Session 9: Authentic Assessment
To do this session
✓ Read and Review all Resources
✓ Complete the quiz
Session Introduction
How will you know your learners have achieved your desired learning outcomes? Are your learning outcomes measurable through an assessment?
This session we will look at some forms of authentic assessment and you will start to think about how you will create your own assessment in an online environment. Review all the materials shared here and describe an assessment you would use to meet your learning outcomes.
This session’s reading by Conrad, D. & Openo, J. (2018) asks us to consider:
- What do I want learners to know?
- What should be evaluated or assessed?
- Why is it important that that should be evaluated or assessed?
- What should be discussed? How should it be discussed?
- What approaches/strategies/instruments will provide the best assessment opportunity?
- How will assessment/evaluation instruments or procedures reflect course outcomes?
- When should assessment/evaluation occur?
- How will learners be apprised about upcoming assessments/evaluation?
- What kind of feedback will best benefit learners?
- How/when will that feedback be returned to learners?
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session you should be able to:
- describe how assessment could be authentic;
- explore a variety of online assessment methods to determine the strengths & weaknesses, and applicability;
- create a higher order multiple choice question; and
- formulate a guiding question for a forum post and facilitate discussion.
Rationale
Design decisions appear at every turn when creating an online module/course. Providing you with the thought process behind how this course was designed and allowing you to contribute to its evolution can only improve it so that it’s most useful to everyone.
Connection to Theory
Authentic assessment, retrieval practice.
Connection to Practice
Again, we are hoping to model the practices we espouse. If you are responsible for evaluating others, we can trust you to contribute to the assessment of our learning community.
Session Resources
- Conrad, D. & Openo, J. (2018). Chapter 7: Planning an Assessment and Evaluation Strategy— Authentically. In Assessment Strategies for Online Learning: Engagement and Authenticity. Athabasca, AB: Athabasca University Press.
- DiBattista, D. (2017). Making the Most of Multiple-Choice Questions: Getting Beyond Remembering.
- Gooblar, D. (2018). Will My Students Actually Want to Do This Assignment? The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Hendricks, C. (2015) Renewable assignments: Student work adding value to the world. UBC Flexible Learning.
Learning Activities
Quiz
Reflection
- Do you agree with Gooblar (2018) about student motivation? How does this align with use of forums or other assessments?
- Is a forum discussion an authentic assessment? Why or why not? If not, could it be, if it were structured properly?
- How do you feel about mandating number of posts, word count, number of replies? Should we have done this for this course?
- Does that respect you as a learner? Or does it set reasonable expectations for success?
- What are other ways learners could could demonstrate knowledge beyond essays and forums?
Bridge to Next Session
In Session 10 we will consider the ethical implications of using different technology for teaching and learning.
