eLearning allows for more tools for teacher-student assessment. This includes easy to administer quizzes on-demand; collaborative projects that can occur at the students' pace; and blog capability and web searching where communication can be instanteous. The challenge for the teacher to how to use these tools to provide an appropriate learning experience, yet not overwhelm the student or teacher. The issue of plagarism is there. For very formal learning experiences, an independent, mediated resource can be set-up - such as is done when students take standardized tests for college admission like SATs, but for many courses, the assessment concept needs to be expanded. Students in the real world will have access to data and they need to learn how to "mine" the information and integrate it into practice.
The readings provided this week, recommend assessment plans for the elearning environment. Boettcher (p. 154) suggests "at least four types of experience: participation in discussion posts; automated low-stakes quizzes, individual projects, and team projects." I have updated my course framework to reflect this. Specific additions are:
- Discussion: Students participate in a class community blog (such as diigo) and must participate and post to at least one colon cancer forum (Lesson 5.)
- Quizzes: Each lesson end with a quiz on both the information for that lesson, as well as feedback on the lesson. An example of what this might look like is provided for in the Lesson 5 Wrap-up.
- Individual projects: Students are required to critical think about colon cancer, as in lesson 2 they are required to write about how colon cancer has personally effected them and how additional screening might have impacted this.
- Team projects: Two collaborative documents, using wiki, have been added as part of Lessons 3 and 4. This includes adding to the pros and cons of different screening methods and cancer treatments. The student is required to read and view other recourses to be able to effectively contribute.
Ann, your assessment additions to the Colon Cancer Course are very good. I especially like the one requiring students to think critically about how colon cancer has impacted their lives. Anytime you can make an assessment personal, it becomes "authentic" for the student and his/her course outcomes (over all learning). Team projects are also critical to learning--2 or more heads are often better than 1 due to the alternate/additional viewpoints raised.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of Google Docs for your quiz! I agree with Mary Ann about the personal reflections. You could even take it a step further and ask them if you can collect those stories as part of the content for future iterations of the course. You might end up with a powerful collection of personal stories. Very touching!
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