1 of 13

Assessment Strategies in Online Spaces�***This slideshow can be accessed at: tinyurl.com/stanstate58��Later in the presentation an app called “Nearpod” will be used. Before we begin, we highly recommend that you download the free Nearpod app on your phone first.

(You do NOT need to create an account, directions will be provided later) - thanks!

Dr. Daniel Soodjinda - Liberal Studies

Dr. Pengtao Li - Management Information Systems

2 of 13

Agenda

  • Assessment Pedagogy first - Technology second
  • Choosing the right digital tools for your summer and fall semester
  • Examples of low stakes vs high stakes assessments
  • Rubric development
  • Project based assignment example
  • Quizzes and exams via Blackboard
  • Group presentations via Voicethread example
  • General tips
  • Additional resources

3 of 13

Pedagogy first - technology second

  • Why are you assessing your students?
    • Support and measure student and instructor presence
    • Guide future instructional decisions
    • Evaluate student understanding and mastery
  • What do you want to assess?
    • General course concepts
    • Module or weekly learning objectives
  • How do you want to assess your students?
    • Low stakes assessment (informal)
      • Examples: whole class synchronous discussions, short quizzes, small group or partner discussions, completion of an online form, set of problems from course textbook
    • High stakes assessment (formal)
      • Completion of a product, process, performance
      • Examples: Major paper, culminating projects, unit exams, portfolios, lab write-up, presentation, performance
  • How do you want your students to demonstrate knowledge?
    • Written or oral response - Collaborative conversations - Recorded reflection - Creation of a multimedia product - Uploaded image??

4 of 13

Pedagogy first - technology second

​

Making tech decisions for your summer and fall courses

  • Choose one LMS to learn - Blackboard or Canvas
  • Choose a productivity suite to learn (for documents, presentation tools, spreadsheets, cloud storage, forms, real-time collaboration) - Office 365 or Google Drive/Docs
  • Choose one or two tools to learn - Voicethread, Padlet, Nearpod, Flipgrid, etc.

5 of 13

Why are you assessing your students? How will you do it?

  • Support and measure student and instructor presence via low stakes (informal) assessments:
    • Student inventory (to gather data about students first in order to make instructional decisions)
    • Asynchronous discussion boards
    • Synchronous whole class discussions via padlet, module question sign-up
    • Small group activities and tasks via breakout rooms or individual zoom rooms,
    • Student accountability via small group accountability form, reading accountability form
  • Guide future instructional decisions
    • Gathering informal assessment data (via google forms and spreadsheets) to find patterns in student understanding
  • Evaluate student understanding and mastery via High stakes (formal) assessments”
    • Larger projects (case studies, research papers, essays, etc.)
    • Using the “rough draft - feedback - final draft” framework via Google Docs
    • Student self-assessment
    • Rubric development (ex: analytic rubric for a lesson plan activity) - See next slide to learn more about rubrics via Nearpod!

6 of 13

Rubric Development

  • How to create a rubric slideshow via Nearpod
  • It’s BEST to use your phone with the nearpod app installed - however, you can also simply use your phone’s web browser, or open another tab on your computer.
  • Lesson plan analytic rubric - full

7 of 13

Formal Assessment

- Important for learning (without assessment, students might not learn as much)

- Important to students (grading)

- Important to instructor (feedback)

​

8 of 13

Some Considerations of Formal Assessment

  • Spread out the stakes, reduce the weight of exams (alleviate the stress/pressure),
  • Balance the workload and effectiveness
    • Number of assessments
    • Automatic grading (multiple-choice, or peer-grading, online grading systems)
  • Give clear instructions and send reminders
    • (due day/time, late submission policy, formatting requirement)

9 of 13

Formal Assessment

  • Quiz
    • For synchronous classes: Partly attendance stimulation, partly assessment
    • For asynchronous classes: evaluate learning of knowledge
  • Discussion Board (Participation)
    • Set up (clear and easy-to-understand instructions, how many posts)
    • Instructor participation
    • Grading
  • Homework & Lab
    • Setup (deadline, formatting, file upload?)
    • Grading (in LMS; download then grade; separate systems such as SAM, SIMlab, etc.)
  • Exam
    • Setup (testbank from publisher or self-made)
    • Integrity Concern (randomization, timed test, sign an integrity statement)

10 of 13

Formal Assessment (cont.)

  • VoiceThread (interactive group work)
    • Audio/video-based interactive slideshow
      • Introduction (ice-breaker)
      • Case analysis
      • Group presentation (peer-evaluation: Google Form)
  • Turnitin (writing assessment)
    • Setup (plagrithem check)
    • Similarity rate (15% or lower)

​

​

11 of 13

General tips

  • Assessment doesn’t always have to be a word document
  • Let the learners choose their own medium to demonstrate knowledge (or provide a range of choices)
  • When planning an assessment, think about your course goals and weekly or module learning objectives FIRST, then think about the assessment
  • Utilize assessment outcomes to drive instructional decisions
  • Create assessments that support higher order thinking
  • Think about the workload that is involved when assessing your students
  • Do not get obsessed with student cheating - it will drive you crazy. Review the recorded meeting about academic integrity!

12 of 13

Additional resources

​

13 of 13

Thank you!

​

Daniel Soodjinda, Ed.D.�Associate Professor of Liberal Studies and Teacher Education�dsoodjinda@csustan.edu�202.230.7063 mobile

Pengtao Li, Ph.D.�Professor of Management Information Systems�pli1@csustan.edu

�