Student Assessment

Blog Post:  Student Assessment - Online learning lends itself to different forms of assessment than face-to-face learning. Learning management systems lend themselves to project-based learning. This article, although written for higher-education, outlines some of the challenges and advantages of various online forms of assessment.

•    Read the following article: Online Assessment


Identify 3-4 challenges you think you will face with assessing students online and describe how you might overcome them.

      1.     The challenge of providing a test that requires a greater comprehension of the material, versus a simple multiple choice/true-false test.

Provide essay questions on the assessments.  I have taken online courses, which would require essay questions.  The essay questions had to be graded by the professor and the student didn’t get the instantaneous results.

      2.     The challenge of cheating.

Provide tests, which are directly related to information in which the students had to do research.  Provide project-based tests.  Provide tests in which the student does reflections on the material.

      3.     The challenge of testing the problem solving skills.

Provide problem-based assessments.  Provide assessments in which there are a small amount of questions but requires to the students to solve problems related to the material. 

Professional Learning Resources

Professional Learning Resources - As a teacher, you may not always have access to a learning management system (LMS) such as Angel, Desire2Learn, or WebCT. If you were to design online learning for your students without access to a LMS, which Web 2.0 (i.e. GoogleSites, Weebly, Blogger, or WikiSpaces) would you use to organize your content for students to use? Why would you use this tool? What would be the advantages or disadvantages over using this Web 2.0 tool instead of a LMS?

As a teacher, the Web 2.0 tool I would use to design an online learning class is WikiSpaces.  WikiSpaces have a feature just for the classroom.  The students are able to have discussions.  WikiSpaces have different pages you can create for different assignments and projects in my classroom.   As a teacher, I am able to control the page and able to check on the students progress with their work.  With WikiSpaces, my students have to request for access to join.  It allows me to control who is able to access my classroom.

Some advantages of using a Web 2.0 tool are they are free with great exposure.  The sign-up process is quick and easy.  The web pages are normally easy to navigate.  They have free templates that cater to the education field.  They are user-friendly. You can access some of the Web 2.0 tool via a mobile phone. If you need to make quick changes you don’t have to always be logged in at a computer.

Some disadvantages of using a Web 2.0 are it is backed by the Internet.  Even though some of the sights have privacy features, I am still concerned with the privacy of my students.  Sometimes the Internet is unreliable.  As a teacher, I do not own that site so at any time the site administrator can shut the site down without a notice.  This could be bad if it is in the middle of the class.  I would have to find a back-up system. Also, the technical support isn’t easily accessible.  

A Learning Management System is more reliable than a Web 2.0 tool.  The LMS are backed by schools with technical support.  They are more secure because they have to sign in with a valid school login identification.  Students can’t access the class unless they are registered for the class.  This protects the privacy of the students.  Some of the LMSs are not as user-friendly, they are more difficult to navigate.  Sometimes there is a learning curve to use the Learning Management Systems. 

Building Community in an Online Course

Blog Post: Building Community - Throughout this course you have been reading and studying about the importance of building a sense of community within the online learning environment. Reflect and describe 3-5 specific strategies that you will employ to build a sense of community with your online classes. Post a comment to the blogs of at least two of your classmates. You might want to review the readings on p. 78 in your textbook.

Taking time to have fun and share with students; share about family, pets, hobbies.  Students see you as real person they can connect with!

When building a community in your online classroom, I feel this is very important.  Before any assignments take place, it is important for the teacher to introduce herself by making herself a “human”.  Students often have a preconceived notion that teachers are there to give them a lot work and bad grades.  As a teacher, it is your job to dispel that notion. The students would relate to the teacher in an interactive and positive way if they know from the beginning that the teacher is there for them.  I would start my class off with an icebreaker of some sort.  I would think of a creative way for me to introduce myself and allow the students to introduce him- or herself the same way.  After proper introductions, the learning can then take place.

Developing a trusting relationship with students via monthly call, e-mails, etc.

Developing a trusting relationship with students is another way I would build a sense of community.  I would probably use a monthly phone call.  The students are already taking an online class so an email, to me, is just something else for them to read.  Making a phone call is a different mean of communication.  This will let the student know that I am there for them and care about their learning. 

­­Finding out what motivates each student.

The motivation of a student determines how much interest the student has in your classroom.  Currently, in my face-to-face classroom I do a Multiple Intelligence test in the beginning of the year.  I build a lot of my lessons around these Intelligences.  This is what keeps my students engaged throughout the year.  In my online class, I would like to provide this sort of survey.  I would then plan my lessons around the results.  Some of my lessons could include music, nature, sports, reading, travelling, etc. depending on the results.

Providing opportunities for students to interact with each other (Elluminate, whiteboards, group activities, chats, etc.)

Students love to have people they can connect with when studying a program.  They like to see that there are other people out their sharing their experiences and frustrations with their classes.  Speaking from experience, during undergrad it was a good resource for me to contact my classmates about an assignment and to get their advice.  Now that I have graduated, I still contact some of the friends I made for their advice on proofreading my graduate work.  It never hurts for someone else to take a look at your work.  I would assign a lesson around the students getting to know each other but not anything stressful.

Finding out how other instructors “track” their students; share best practices!

As a teacher, you can’t do everything alone.  It is good to share best practices.  A practice that another teacher is doing might work better for you or something you are doing might benefit another teacher.  Teaching is definitely a collaborative profession.