In creating an evaluation the first thing that comes to mind are exams or term papers. With having to move your course online, maybe you have realised that what worked for you face-to-face is not the best method of assessing students at a distance. <\/p>\n
In the first article<\/a> I talked about keeping your more traditional evaluations unchanged when possible. In this article I will deal with having to rethink your assessments<\/strong> to take various formats (labs, discussions, other non-traditional forms of assessments) into account.<\/p>\n It is a natural impulse nowadays to find information by \u2018Googling\u2019 it and to hash over problems by chatting with friends online. So why not take advantage of this and prepare assessments that require application of concepts and creativity rather than repetition of definitions? Leave behind the idea that assessment requires a Word document. Use inventive and uncommon assessment strategies or turn to project-based assessment that requires media. You can even allow the students to choose their medium to present their work:<\/p>\n If you had several multiple-choice exams that you now cannot invigilate, why not change them into a take home exam<\/strong>? This document produced by Ryerson University helps you create Take home exams<\/a>. Yes! Students are free to access resources. However, rather than merely finding the answer in their textbook students are asked to demonstrate higher-order cognitive skills like analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, for instance:<\/p>\n If you had some laboratories<\/strong> planned ask students to:<\/p>\n Have students:<\/p>\n Teachers in disciplines like English, Humanities, Physical Education, Philosophy, Political Science (and many others) often wonder if it is possible to develop authentic assessments for their discipline. SALTISE shares some ideas for these disciplines suggested by James Sparks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reflection and self-assessment can become components of your assessment. To guide this self-assessment provide personal reflection questions:<\/p>\n Peer review can also be helpful. Here are detailed instructions on how to use mapsmind to create an activity for students to peer review each other\u2019s work<\/a> and to receive feedback before submitting their project for assessment. This \u2018gallery walk\u2019 activity can easily be adapted to work online. <\/p>\n Case studies can be based on topics that present theoretical concepts from your course in an applied setting. It is an ideal assessment tool to bridge the gap between theory and practice. <\/p>\n Real-life situations can be easily converted into learning activities in your course. <\/p>\n SALTISE offers 27 ready made case studies<\/a> for a range of college level courses:<\/p>\n Discussion forums are a way of replicating discussions in face-to-face classrooms. They are a means to foster learning through collaboration. Online teachers post professional information to help colleagues and students could also participate in valuable learner conversations. Some advantages are:<\/p>\n Discussion boards can be set up as summative assessment activities. Some ideas of criteria to evaluate discussions:<\/p>\n The student<\/p>\n Of course to avoid boredom and possible plagiarism, discussion boards should do more than just requiring students to answer a discussion post inspired by that week\u2019s reading. Charles Hodges, a professor of instructional technology suggests decreasing the number of posts but requiring students respond to discussion prompts<\/a>, in addition to written text, with:<\/p>\n The students have a period of time to produce their response. Then they evaluate their work using prompts like \u201cCompare your concept map to the rest of the class. What\u2019s missing? What\u2019s different?\u201d<\/p>\n Flipgrid: A Video-Based Discussion Forum<\/a> could be of interest to second or foreign language teachers as students are asked to post video (oral) responses to discussion prompts (topics). Students listen to peers videos before responding. <\/p>\n To help you think outside the box in developing assessments, here are some samples of rather creative alternatives:<\/p>\nGoing online? Rethink your evaluations<\/h2>\n
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Authentic assessments: focused forays into real-life <\/h2>\n
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Reflection and self-assessment <\/h2>\n
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Case studies <\/h2>\n
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New approaches to discussion boards or forums<\/h2>\n
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Thinking outside the box<\/h2>\n
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Caring is sharing<\/h2>\n