Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
The Connected Classroom
April 7-9, 2002
Integrated Evaluation System for Online Instruction
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By: Doo Lim |
Abstract
Evaluating learning and application of learning is one critical component of any online instruction. This presentation will discuss an integrated evaluation system used for an undergraduate online course at an south eastern university. Major evaluation components include student learning, application of learning during instruction, quality of instruction, usefulness of communication tools, work load, etc. Actual demonstration of the evaluation system will be presented.
Description
Assessing student's learning can be regarded as a major goal of an evaluation system in any type of instruction. The results of evaluation contribute to a great degree to make an instruction meaningful and increase quality of the instruction. Evaluation in online learning environment is not an exception. Online instructors owe much to evaluation activities to use the results to check students' learning progresses where they cannot see the students' learning activities.
Many faces of evaluation exist for online instruction. Formative evaluation can be used when the instructors want to verify students' learning progress and enhance instructional quality through quizzes and tests. Summative evaluation can be used to measure learning outcomes and judge the success of an online instruction. The Integrated Evaluation System for Online Instruction utilizes various aspects of evaluation to satisfy learners' as well as instructors' needs to augment meaningful learning experience in online instruction. The Integrated Evaluation System for Online Instruction was developed for an online instruction for program evaluation course conducted at an south eastern university. During the course of utilizing and upgrading the evaluation system for two years, it evolves to a complete evaluation system to be used for any online instruction. Several domains of the evaluation system include:
- learning gap between pre- and post-test of students' competencies on a subject area,
- students' learning increase at each learning module level,
- degree of opportunity to apply students' learning during online instruction,
- reasons for high or low learning and application,
- students' learning styles and motivation level,
- students' learning strategies,
- students' learning goals,
- work loads,
- study time,
- effectiveness of communication tools,
- quality of instructional activities and assignments,
- types and patterns of instructor-students communication,
- quality of student support, and
- learning and application differences between different delivery options (weekly vs. self-paced schedule). Descriptive statistics will be shared to show how the online instruction meets the instructors' and students' needs. Actual demonstration of the evaluation system will be presented.