Assessment as Feedback

Mod 1, Assessment, First Reflection

I'd say that of the six uses of assessment listed by Buhagiar (2007), feedback is the primary use of online assessment that the icebreaker, survey, and wiki provide. They also provide screening and diagnosis, to identify students who might need help, and they definitely provide record-keeping - automatically - but these are secondary uses of assessment. Feedback is the primary assessment use these web tools provide.

By definition, the survey is a feedback mechanism. The wiki is, too, as it's a collaborative effort that necessarily invites participants' feedback. The icebreaker is about using feedback to respond to each other and help jumpstart our online community. I really liked a sentence in the Activities content which stated, "feedback - the essence of assessment" (Khalsa, 2013). One of my previous classmates focused on how important feedback is to online learning in her Reflection, and I instantly realized how right she was the moment I read it.

Of the three, I like the icebreaker best. It's fun and interesting, helps build community, shows off how wonderful everybody is, and also assesses our use of the discussion board. It took me quite a lot of work to post on a discussion board the first time I tried, so I can relate to the icebreaker as an assessment of the mechanics of posting, so essential to online learning. The real value is the built-in assessment: if you can't post, you can't complete the assignment.

The fact that the icebreaker by design requires no new content learning to accomplish means that it is an assessment advantage. It does, however, measure the skill of the ability to post - but only that one, specific skill. What it offers my course plans is a fun way to help introduce students to technical skills they might not already have but with no pressure to learn content as well. And the fact is that it is fun! I love hearing about other people's interests and why a movie or music induced them to feel the way they do. It's a light-hearted, non-threatening way to ease into something that could be absolutely, completely new to students. I will have fun in the future imaging ways to invite students to share as a way of getting to know each other.

The wiki seems really fun, too. Fun is such a great incentive to learn! It's fun to work together to build something that could benefit us and future users. It's fun to come up with language that instructs helpfully. It's fun to learn a new web tool. I'm not sure of cons yet because I haven't experienced anything negative to the process of collaborating on a wiki. I could imagine the obvious contingencies but I cannot imagine at this time anything an instructor could not handle.

I like surveys because someone's asking me what I think about something, and I have a reasonable expectation that that someone will read what I write! I think this is an inviting tool to use because it's so natural, so universally human, to want to be listened to. A survey would be a great way to poll students to see how they think a class is going. I would ask a question at the end, as our survey does, such as, "Is there anything you want to say that hasn't been addressed yet?" This would be an excellent formative assessment for the teacher of a class; it is an easy, quick tool to use to find out anonymously how people are doing and what their experiences are, what they think of the class so far. A downside might be that you'd only learn what people are willing to communicate on the survey; for someone unwilling or unable to speak up, they may continue to not be heard without some kind of other active asking. Another downside might be getting feedback that is frivolously offered.

What I've learned from this exercise, though, is that Datta Kaur Khalsa, Ph.D. (2013) is absolutely right: Feedback is the essence of assessment, especially in online learning. It can be pretty lonely going interacting with a machine, possibly by oneself in a room somewhere, possibly thousands of miles away from the other interactors with their machines. Feedback, positively worded, constructive feedback, from the instructor and other students, can be a way to create a real community in a virtual world.

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Khalsa, D. K. (2013). Activities - Assessment in E-learning. Retrieved from http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/assessonline762.

Buhagiar, Michael A. (2007). "Classroom assessment within the alternative assessment paradigm: revisiting the territory." Curriculum Journal, 18:1, 39-56. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170701292174