Advantages:
What are the strengths or advantages of this approach?
Learning occurs more efficiently and precisely when feedback
is promptly and accurately provided to the learner. Technology
makes immediate scoring of tests and reporting of scores to
students fast and accurate, satisfying the fundamental requirements.
Blackboard provides an Assessment and a Survey Tool which allow
you to ask a variety of types of questions. Some can be automatically
graded (e.g., multiple choice) and scores are automatically
calculated. It provides a number of security options as well.
Contact Shawn Brewer (8834) for training in the tools. One can
also simply post questions as a document or post them in the
discussion board for group responses. Students can also share
papers and projects in the discussion board or using the dropbox
in Blackboard, or send them via email to you.
Formative assessment (measurement for developmental purposes)
can be done using the above tools and is much more convenient
to do online because it does not require class time or copying/distribution/scoring.
Students can take advantage of formative assessments at their
own pace. Also, because discussion participation is often required
of all students, the instructor and other students can more
reflectively respond to each student as needed, giving better
quality formative feedback.
Summative assessment also can provide developmental information
if the product is reviewed by the student. It can be feedback
the student uses to improve his or her overall approach. However,
if students never review their learning methods, they likely
won’t improve. Faculty can support growth by addressing
study approaches in class and helping students to learn from
one another about effective techniques. Unfortunately, a grade
by itself doesn’t teach the student what to do
to perform more effectively. And the student may be satisfied
with their performance and not wish to increase scores.
Discussion Question:
Has your relative weighting of summative vs formative assessment
changed for your online classes?
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