HOW TO EFFECTIVELY ASSESS STUDENTS IN THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY ON (SOME) ONLINE ASSESSMENT TOOLS

HOW TO EFFECTIVELY ASSESS
            STUDENTS
   IN THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT:
A CASE STUDY ON (SOME) ONLINE ASSESSMENT TOOLS

                           Prof. Alexandra Atănăsoaie

Agenda

 Where we are and what we need
 Digital Natives, Digital Immigrant, Visitors and Residents
 Assessment Tools and Techniques for the Online Classroom
 Assessing the Four Skills in the Online Environment

Where we are

 The impact of COVID-19 on education
 Overnight switch from (mostly) offline to online teaching
 Major learning curve for students and teachers

The Methodology

 Context: state-funded countryside school and personal experience
 Options available for online teaching and assessment
 Formative and Summative Assessment
 The aim: using the available online tools to make teaching and assessment more
  meaningful, relevant, authentic and fun
 Skill-based approach
 The “toolkit”:
       Google Classroom Assignments, Google Forms
       Liveworksheets.com
       Kahoot.com
       Wordwall.com
       Other useful tools (per skill)

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (I): Mark Prensky (2001)

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (II)

 Changes in the way students think, process information, learn
 Changes in thinking patterns, processing information, focus and attention span
 Limitation: the risk of generalizing the dichotomy: not ALL students are Digital Natives
  and not ALL teachers are Digital Immigrants

Visitors and Residents: David S. White, Alison le Cornu (2011)

 Online engagement classification based on motivation and context, a
 A continuum rather than a dichotomy
               Visitors                                 Residents
• They use technology to attain a goal    • They have an online identity: they
• They keep their anonymity online          willingly share information about life
• Email use/Internet use for                and work
  professional purposes                   • Profiles on all major social networks
• Concerns of identity theft and data     • Web seen as a network of friends
  privacy issues                            and colleagues they can easily
• They use a platform and then they log     approach
  off                                     • They go online to generate content
                                            and to be exposed to content
                                            generated by others

Reflection time:

 Do you see yourself as a Digital Native or a Digital Immigrant?

 Are you a Visitor or a Resident when using the Internet?

Assessment Tools and Techniques for the Online Classroom

 Communicative methodology: change our means but keep the essentials
 Aspects to consider when teaching/assessing online:
             Challenges                             Opportunities
 • Relying on the Internet connection    • Digital version of textbook
   quality                               • Hundreds of online resources
 • Device availability                   • New learning/teaching
 • Lack of involvement and motivation      opportunities
   from students                         • Materials and tasks scoring high in
 • Camera shyness/privacy needs            authenticity
 • Teaching to “black dots”              • Gamification tools and apps
 • Screen fatigue, anxiety, depression   • More creativity and more freedom
 • Lack of direct contact                  in designing the
 • Plagiarism/authenticity issue           learning/assessment tasks

Types of Assessment: Formative/ Summative

Feedback and Good Assessment Criteria

 Feedback as an ongoing assessment tool
 How can students get more involved in their own learning process and how can they
  become aware partners in the assessment process?
     Using and sharing transparent criteria (CAN DO statements)
     Using self- and peer-assessment
     Establishing a feedback continuum

 Good Assessment Criteria:
       Validity
       Realiability
       Practicality
       Impact

 Direct/Indirect items
 A lot of resources already available

Assessing Reading Online (I)

 Communicative framework: pre-/while/post-reading tasks
 Formative assessment: feedback continuum
 Formal assessment:
    Digital texbok: great tool
    Liveworksheets.com: more options in terms of task design and grading
    Gamification options: text supplied in other forms and pre-/while/post-reading tasks designed using
     Kahoot or Wordwall
    Google Classroom Assignment/Google Forms: low score in practicality and potential negative impact

Assessing Reading Online (II): Google Forms limitations

Assessing Listening Online (I)

 Favouring authentic material, adequately chosen
 Using audio only/using videos for listening practice:
     The video content is very familiar for students
     The video content is also helpful for visual learners

 Youtube videos can be inserted in most online tools:
     Google Classroom Assignements
     Google Forms
     Liveworksheets.com (both audio only and video

 Wordwall can also be used but the audio/video material needs to be presented
  separately
 Digital textbook: both the material and the task

Assessing Listening Online (II): Lyricstraining.com

Assessing Speaking Online (I): considerations

 Assessing informally/more formally
 The challenge of evaluating a large number of students
 Break-out rooms (where the platform permits)
 The “shyness” factor (both offline and online)
 Individual feedback/group feedback
 The option of self-recorded speaking material (less authentic)
 CAN DO statements

Assessing Speaking Online (II): Voicespice.com

Assessing Writing Online (I)

 Variety of writing tasks both for learning and for assessment
 The authenticity factor can be high in online assessment for writing tasks
 Process writing: formative assessment
 Task assignment and task collection:
       Google Classroom Assignment
       Google Form
       Email
       Document uploading

 Clear instructions, CERF-formulated criteria
 Giving feedback (ideas):
     Proofing in Word (and using “Track changes” function)
     Recording the feedback: audio/audio and video/screen recording

Assessing Writing Online (II): Writeandimprove.com

Assessing Writing Online (III): Storybird.com

Best Practices

 Avoid “app frenzy”
 Remember we also rely on technology
 Always have a back up
 There is no perfect assessment tool
 Use any app/website/platform with moderation and well-adjusted to the content and
  context

Next Steps

 Which new tool/tools are you going to integrate in your teaching practice from the ones
  you saw today?