Harvard Conference Seeks to Jolt University Teaching. Assessing students online learning. A publication of The Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education. The posting and use of this publication on your institution's WWW server is covered by an End User License Agreement (EULA). By the terms of this agreement, the essay must be located on a secure server that limits access to your institution's students, faculty, or staff. Use beyond your institutional boundaries, including the linking of this page to any site other than this one, requires the express permission of the POD Network.
To view the terms of the End User License Agreement, click here. The educational community in higher education has, for some time, debated assessment issues. With the proliferation of online classrooms and the emphasis on constructivist approaches to learning, these issues have taken on even more importance. In constructivist learning environments, assessment and learning are integrally linked. Benefits of Online Learning and Assessment References Boud, D. (1995). Huba R. Www.ncsu.edu/assessment/presentations/assess_process/basic_plan_devt.pdf. Assessment of student learning. Assessment of student learning core definition explanatory context Assessment of student learning may be formative or summative. Assessment, especially if it is summative, is usually graded. Achievement of satisfactory summative grades is frequently used to signify progress or the achievement of an award.
(The award of a Ph.D., for example, is a situation where summative grading is rarely used.) Assessment covers the whole development of student learning evaluation, while grading refers to the specific attachment of marks/grades. Assessment plays a significant role in the learning experience of students. Assessment is usually construed as being either diagnostic, formative or summative. … Any assessment instrument can, and often does, involve more than one of these elements. Analytical review Although there is a taken-for-granted view of what assessment of students does, there tend to be few definitions of this notion of assessment. Charles Sturt University (2011) defines it simply as: T. Top. Formative and Summative Assessment in the Classroom. Classroom Assessment and Grading - Teaching Commons. Grading vs. Assessment of Learning Outcomes - Enhancing Education.
There is often confusion over the difference between grades and learning assessment, with some believing that they are totally unrelated and others thinking they are one and the same. The truth is, it depends. Grades are often based on more than learning outcomes. Instructors’ grading criteria often include behaviors or activities that are not measures of learning outcomes, such as attendance, participation, improvement, or effort. Although these may be correlated with learning outcomes, and can be valued aspects of the course, typically they are not measures of learning outcomes themselves.1 However, assessment of learning can and should rely on or relate to grades, and so far as they do, grades can be a major source of data for assessment. To use grades as the basis for learning outcomes, grades would first have to be decomposed into the components that are indicators of learning outcomes and those that are indicators of other behaviors.
For example: