Assessment and Evaluation

Assessment and Evaluation is the topic covered this week and with the readings provided, I got to better understand the terms and what they entail. The two terms undoubtedly play integral parts in the realm of education. Assessment is the process by which learners are assigned grades; however, I learned that it is more than just grades: it is a form of feedback for Instructors, students, and all stake holders; it drives student learning; and an vital tool for informed decision making regarding improvements in courses, programs, or the curriculum.  

Due to the important role assessment plays in the learning environment, I gathered that the facilitator needs to take the following into consideration in the planning of a course.

1.      Assessment tasks (AT) are aligned with the learning outcomes/objectives

2.       AT should mostly feature the higher order thinking skills of Bloom’s taxonomy

3.      A variety of AT is required (do not stick to multiple choice or short answer questions only)

4.      To move away from the ‘superficial learning’ that was usually a stigma of traditional methods of assessments, AT should be authentic, relevant and suitable to the learners.

My reflection

I am happy to yet learn more new things this week, in particular those related to assessment and evaluation. In my training to becoming a teacher of Primary School 30 years ago, I learnt that the means by which we assess learners are through multiple questions, short answers, comprehension questions, true/false questions, cloze type questions, fill in the blank questions, letter writing and essays. I also learnt that AT should be designed to feature the learning outcomes, and I did not have difficulties with this; however, I sometimes felt the superficialness of these tasks in portraying a true picture of a learners understanding of a subject matter. In Multiple Choice questions for example, where questions were mostly framed under the Recall and Knowledge levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, it was difficult to know whether there was actually any learning taking place because right answers could also be obtained from rote learning or memorisation, which do not say much about students’ learning. I also felt that my learning outcomes/objectives were not measurable sometimes because the AT given learners did not measure the intended objective. One thing I now realise is that constructing AT takes a huge amount of time and careful consideration of areas such as summative or formative or both, which type to use – one that would best bring out the best in learners, and/or ones that would make learners think critically and so forth. It is no longer a simple task; the success of AT depends on the hands of the facilitator.

Authentic Assessment, I believe, should be encouraged in the arena of education whether it be ‘traditional’ or online because students need to demonstrate that they have actually understood what they have been taught, not by way of Multiple Choice, or true/false questions, but by engaging them in tasks that are authentic, relevant and suitable for them. With an online course this might be a challenge given the diversity of your learners; how would you devise AT that suit the different contexts of your learners; how would you account for the different learning styles; or how would you grade them fairly given these differences. I think these are some of the things that we online facilitators need to seriously consider in the planning stage of our online courses. The CAT brings you a lot of AT that you can adapt to suit your context. 

Authentic assessments will be good for students of the Pacific Island countries because it will allow them to get away from being passive learners and become more productive learners, which requires a huge amount of work from the facilitator. 

Thank you for the readings.

Week 6 Reflection - Online Learning Theories

The readings this week give discerning information about what educational theories are and the vitality role of such theories paly in promoting and improving learning through technology. The following are some of the main points gathered from the readings and which I found quite interesting in the success of an online course.

·         Technology does not improve student output or performance; rather it is what is included in the content and the strategies used in the learning materials that count. Thus online learning must have activities that are challenging to promote high-order thinking skills, and activities must be well and properly designed to engage the learner and promote learning. Technology is a mechanism only by which learning is transmitted; not the agent of change in students’ performance

·         The success of online learning requires huge commitment and good resources and adequate and constant support from the facilitator.

·         The basis for effective online learning materials is proven and sound learning theories.  

·         Theory plays a major part in the success of online learning as it allows us to see the big picture of our work thus enabling us to make connections with existing literature deepening our understanding of our work.

·         Because of the many theories on learning, no single theory is better than the others; all are good so a combination of these to devise effective online learning materials is advisable.

·         ‘Learning strategies should be selected to motivate learners, facilitate deep processing, build the whole person, cater for individual differences, promote meaningful learning, encourage interaction, provide feedback, facilitate contextual learning, and provide support during the learning process’ (Ally, 2002).

Reflection

I am overwhelmed by this week’s readings because it opens up my eyes to the usefulness of educational theory to online learning, or to any learning for that matter – the fact that improvement on practices to be implemented and effective, sound existing theories are needed. I have not thought about this in the last two years when I encountered the challenge of getting my EL001 (English Language Skills Course) students interact more and effectively with me and/or with colleagues. It had now dawned on me to surf the Net for research re online learning, although I constantly fall back on the Net for resources on other educational issues; that is why I am astounded by the many positive ideas and promises accorded to online learning.

In the first week of ED403, I was predetermined that online learning will not work as I had a lot of reservations based from experience. First, how can the learning (via the technology) be made meaningful given that the physical presence of the facilitator is not there? In a traditional learning environment, the teacher is physically present to give support and guidance right there and then while the learning is taking place. This, I don’t find with online learning, hence when I started my course online (via Moodle), forums were the only means I interact with, or shall I say, contact (as I never got any meaningful interaction) students; no constructive questions or discussion taking place. Thus, it made me wonder and question the efficacy of the online learning; have my students actually achieved the outcomes? Is online learning really working for the regional students?

Secondly, is the issue of submission of work using the drop-box in Moodle. I don’t know why, but majority of my students never use the drop-box; their works are always sent to me via email instead. In the beginning when I receive work through this medium, I would respond noting that I have got the work, but asking them also to resubmit but using the drop-box in Moodle. This never happened although my students were told of the reason and its importance of this as it makes them embark on the use of good practice, that is, using the Turnitin feature in Moodle would make them realise how much plagiarism they done and in which part of their work, so that they can rework on these and resubmit till their work is 100% originally theirs. Again, this made me doubt the worth of online learning.

I know that work submission through Moodle is for a good cause but I don’t why my students were not using it, and I did not even try to find out also. If I had, it would have given me sound reasons which could be used to better the course for future students. Researching, I now know, is good practice and it is encouraging me to get involved in this area.

Additionally, is the idleness and boringness of online courses. In my case, my online course (EL001) was the duplication of the face-to-face version; everything planned in the course for traditional learning was merely dumped into the online platform. This is what I was made to believe and understand, but it further confirmed my reservations about online learning in that if students’ achievement through this medium is questionable, then what is the point. What I did not realise is that the success of my online course is solely dependent on me, and that I have to invest a lot of time and energy in order for this to happen. Again, I am glad for the readings and for the things I am given in this course (ED403) for they are really opening my eyes thus broadening and deepening my understanding of online learning, and most importantly to better my practices.

A way forward

Although there are many benefits of online learning, there are still many issues that needed to be further researched in the context of the pacific island learners. I have no doubt of the numerous studies and researches being done on this topic on subjects and environments other than those of the pacific contexts, hence I am not sure how relevant are those works to our contexts and to what degree can we apply their ideas to our contexts. Since online learning is a relatively new concept in the pacific, the need for research is paramount.   

Quality of Online Courses

‘Quality of online courses’ was the topic covered this week. This is a crucial element of any online course that all online developers, be it course designers or course facilitators, need to know about and must ensure that it is applied in their online courses. The reading (Quality Matters Rubric Standards 2011 – 2013) provided this week on the topic reaffirmed the criticality of the ‘quality’ element. The reading clearly outlines standards online courses should have to foster and promote quality in online courses which I will reflect upon with reference to my online course (EL001) by pointing out what is missing from the course, and the importance of including the missing elements in my course as future improvements.

a.       Course overview and introduction – EL001 includes all the necessary information regarding this area. Out of the eight criteria under this Standard, Criteria 1.3 and 1.8 are missing from the current syllabus. The former refers to the rules and convention of writing emails, while the latter was in reference to students being asked to introduce themselves to the class. I believe that email etiquette is quite important and it should be included in the syllabus. From experience, because I did not lay out the ground rules of how students should compose and write to me, they write emails full or errors, using abbreviations and colloquial language mostly, and so on. This bothered me a lot, but I don’t blame the students because, as I now realise, it is something that should be laid out right in the beginning of the course. Students must be told of your expectations. Student introduction is something I always do with my students in a traditional atmosphere, but I have not thought of its possibility in an online course. I think this is important and will be included in my syllabus for future use. I am thinking that voki can be used for this purpose; it would be an exciting and enjoyable experience for students.

b.      Learning objectives – There are learning outcomes for the entire course and also for each unit of the course, and I believe these are all measurable and achievable.

c.       Assessment and measurement – Out of the 5 criteria given under this Standard, Criteria 3.5 is missing from EL001, which states, ‘students have multiple opportunities to measure their own learning progress’. In fact, students in EL001 are not given this opportunity. The only way in which students can measure their learning progress is through their learning journal within which they reflect on their learning, and that is all. I am not really sure how this will benefit students, but it is something worthwhile researching to find out its worth.

EL001 is a 100% course work and assessment includes:

·         5 tests (on different topics/skills) administered at different times within the semester

·         1 seminar presentation

·         1 data report (commentary)

·         1 Summary reflective journal

·         3 Reflective journal (on given topics)

·         9 Unit tasks (based on crucial topics that are to be completed a week after the relevant topic has been completed)

Because the assessment tasks were initially meant for face-to-face learners and that there were no changes made to the assessment tasks when EL001 was made as an online for the first time in 2009, I feel the assessment tasks are too rigid in nature thus not suitable nor relevant. I knew something was wrong with the assessments but I couldn’t figure out what it was until I read about authentic assessments and the different learning styles. This is a big area that needs to be improved in EL001.

d.      Instructional materials – The criteria under this are all being met except for 4.4. The course has not been revised in a major way; no changes have been done to the materials included in the course. The readings are out dated by now thus new and current ones are required.

e.      Learner interaction and engagement – From experience, I believe that this is a very crucial part of online learning, whether it be synchronous or asynchronous interaction, the most challenging of all the QM Standards, because it requires a lot thinking and work on the facilitator’s part in ensuring that learners do interact and engage with the facilitator and with each other in meaningful ways. This Standard is missing from my EL001 syllabus and if planned well, I am positive of its potential in bringing about quality learning through interaction. This is the part that I will invest a lot of time on to develop my course to a better place.

f.        Course technology – The facilitator needs to ensure that tools and media support used in the course can be readily and easily accessible, but if not, learners need to know where else can they get support from. Information on this Standard is required in EL001.

g.       Learner support – In addition to the technical support learners can have when problems are encountered, information about academic support must be included in the syllabus also. This is the support given by Student Learning Support in terms of improving time management skills or writing an effective introduction for example. This information is very important and learners need to know.

h.      Accessibility – Information on this is needed in EL001 since the course has not undergone any major revisions for about three years. Since, online learning is the ‘thing’ now, the Standard Accessibility is vital.

While the QM rubric standard is very informative, one has to be very careful with the selection of information and the choice of words to express clear and explicit thoughts. One of the weaknesses of EL001 syllabus is that it is too wordy thus meanings appear to be ambiguous. The QM outlines the required Standards for online courses but one has to also take care that information is presented concisely, precisely, clearly and explicitly. For this to happen, the facilitator requires to invest a huge amount of time on planning and developing his/her online course.

Week 4 Reflection: Online Learning Tools

This week I learned about more online learning tools, in particular to audio-video conferencing tools such voki, and also about the myths about synchronous teaching. I am grateful for the week’s topic and readings because they cleared my doubts about the inability of online teaching to engage learners in a successful way, simply because of the absence (physically) of the teacher/facilitator.  The readings on the myths really helped also in clarifying some of my doubts. In fact some of these had been in mind even before I take up ED403, and now I am really glad I did because I never thought online learning would be as successful as traditional learning or face-to-face learning. Now I am really convinced of its worth and the key to its success depends largely on the facilitator and how the course is designed – content matters most.

The online learning tools that listed on http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory-of-learning-performance-tools/ allow facilitators to create, deliver, manage and/or track learning and/or provide a social learning atmosphere. There is a wide range of tools that one can choose from to suit the intended purpose. I am looking forward to exploring these particularly those that can be used to give a sense of my presence in the virtual classroom, such as voki, webinar. In this way the learners can hear my voice and also clarify any doubts they may have over the printed materials. Learning is made a lot easier by using online learning tools. However, at the development stage one has to take extra care in choosing the right, appropriate or suitable one and test it to ensure it works before it is incorporated into the course. This is because what may work for you on your desktop at your workplace may not be working for your learners at a remote island in Kiribati. As facilitators also, there is a need to spend more time to explore these and familarise yourself with the different tools. I also think that one has to be clear of the purpose of using a tool so that he/she does not spend un-necessary time going through each one in trying to select a good one.

This week’s task of creating our own voki was very interesting and challenging at the same time. First, it took me a while to create my voki which cannot be viewed by the course facilitator. Everything in that platform was very new to me and I kind of frightened to click buttons in case I did something wrong. Besides instructions were not clear to me so I had to learn through trial and error. I can see the benefit of using voki in an online course but you really have to invest a huge amount of time to familiarise yourself with the tool. I created another voki whereby instructions on presentations are relayed and I liked it. I know I will be using this tool frequently in my online course to relay important announcements and other useful stuff.

The myths about synchronous teaching give insights into how online learning can be successfully utilised to maximise learning. However, there are questions I would like to raise under some of the myths for us to ponder upon and to think of possible solutions.

Myth 1 – I agree that OL is not impersonal on the argument that students get to participate more on OL as opposed to ‘traditional’ learning, and that accessibility to the course can be done at any time and from any where. I would like to raise the following issue:

1.       Learner Verification - how can you verify that the one participating in the course is actually Peter, or Tom, (the one who actually enrolled to do the course) and not a cousin, a relative or a friend?  I raise this because it is possible and I don’t want to give a grade to someone who does not deserve it.  

Myth 2 – Yes, I am afraid my learners would spend more time on facebook, twitter, chatting instead of spending quality time on their online course to produce quality work. I know that this is a big distraction to students, so how can we facilitators ensure that students are actually learning and producing quality work?

Myth 3 – I agree with this myth in that your class is unique and your job as the facilitator is to develop your virtual classroom and make it as interesting as it can possibly be with very clear instructions and lots and lots of activities to motivate your learners into participating. The virtual classroom is your learning environment and you are responsible for making it a ‘learning’ arena.

Myth 4 – I believe that Blogs have values and therefore clear explanation as to how and what to do are very much needed. May be it is better to lay down the ground rules and objectives of Blogs right from the start. Feedbacks from facilitators are also needed to give guidance and correct students’ writing and also to encourage them to do what is expected of them.

Myth 5 – before taking this course, I used to think like this – that forums are just ways to pass on messages from the facilitator to students or vis versa. The thought was the result of students in my course not feeling keen to participate in forums even if they were asked to contribute to a topic. I now know that the failure rested on the way my course was designed. Topics needed to be more practical and relevant to learners, and also participation in forums (in my course) has to be awarded marks as a motivating factor.

In all the myths, one thing is crystal clear and is becoming crucial in the development of online learning, that is, the role of the facilitator. She/he has a vital role to play to promote and maximise learning through online, and I would like to end by saying that we (facilitators) have a lot to think about and do with our future online courses.

All the best! 

My Learning experience from Emalus Campus

Dear Blog,

I was away at Emalus Campus, Vanuatu in the last two weeks to establish the Senior Peer Mentoring Program there. Everything regarding the work I went to do was set, done and completed before I return last week on Saturday.

I was able to meet up with our colleagues from the campus, Pita Tuisawau and Helen Theophile, and we happen to be in the same group also, so we got together and discussed our team charter.

I thought I would be able to work on my ED403, but I could not. Firstly the internet connectivity was not not at all 100% good at all times. I get to be cut off now and again and most of the times in the middle of writing; at other times after submission there was no indication of whether the work had been submitted successfully; it left to you think that the work had not been sent through making you having a few attempts when all those attempts actually went through. It happened to me and I only came to know about it when Shikha, our facilitator commented on it. I have deleted the excessive and un-necessary folders in my blog.

The other reason why I couldn't do my ED403 was because I got very, very sick in the first week that I just couldn't sit up any longer than 10 minutes. I was down with flu, something which I've never experienced before. Because I went with our Dean, I had to be present at the campus during working hours and return as soon as the clock strike 4pm. I'd return and just slept till the next day when I would reluctantly get up for work. I found Vanuatu really, really cold - colder than our climate here in Fiji.

I wanted to contact our facilitator and to tell her about my situation, and I was lucky to talk to her on skype one morning. Now that I am back to Suva, Fiji when internet connectivity is not an issue, I am slowly trying my best to catch up with the work. I am still not 100% fine but I have not much of a choice; I have to move and get things done.

Thank you all!

Week 4 Blog: OLT

Online Learning Tools (OLT)

The exposition to the many OLT this week is just awesome and amazing. I did not know that all these things exist; how naïve can I be sometimes. This week I was very excited as I trotted along trying to create my voki. It was a totally new experience and quite a challenging one, but through trial and error, I got my way through – this is all part of learning.

I am happy that we are being given these tasks to do because it actually made us aware of how demanding the role of e-facilitator is to bring about effective and successful learning online. We, as e-facilitators will have to be knowledgeable about what is happening in the world relative to OLT. I am grateful to come across the many OLT (web 2.0) that I will explore and can use in my course f0r 2013. I know it will take a huge amount of time to plan and prepare and ensure that the tools will be workable in our context.

Voki and the likes is a good way of getting out advertisements of important dates to students because once this is pasted on the course page, it’s for good, and the same information will be given to students regardless of time or place.

My current course does not have any assessments online; these are all done on face-to-face because of security issues. I know this can’t be always the case so with the assessment OLT, I will explore these and try to select the best for my use. The EasyTestMaker is a good one, but I do need to look at the others also.

With the OLT, an e-facilitator can make his/her virtual classroom as interesting and enjoyable just as a face-to-face facilitator does to his classroom. The success of an online course is dependent on the e-facilitator in bringing about his/her students of different countries in different places into the virtual learning environment to share and learning from each other’s experience and make the VLE the most exciting place to be.

The reading on ‘Myths of online learning’ is yet another contribution to enlighten us of the important role the e-facilitator will have to take not only in creating an interesting and enjoyable course, but also keeping in mind what he/she has to do in cases of technology limitations and prepares him/herself for it in providing his/her students with alternatives so that the learning does not stop when the internet connectivity is at fault.

 The e-facilitator is the KEY to successful online learning.

I enjoyed this week’s readings and work.

Many thanks to our e-facilitator.

Week 3 - Journal

This week’s topic and reading allows me to deepen my understanding of some of the basic terms commonly used in the online sphere; the two words in particular are Learning Management System (LMS) and Content Management System (CMS).  I have come across these words before but I didn’t pay much attention to them because I thought they mean the same thing; however the two terms differ considerably. LMS, also known as Course Management System (CMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is a learning platform through which ‘the management and delivery of learning content and resources to students’ at anytime and anywhere (TrainingForce, 2012) can be done, and the success of any LMS is dependent upon the e-moderator/facilitator. If the e-facilitator cannot arouse interest in his/her students to effectively participate in the course, it will certainly fail. Two years ago when I started using Moodle to deliver my course, I did not know about all these things and how important my role as the course coordinator was. I was more excited by the use of technology and the fact that, each day I become more and more confident in the use of Moodle, for example, knowing how to use the grade book, or creating a sign up space and so forth, but I was also very aware to the fact that my students were not responding to any of my postings, and it made worry. Then, I didn’t know what to do because I thought it was the system’s (as I now as LMS) job; now, I know that it was my job. I am glad to have taken this course.

The importance of the e-facilitator in the success of the LMS is seen and reinforced in the reading: http://trainingforce.com/things-a-learning-management-system-doesnt-do where it talked about the limitations of LMS in certain areas of delivery and the fact that the need for an e-moderator cannot be avoided. I recommend you to read the article.

CMS, on the other hand, refers to the system that is used to manage the content of a website which involves two elements: content management application (CMA) and delivery application (CDA). The former allows the author to manage, modify and/or remove content from a webpage, while the latter ‘uses and compiles the information to update the website’ (Rouse, 2011). On the basis of this definition, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, blog is a CMS.

Now, things seem to be making sense after all.