Getting Prepared for the Webinar

Effective online assessment strategies using Moodle

Introductions Facilitators: Dr Yelin Su Educational Developer Teaching Commons Mr. Sairam Chinnam Learning Technology Support Specialist Learning Technology Services

Learning outcomes At the end of the session, participants should be able to Design online instructions with effective online assessment strategies Set up and use grading rubric in Moodle

Participation in a webinar Environment

Assessment “Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance.” (Angelo, 1995, p7)

Challenges of assessing students online What would be your challenges assessing students online? Share your challenges using the white board

Online assessment challenges -- Instructor Physical separation of students and instructor Asynchronous nature of the communication More difficult to guide students and assess their progress Amount of time and effort involved in providing effective feedback Students feel isolated and not supported Too much to assess/ not sure what activities to assess

Effective online assessment techniques Include a wide variety of clearly explained assignments that are required on a regular basis Authentic tasks to assess students’ performance on learning outcomes – projects, portfolio Problem-based assignments with real-life contexts Learning tasks based in workplace settings Complex tasks requires meaningful peer collaborations

Effective online assessment techniques Integrate activities and assessment throughout the instruction Deconstruct the major assignment/task into smaller, interim deliverables, assess both performance and learning process/progress Have clear and explicit goals for each individual lesson/week Encourage engagement, determine prior knowledge, allow practices and provide instant feedback

Effective online assessment techniques Provide continuous feedback – group feedback could be effective Early and frequent Timely Based on well designed rubric with clear criteria and standards Include opportunities for self assessment and peer assessment

Assessment rubric A systematic scoring guideline to evaluate students’ performance (papers, speeches, problem solutions, portfolios, cases) through the use of a detailed description of performance standards. Contains a list of the THINGS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR (Criteria) Guidelines for evaluating each of those things (Descriptors) Focus attention on a few key outcomes at a time in the evaluation

Rubrics in Moodle Assignment is the only activity in Moodle that allows you to create a rubric. Moodle lets you create a new rubric or make a copy of a previously created rubric in any of your Moodle courses. Instructors can create and share rubrics with others. Moodle rubric consist of a set of criteria and an evaluation scale with levels corresponding to point values.

Rubrics in Moodle Rubric marking makes the rationale behind your scores clear to students and to other markers of the same assignment. Marking with a rubric allows you to address several aspects of a student's assignment, assess them separately and let Moodle calculate the aggregated grade. The raw score is calculated as a sum of all criteria and the final score is calculated by comparing the actual score with the worst/best possible score that could be received.

Online Assessment "The best and most successful forms of assessment occur when the learning activities and assessment tasks merge, providing the motivation for students to complete the activities"(Oliver and Herrington 2001).

Thanks for coming! Please fill out the evaluation form for the workshop, available at http://teachingcommonsforms.apps01.yorku.ca/forms/view.php?id=335852