What Is Assessment?
Assessment is simply the process of gathering information on what students know based on their educational experience. Assessment results are typically used to identify areas for improvement and ensure that course content meets learning needs. There are two basic types of assessments:
-Formative assessments occur within a online course or lesson and are used to determine how well a student is learning the material. They’re best when they are ongoing, consistent, and provide critical feedback to learners.
-Summative assessments are sometimes referred to as a final exam and measure what the student has learned after completing a course. They can validate how well your content supports the course’s overall learning goals. Obviously, assessments are about more than just grades. When meaningful and well-constructed, they help students gear up for success by challenging them to reflect, interact, and apply their knowledge to answer questions, solve problems, and communicate information. There are a number of practices you can use to evaluate students mindfully. The best method will vary based on learning needs and objectives. For example, an online quiz will be your perfect match if your goal is to measure knowledge gains quickly. But if you want to test your students’ interview skills, you’re better off using a dialog simulation. Let’s see how we can use nine of the most common assessment methods to support student learning.
1. Online Quizzes
Quizzes are a traditional assessment tool. Plus, when paired with technology, they are an excellent way to engage student learning. Quiz questions can take a number of forms, such as multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blanks, and hotspots. One benefit of quizzes is that they are short and easy to assess. Another is that question order and options can be randomized, so each student’s quiz is unique.
Online quizzes are ideal for measuring learning results across a wide audience. Since each student takes the same test, you can compare and contrast results across different classes, schools, or communities. A non-graded online quiz can be given prior to the start of a lesson to gain a baseline measurement of a student’s existing knowledge. You can also embed a knowledge check test into a module to reinforce concepts taught in the lesson, or make a final graded test at the end of the course to evaluate students’ overall performance.
How can I create an online quiz?
Online quizzes can be easily created using an eLearning authoring toolkit such as iSpring Suite. iSpring Suite includes a quiz maker tool that offers 14 question types. You simply need to choose the appropriate templates to put together a quiz for your students quickly and easily. You can enhance your test by providing detailed answer feedback, adding info slides, and creating individual learning paths, depending on how well each employee is performing on the quiz.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
C. L. (2003). Considerations for developing evaluations of onlinecourses. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(1). Available: http://www.sloan-.org/publications/jaln/v7n1/pdf/v7n1_achtemeier.pdf
American Evaluation Association. (1995). Guiding principles for evaluators. New Directions for Evaluation, 66, 19-26.
Bonk, C. J. (2003 Fall). Lectures given in the course P600/R685 Online Learning Pedagogy and Evaluation.School of Education, Indiana University: Bloomington