The purpose of this presentation is to present different approaches for the assessment of student learning

1. ASSESSMENT FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION

2. PURPOSE FOR ASSESSMENTS
 Assessments can be defined as the process of
measuring and interpreting behaviors that
demonstrate learning and knowledge
capabilities
 The most important purpose for assessing
learning gains is to provide feedback to both
teachers and students
 An instructor can provide additional assistance
when equipped with results from an assessment
 Students use assessments for motivational
purposes because they will be held accountable
and want to make a good grade

3. ASSESSMENT AND INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
 The important thing for teachers to understand is if learners lack the confidence and understanding of
the course, their motivation drops so they are less likely to continue the course and retain new material
 Another way to promote confidence is to understand the technology skills of the learners by utilizing
technological resources necessary for the class by assigning them to turn in assignments digitally
 In-class and real time situations like online assignments allows students to get out of the traditional
objective measure and force them to diversify themselves

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF USEFUL ASSESSMENTS
 There are two types of grading: grading on a curve and criterion-referenced grading
 Criterion grading is scoring that is predetermined and compared to the learner’s performance
 Grading on a curve, also known as norm-referenced, compares each student’s grades with each one that has
completed the same assessment
 Grading on a curve lets the instructor know how well students did compared to one another but it does not offer
any information about which students grasped the content and which ones did
 Alignment is defined as the awareness of expectations and what is important from both parties for the success of
the distance education course

5. CATEGORIES OF ASSESSMENT MEASURES
 Objective – do not require human intervention
to determine whether students achieved mastery
 Subjective – similar assessments but the demand
for individual scrutiny to determine the learner’s
progress is apparent
 Short-answer test items – straddle the fence
between objective and subjective assessments;
items are written as direct questions where you
fill in the blank or have a written response
 Authentic assessments – the type of exams that
stimulate real-world challenges in order to
acquire essential knowledge and skills

6. FORMATIVE/SUBJECTIVE ASSESSMENTS
 Objective assessments – more convenient, easier to score and create; useful when looking for
trends over time or when making comparisons among different groups
 Subjective assessments – useful when the transfer of skills from inside the classroom rolls
over to environments outside of the classroom, or if the process of finding the correct answer
is as vital as the answer itself
 Formative – activities that lead to the refinement of the instruction itself

7. ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
 Online quizzes are best self-study activities that provide feedback to learners, motivate them to stay
abreast in the class and provide reinforcement of important ideas
 Discussion forums are also a good way to promote a positive distance education course because good
questions are more likely to produce good answers
 Blogs are useful and have a better advantage over a discussion board because it gives the student the
ability to customize their own page and content
 A wiki alleviates headaches when dealing with student collaboration and allows students to edit the
most recent version of the site

8. ONGOING AND NONGRADED ASSESSMENT MEASURES
 Ongoing, sometimes called embedded, activities refers to the student progress within a seamless pattern
of day-to-day classroom or training events
 Nongraded assessments takes away the pressure of making a good grade but still provides several of
the benefits of traditional assessments
 Teachers can also use the discussion board as a tool to get participation and provides students with the
reassurance that the teacher is present without being too invasive

9. SCORING RUBRICS
 A rubric is a framework to guide the evaluation of assignments or those requiring individual judgement
 A way to reduce plagiarism is to explain from the beginning of the course what constitutes plagiarism
and have clear policies for dealing with it
 SafeAssign and TurnItIn.com are tools that compare papers turned in by students to those already in the
database to reduce plagiarism and cheating
 Many schools and institutions have adopted honor codes to reinforce the concept of academic integrity

10. WHAT’S NEXT FOR ASSESSMENTS
 Automated essay scoring and the use of mobile devices seem to be the future of assessments for
distance education or in traditional environments
 Automated scoring can be used to provide feedback by checking the technical side of things like
sentence length, vocabulary, spelling and grammar and other elements
 Mobile devices are making a transformation into the distance education field as a way to get students’
attention or to put materials in front of them when they have a few minutes to kill
 Instructors will soon realize the potential that portable devices hold and start to rely on them more to
disseminate information relating to the course