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Module 6: Achieving High Expectations

From Objectives to Feedback: Communicating Learning

How do we assess what our students have learned? Answering this question will require an examination of what you have established with the Learning Objectives you created for your students, how successfully your course assignments/activities accomplish those objectives, and lastly, how your students communicate via their assignments how successfully they have achieved the objectives.

There are four parts to this process:

• Learning Objectives: instructor communicates what students should be able to do as a result of the information learned in the unit/module.
• Assessment: students demonstrate how well they have mastered the Learning Objectives via assignments, tests, discussion forums, other course activities.
• Evaluation: instructor interprets the information gathered through assessment and determines how well each student has mastered the Learning Objectives.
• Feedback: instructor communicates the evaluations to students in the form of grades, check systems, periodic email updates, or other means.

As you consider assessment and evaluation in your own course, you may find yourself "tweaking" your learning objectives and course activities. Again, the key to guaranteeing the most successful outcome for student learning in online education is through effective communication. In this case, you are communicating what you want your students to learn, and how you will assess their learning.

The pages in this module will attempt to help you establish effective practices for communicating this process, to ensure the best possible learning outcomes for your students.

Supplemental Readings on Assessment and Evaluation

The following links are not required reading for the WISE Certificate, but may be helpful resources for preparing tests, grading papers, and/or creating course evaluation surveys.

Assessment Primer

http://www.flaguide.org/start/start.php

The Field-Tested Learner Assessment Guide (FLAG) offers a general primer that explains the concepts behind assessment. While this is not specific to online course assessment, it is a useful primer for those new to teaching who would like a bit more guidance in the theories and reasoning behind the tests and papers we assign.

Online Evaluation Resource Library (OERL)

http://oerl.sri.com/

OERL's resources include instruments, plans, and reports (the tabs across the top of this page) from evaluations that have proven to be sound and representative of current evaluation practices. These resources are organized into project categories, represented by the tabs at left. Also included are alignment tables that contain criteria and a glossary to help you develop your own plans, reports, and instruments.

Considerations for Developing Evaluations of Online Courses by Sue D. Achtemeier

http://sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v7n1/pdf/v7n1_achtemeier.pdf

Exploration of how to assure effective teaching and learning online is extremely important and timely as many institutions seek to maximize the educational benefits from this constantly developing technology. This study categorizes principles gathered from an extensive review of the literature focusing on current best practices for effective teaching and learning in online courses.

EON Sample Evaluation Questions

http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/dme/eon/questions.htm

Sample questions for both end-of-semester and mid-semester evaluations from the University of Illinois' Evaluation Online (EON).

University of Washington's Online Learning Midcourse Evaluation Survey

http://www.outreach.washington.edu/teaching/online_handbook_files/myuw_midcourse_asp.html

Another example of mid-semester evaluation questions.

ERIC/AE Full Text Internet Library: Tests & Testing

http://www.ericae.net/scripts/ft/ftcongen.asp?wh1=TESTS+%26+TESTING

Links to articles covering the subject of test-based assessment.

Minimal Marking: A Sane Method for Dealing with Errors

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~syverson/olr/minmark.html

Grading papers can become a tedious process if a student's work contains a lot of sentence-level errors. This article hosted by The Learning Record offers a time-saving, sanity-saving, shorthand approach.

Illinois Online Network Education Resources

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/

ION has a wonderful collection of helpful articles and guides for online instructors. Feel free to "browse" their website sometime!

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