How to Assess on an Online Course
Firstable I would like to make a distinction between evaluation,
assessment and how assessment has to take place. Michael Harris and Paul McCann
have defined:
What
is evaluation?
Consideration of all the factor that influence the
learning process such as syllabus objectives, course design, materials,
methodology, teachers and assessment.
What
is assessment?
Measuring our students’ performance or progress in any
one of many different ways, diagnosing the problems and measuring the progress
students make.
How
should we assess?
Assessment must be done constructively, focusing on
achievement rather than on failure, it should allow students to demonstrate
what they know, rather than trying to catch them out. (1994).
Therefore to assess on line is easier than to assess in a classroom.
Because teachers in a face to face class need to take care of every little
detail. Some professionals on education have stated that the time to assess is
too little so the teacher must consider a lot of aspects like, behavior,
positive participation, questions from the students, to clarify doubts,
comments on the issue, homework’s, assignments’, projects, working in teams,
individually, peer correction etc., And teacher must have always present the time,
to present the topic, to do exercises and the wrap up. Nevertheless the aim of
the class must be consider as a first place if he/she has reached the goal of
giving a good teaching, also the teacher needs to make a reflection on his/her
own performance.
Teachers on an online course don’t deal with these kind of interaction
on a 50 -90 minutes face to face class. Teaching on line is already planned
environment. Everything has been coldly calculated and the teacher can make a
better judgement because the teacher has the time as an allied and the space.
Teacher online works before to present the class, to make a schedule, calendar
with due dates, upload materials to make them available for the students and
all what is required to start up the course. Teachers in a classroom too but
they deal with weather issues, attendance, attitudes from the students,
classroom management, grouping, coming events not considered on the design of
the course and the time is always consuming and never enough.
When it comes to assess on line teacher has a register[U1] with the date, the hour, if a student has questions
teacher on line can answer those questions, to go back as many could be required
to the student production, provide feeds back to all the work from all the
students is easier on line than in a classroom and the teacher can take more
than one hour class in case he/she is not done on the assessment during the
class. On the other hand in a classroom the time is limited and sometimes is
just not possible. For the same reason
teachers are thinking on new techniques and strategies to assess students like:
“peer
editing: where checking of
students’ written work and correction of mistakes is carried out by other
students.
Peer
assessment: where students
assess one another during class activities to assess is part of a whole process
and is linked to previous considerations and aspects like the learning objectives,
what are we going to assess from an element chosen always needs to have been linked to previous work.
Some strategies and assessing techniques to consider
to use on an online course.
Negotiated
syllabus: Students’ needs and
learning preference are taken into consideration.
Formative
Assessment: Type of
assessment which feeds back into learning and gives the learner information on
his/her progress throughout a course thus helping him/her to be more efficient
learner.
Item:
Individual question
in a test which requires the student or candidate to produce an answer.
Nonlinguistic
factors: aspects affecting
assessment which are not to do with language, but are more connected with other
factors such as attitude, working within groups or cooperation.
Open-
ended test format:
test format that requires not specific response, but which is open to
interpretation.
Strategies
to avoid cheating:
Ask students to relate the subject matter to their
own personal/professional/life experiences so their answers are personalized
and difficult to replicate.
|
Require students to submit an outline and rough draft of
term papers and essays before the final paper is due. This way, a professor
can see the work in progress.
Give different questions to different students –
construct a large set of questions from which an automated testing program
can randomly select (i.e. a database of 50 questions with 10 randomly
chosen).
|
Anna Ya Ni (May
10, 2014th) have stated that:
comparing the effectiveness of online and classroom learning, attempting
to go beyond grades and to include a logical assessment of interaction,
effective-
ness in achieving learning objectives, and student
persistence. The results of this
study indicate that although student performance is
independent of the mode of
instruction, certain courses (such as Research Methods
in Administration) are
more challenging to students who persist in the
virtual environment than in the
classroom. Furthermore, participation may be less
intimidating and the quality
and quantity of interaction may be increased in online
classes.
The findings have several implications for student
learning, course development,
and curriculum design. Online interaction can be used
to enhance learning,
especially for students who tend to be reserved in the
classroom setting
(Document
retrieved on May 10th, 2014 on the website: page 214).
Bibliography
M. Harris Glossary. Assessment (1994) Paul McCann.
M. Harris Glossary. Assessment (1994) Paul McCann.
Internet bibliography
Comparing the Effectiveness of Classroom and Online
Learning: Teaching Research Methods; Document retrieved from internet May 10th,
2014 on the website: www.naspaa.org
Strategies to Minimize
Cheating on Line, Document “retrieved” from internet May 10th, 2014 on the
website. www.ion.uillinois.edu
