Best Practices & What Works
in Online Learning
Assessments
Renee Welch & Karin Riggs
External Education
September 28, 2006
Evaluation & Grades
“Evaluation is a method, which may or may not be
graded, of eliciting a performance or demonstration of
knowledge or skills from a student”.
“Grades are the descriptive faculty evaluation of an
individual student's performance in a given course, test,
or assignment. Grades oftentimes incorporate
participation, attendance and/or extra credit, which are
not true components of assessment of learning
outcomes”.
http://www.wccnet.edu/departments/curriculum/assessment.php?levelone=gradeseval
Assessment
“Assessment is the examination of whether students as
a whole are achieving the learning outcomes which have
been developed by the department for a course or
program. Assessment provides the "big picture" of
whether students are meeting learning objectives”.
http://www.wccnet.edu/departments/curriculum/assessment.php?levelone=gradeseval
Good Assessment
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Measures meaningful learning outcomes
Easy to administer, score, interpret
Informs the teacher about student performance
Provides meaningful feedback to the learner
Contributes to the learning process
http://vudat.msu.edu/assess-perform
Types of Assessment
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Pre and Post Test
Objective & Subjective Assessment
Self-Assessments & Practice exams
Group Projects
Discussion Participation
Peer Review
Interactive assessments
Assessment Plan Considerations
• What do you want students to learn?
• What knowledge do they already have?
• Which assessment methods best test what was learned
by learners?
• Will you test memorization or performance?
• How will assessment be graded, what percentage in
grades?
• Size of class, small numbers vs high enrollment course?
• How many assessments should you include?
• How will students receive feedback?
• How will you grade, do you need TA support?
Communicating Expectations
Learning Objectives
Grading Criteria
Explanation of participation
Calendar of assignments and assessments
Providing Feedback
Am I on the right track?
•Online gradebook
•Self-assessments
•Peer Reviews
•Formation of
assignments and
assessments
Content Mapping
Respondus & StudyMate
• http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/itl/respondus.html
• 2 great choices to increase your assessment options.
• Both work essentially the same way: download them for
free at: http://e-sales.accc.uic.edu then…
– Run a search for Respondus. Once on the download
page be sure to note all installation instructions,
including the installation password, used for both
Respondus and StudyMate… when you find
Respondus, StudyMate will download as well.
Both applications have a
very easy interface…
1. Create a new file
2. Add some questions
3. View the exam
4. Publish to Blackboard
Easy to create questions- no need to be ONLINE
Studymate allows for
questions to be in
different formats…
FLASH CARDS
MATCHING
It’s easy to “publish” your new assessment to
Blackboard… Follow along the Wizard…
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open your browser, go to the Blackboard "Login" page
copy the "address" of the page from the browser
Paste into the top field in the Respondus wizard… THEN
In your browser go to the course you want to use,
go the to the "control panel" page and copy the address
Paste into the second field in the Respondus wizard… THEN
Press extract...
Field #1=
The BB log in
page
Address…
Field #2=
The control
panel page
Address…
Press EXTRACT
Other Blackboard features…
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Grading
Rubrics
Gradebook
Cheating
Safe Assignment
ePortfolios
For more information contact:
Renee Welch, Ph.D.
rwelch1@uic.edu
312.355.1767
Karin Riggs
Kriggs@uic.edu
312.996.5085
www.externaledu.uic.edu