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Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Subjective assessment

I often use subjective assessment for my online students via written essay type answers. A study showed the value of subjective assessment used in anesthesiology residency e-leanrning ( Chu et. al, 2013). Reference Chu LF, Ngai LK, Young CA, Pearl RG, Macario A, Harrison TK. (2013). Preparing Interns for Anesthesiology Residency Training: Development and Assessment of the Successful Transition to Anesthesia Residency Training (START) E-Learning Curriculum. J Grad Med Educ. ;5(1):125-9. doi: 10.4300/JGME-D-12-00121.1.

Alternative assessment

Because alternative assessment is conducible to online online, I try to use this with my students. Students being able to evaluate their work and benefit from the evaluation process is wonderful. Great Module!

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is critical in online programs. I am aware of the need to be using such assessment to better understand my students' ongoing progress; thus I am able to modify lessons to improve from assessment results. The value of formative assessment programs are noted in randomized control trials (BMC Med Educ, 2014). Reference Palmer, E., & Devitt, P. (2014). The assessment of a structured online formative assessment
program: a randomised controlled trial. BMC Med Educ. 14:8.

technology tools

Technology tools are very important for a solid online course. In my health science courses I use technology tools and references for online resources most appropriate for this population. Technology tools are very crucial for the success of online courses for medical students (Han, Nelson, & Wetter, 2014). 
Reference 
Han, H., Nelson, E., & Wetter, N. (2014). Medical students' online learning technology needs.
Clin Teach. 11(1):15-9.

Digital Portfolios

While there are many sites with Digital Portfolio Abilities, many of them free. I feel it is extremely important to have a platform easy for your students to access and "play" with. The site chosen should also be user friendly to the instructor as well. The most important thing is that you have "played" with it enough and saved things to your portfolio so you can guide your students through it. I did a simple internet search and found over 20 sites for saving digital portfolios. These were free. For a fee, there were several more. How would you narrow… >>>

Rubric

How do we properly weight an exam rubric used in the medical professional field? Using practical to practice from pretend patient to clinical.

Tools

How do we integrate the new tools with older students?

Student Attention

How do you as professor maintain a high level of engagement?

Diagnostic Assessment

What are some good examples of diagnostic assessments for computer courses? I find people often overestimate their capabilities on questions and answers.

Reflective Journaling

Has anyone used reflective journaling as an assessment of learning? I understand managing them could be time consuming, but could provide additional benefits such as writing improvement. Jacquie Porter

Fighting a grade

Does anyone have students who still continue to fight their grade despite a detailed organized rubric? For example I once had a student fight with me that they got a A-. I had marked them lower on the student participation area of the rubric. They were supposed to deliver a lesson plan and engage students in the process. Her response was that it was "ridiculous" that I would expect her to be responsible for other students being engaged in her presentation/lesson. Furthermore when it was her turn to listen to others and engage in their lesson plan she continued to… >>>

Technical surveys

One thing I find that differs greatly among students is their technical skills. SOme people are very tech savvy, not afraid of learning new software & hardware while other students seem hesitant and need to have their hands held every step of the way. I find giving a diagnostic tool in the form of a technical survey helps me to use differentiating learning and engage all learners in an online environment helping each and every student to increase their technical skills at their own comfort level.

Rubrics in the classroom help to motivate students

I've found that a good set of rubrics is to begin with the course objectives and each of the assignments. The flow should be course objectives to grading rubric to classroom student assignment. This way we can use this assessment to determine if students are getting out of the classroom what we expected them to and be able to circle back and improve the course curriculum. At the same time we can provide students with feedback to help them throughout the course.

Grading subjective materials

I teach a Careers class where we build individual resumes etc. This is such a subjective area and sometimes it's difficult for me to use traditional grading methods. I find that using a Digital Portfolio works best for me.

Comptenecy based-MBA Programs

Just recently one of the institutions I work for started an innovative MBA program that is based on competencies. Essentially, a competencies assessment is performed before taking any specific courses in the program in order to assess knowledge and skills of the student against the expected knowledge and skills of an MBA graduate. This assessment, up to a certain degree, allows for students to get constructive credit for some courses based upon their previous knowledge and experience. This allows students to complete an MBA program and less than the traditional time of two years. However, the success or failure of… >>>

Continuous improvement, validity and relaibility

One of the most difficult attributes of applying reliability and validity to assessment is recognizing that over time minor changes to content, expectations, or interpretations of content have a cumulative effect that can undermine assessments. In other words, it is very difficult to overcome a static perspective of reliability and validity. Over time, it's very likely that many small changes occur in content, interpretation of assignments, and emphasis on specific content elements. There seems to be much more focus on updating material and less focus on the reliability and validity of assessments. It's possible that very small changes in course… >>>

Rubrics: Process vs. knowledge

Does anyone else incorporate process into their grading rubrics? I do so to emphasize the work required to write multiple paper drafts.

First graduate assignments as diagnostic assessments

Since I teach the first course in a graduate business program, many students are not aware of the large amount of skills they are expected to apply during their graduate studies. Accordingly, I take the time to let them know that their first round assignments will also help them assess where they are with respect to the expected skills for the whole program. For me this is a valuable form of diagnostic assessment. During the chats and e-mail conversations for the first unit I inform the students they will be applying 10 skills simultaneously in their first round of assignments.… >>>

Digital portfolios and journals

E-portfolios are very much like journals, but with multimedia content. In my graduate leadership classes (Masters and doctorate) I’ve used journaling as an assessment tool since it allows me to see how students apply in their workplace what they learn in the classroom. The fact that they have to know the material, find the moment to apply the material, reflect on the event and then document the experience in a journal helps me see progress throughout the session. Although some aspects of the journal may be very personal, I let them know that the Final Exam is a summary of… >>>

Evaluating Rubrics

Regardless of whether you are modifying an existing rubric, creating one from scratch, or using a rubric developed by another party, both before and after you use the rubric is a good time to evaluate it and determine if it is the most appropriate tool for the assessment task. Questions to ask when evaluating a rubric include: Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being measured? The rubric should address the criteria of the outcome(s) to be measured and no unrelated aspects. Does it cover important criteria for student performance? Is the rubric authentic, does it reflect what was emphasized… >>>