teachNbabble

As I read the articles on online assessment and tools I began to think how I have set up my assessment within the UBD and curriculum mapping framework we are using. I wonder how many people went down the same route I went. I think it is a natural tendency to simply rework what you have been doing and place it within the provided boxes. The material we are covering in class as helped me reexamine the process and make modifications to units.

A little diagram that shows how
dense I can be.

Our first assignment requires that we read an article create notes on the article then react to some of the information we read. On the whole the article was OK though it felt a bit dated. The article did raise the need for a reexamination of terms some that we will be looking at later on in this unit. It has also caused me to reexamine the process we have gone through in our school in curriculum planning.

Our question

If assessment differs for face-to-face and online learning. And if so, why and how.
What are some of the benefits and challenges of online assessment?

Assessment online and Face to Face have many similarities and article I read pointed out on numerous occasions that:

“…assessment must match the learning that is taking place and the desired objectives and outcomes”(On-line Assessment)

Regardless of where the assessment takes place it is obvious that we need to assess what we are teaching, though I say that sheepishly. The fundamentals of designing an assessment is the same for both the online and face 2 face teaching environment. The designer needs to consider the fundamental essential understandings (goals) the content and skills and build an assessment around this. When this does not happen the assessment becomes invalid and this can become an issue with the students.

As with Donna my experience is with more of a blended online situation. For a variety of reasons, more and more universities are adding online courses to their offerings. Because of this I felt that I needed to provide my High School students with experiences in using an online component to their studies. To accomplish this I setup a system to organize my courses into an online environment. I have moved much of my content, expectations, projects, discussions to this online environment and have started placing all of my assessment tasks online as well. The article has helped me think about the differences I would face if my course was offered only online. The types of assessment I use might have to change because of supervisory issues. The design of group activities and projects would have to be rexamined as well. Students like using the online components although they have to be given training on how to use the tools. Easy to do when the class is sitting in front of you but in an online situation the need for a prerequisite ourse is apparent. In the classroom you will often have the quiet student who does not add a lot to a conversation but in an online discussion where they have time to consider what they have to say some of the students feel more comfortable sharing an opinion, simlair to what Donna finds with her ESL students.