Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
The Connected Classroom
April 7-9, 2002
Assessment in Online Courses: Practical Examples
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By: Darla Runyon, Roger Von Holzen |
Abstract
One of the first questions new online faculty voice is, "How do you do online exams?" The basis for this questions lies in the notion that how students are assessed in a campus class must be the model upon which online assessment is conducted. But this will not work! In an online environment, the function of assessment, and its corresponding techniques change. This presentation will discuss an online assessment strategy and provide practical examples.
Description
One of the first questions new online faculty voice is, "How do you do online exams?" The basis for this questions lies in the notion that how students are assessed in a campus class must be the model upon which online assessment is conducted. But this will not work! In an online environment, as the role of the course instructor changes radically from being the deliverer of content to one of mentor to the students, the function of assessment, and its corresponding techniques, must also change.
Assessment needs to be viewed as an interactive mentoring opportunity that can be employed in online courses. This move provides instructors with the opportunity to truly move beyond the rhetoric that assessment should be utilized as a teaching tool and not as an evaluation mechanism. To achieve this, assessment must now take on a new role. The assessment techniques employed in a course should be based on desired learning outcomes and thus be used by the students to evaluate their own progress through the course materials while also providing the instructor with evidence of the effectiveness of the course materials or indications of content areas that need further enhancement and/or development.
As part of Northwest Missouri State University's effort to assist faculty in the development and enhancement of their online courses, the Center for Information Technology in Education has been working closely with faculty as they discuss and develop new perspectives as to how assessment may be conducted in an online environment. The CITE office has been working closely with faculty as they begin to integrate new assessment techniques into their online courses. This presentation will provide participants with concrete, practical examples of a broad range of useful and diverse assessment techniques that may be employed across a variety of online course subject areas.
Northwest Missouri State University's Center for Information Technology in Education has been working closely with faculty to integrate new assessment techniques into their online courses. This presentation will provide participants with practical examples of assessment techniques that may be employed across a variety of online course subject areas.