TOOLS FOR TEACHING
- After students have completed their pretests, instructors download a spreadsheet of their students’ raw and scored responses. LASSO then provides tools to use student responses to inform teaching practices, such as identifying concepts the students are more knowledgeable about, identifying students who may need additional support, and creating student small groups.
ASSESSMENT COORDINATOR TOOL
A faculty member can coordinate multiple courses using the Assessment Coordinator Tool. The assessment coordinator is added when creating or editing a new course. Each course can have more than one assessment coordinator. The assessment coordinator has all of the privileges and same access as the course instructors.