Multimodality as an Equitable Approach to Summative Assessment in Higher Education

Alison Cook-Sather, Daniela Moreira, Piper Rolfes, & Jess Smith   |    Volume 20 Issue 1  |   

Through relying on limited and prescribed modes of expression, summative assessment can both create and exacerbate inequities in higher education. In this article, an instructor of an undergraduate education course and three student co-authors who completed the course discuss how the students’ choice to use multimodality in their final portfolios functioned as an innovation for equity in the course’s summative assessment. After introducing ourselves and the higher education context in which we have worked together, we describe the portfolio assignment from this course. Then, the three student authors present excerpts from their portfolios, each framed by some contextual information offered by the faculty author and followed by a reflection informed by the perspectives of all four co-authors. These reflections focus on how multimodality can constitute an equitable approach to summative assessment in response to specific student intentions, health needs, and preferred modes of expression.

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