Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

14 – Assessment and Evaluation
DEFINING EXPECTATIONS
After determining how students will show how they can
meet the learning objectives, it is time to choose an
evaluation method. You can use a number of tools,
ranging from a simple checklist of criteria to a rubric that
contains the same criteria as well as a range of performance
and degrees to which students meet the criteria.
You can use qualitative or quantitative degrees to evaluate
criteria (see Table 14.2 for an example of each). Share
the checklist or rubric with students before they begin
the assignment, so they know what will be expected of
them. In some cases, instructors create the entire rubric,
or portions of it, with the students.
Table 14.2. Portion of a student presentation assessment rubric
Range
Criteria 4 3 2 1
Student supports main presentation
points with stories or
examples
Student effectively used
stories and/or examples to
illustrate key points.
Comments:
Presenter used stories
and/or examples somewhat
effectively to illustrate some
key points.
Presenter used some unrelated
stories and/or examples
that distracted from
key points.
Presenter did not use stories
or examples to illustrate key
points.
Cover project completely,
including:
1) Needs Assessment Objectives,
2) Extant Data Analysis,
3) Data Collection Methods, 4)
Brief Summary of Data, 5)
Collected Data Analysis, 6)
Recommendations
Presentation covered all 6
of the areas to the left.
Presentation covered 4 or 5
of the areas to the left.
Presentation covered 2 or 3
of the areas to the left.
Presentation covered 1 or 0
of the areas to the left.
Comments:
Invite students to use the same rubric for peer review
assignments. Students benefit from reviewing peers’
work, as they get to see different ways of approaching
the same objective. These same students benefit from
their peers’ additional feedback. Let students know that
merely giving a numeric score for each criterion is not
enough. For peer review to be “constructive criticism,”
students must help each other construct better answers,
better arguments, and better performance. In addition
to clarifying expectations about the assignment through
the rubric itself, you must clarify expectations about
how students use the rubric for peer review.
Tip
If you have never created a rubric before, there are
online tools that guide you through the process.
Rubistar is “a free tool to help teachers create
quality rubrics” (http://rubistar.4teachers.org). The
site also has example rubrics and information
about how to analyze student performance.
TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE
ASSESSMENT PROCESS
The next step in the assessment process is to facilitate
the student work in the online environment, or to provide
avenues for students to submit their work to you.
More online tools emerge every day, it seems, and with
them come new opportunities for students to perform
activities related to the learning objectives and for us to
assess student performance. We will cover a range of
tools used for assessment delivery, pros and cons related
to using each of these tools, and strategies related to the
teaching and the technology aspects of using them.
EMAIL OR LISTSERVS
Email can be used for distributing assignments from
student to instructor, from student to small group, or
from student to the entire class. It will depend on what
role peer feedback plays in the overall assignment. Since
almost everyone in an educational setting uses email, it
seems like an easy solution for students to submit their
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