Assessment

From: Unit 2, activity 2

The original: In chapter 2 of the book of Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. (2004). Theory and Practice of Online Learning, there is a model to develop on line learning (pages 48 -52). Revise it carefully and explain it in 200 words. Post your summary of this model in the foro of unit 2 under the sequence called “Explaining the model”

The instructor will post a general comments at the end of the this sequence.

I would assesst it not necesarilly by the number of word used, unless they are less than 100, but by the depth, precition, cohesion of the ideas used to express, also it should be added that the learner must read and comment on their eclassmates responces and if they agree, disagree and why with them.

The importace of assessment increases in the case of distance learning education, but only how is this process done but on how it is presented to the learners. specially, because our learner must see the connection too between our assessment and their participation on the course as the assessment activities must be integrated with e-learning activities, If discussions are not assessed, experience shows that many students don't participate.

We have different forms to present our assessment, all with advantages and disadvantages:

The simplest and most easily managed approach to assessment is a quantitative one, but it does not take into account the quality of the participations.

qualitative assessment of student participation requires the establishing of a certain criteria for topic knowledge, producing certain kinds of language or ideas, and so on, is not so problematic. But it should be good to think about the features of effective interaction. So we might ask these sorts of questions about a student's e-participation:

q Do they encourage others to learn/participate?

q Do they contribute regularly at each stage of the discussion?

q Do they contribute to creating a supportive, friendly environment?

q Do they take the initiative I responding to others?

q Do they bring others into the discussion?

q Do they build on the contributions of others?

q Do they use netiquette effectively?

q Do they demonstrate a reflective approach to using CMC - eg do they talk about the learning process during a conference?

Asking students to assess themselves, their online participation, and other areas of assessment (as long as they have clear criteria and an agreed method of workingand it does not impact heavily on the final assessment.)

Peer assessment can be a powerful and valuable experience, as well as an uncomfortable one. But it may be better to use it as a formative rather than summative tool it is also recomendable to do it in small groups, to reduse the stress that may come from this tipe of assessment.

If we value the interaction and discussion in our online classrooms, then we have to explore ways of deciding the kind of value we are after, the sorts of participation that we want to encourage through assessment.