Stacy,
I agree with you. When you have course in a box you don't have much options.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Matthew,
What a great post! You are right, subjective based assessment can be tricky in grading. I think you are so smart to develop the rubric so you have defined criteria for both you and the student.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Lindsay,
That is true about the different ways we change our assessment. It will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve as there is now software that "evaluates" grammar and punctuation and can issue grades based on certain perimeters.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I use more subjective evaluations and I use them more orally than written. In my writing classes, I have found that discussing topics with students and then shaping that discussion into a lesson on writing an essay has proven to be an effective teaching tool that helps students appreciate the writing process.
Also, allowing them to open up everyday discussion at the beginning of class gives way to an opportunity for me to help them see how they formulate arguments for/against things daily, thus encouraging them that writing a thesis isn't as hard as they think it is. My professors taught me, "every essay is an argument".
Cynthia,
Thank you for sharing your strategy. How do you do this in an online course? Do you facilitate the discussion through discussion board? I really like this strategy. I teach an online course so this would work for me.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Yes, in an online course, I add a discussion post that provokes conversation about a topic and use the students' responses to teach strategies of composition.
Cynthia,
That is a great way to way to use the students' own words to learn how to compose a message. I use Twitter that way.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In my courses I use subjective “dialogue†at all times, by presenting discussions in class as subjective reasoning and exploration of current topics can be as informative as written evaluation. Although in combination with written provides the best results.
In higher education I believe testing should take on the form of our times. Many students feel that it is “baby-ish†to take standard objective test or “boring†standard typical form-like tests so I have used varying methods to design the tests as alternate “game-like†themes that include humor, current events, trivia challenges, and twist and turns to excite the taker.
Do we want to trivia academia through sponsorship and themed course and evaluation to the point of sponsorship, such as this course was brought to you by “Disney/Pepsi/ESPN� As authored through and taken under the assumption of standards of occupation (employment) with that particular corporation or industry.
Kelly,
What great ways to engage the learners and assess them. Assessment can and probably should take different forms to ensure mastery of the objective content. Creativity is such a hidden skill within assessment; we don't always talk about its role.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
My school prefers authentic assessments, or basically subjective assessments. Personally, I would prefer a combination of objective and subjective assessments. I like it when the student gives a variety of different feedback so that he or she can be evaluated on a rounded manner. I think that only using subjective feedback is limited in the sense that the assessment tool may not be commonly accepted by other schools.
I think both have their place within a course to make ongoing evaluations. I use the objective evaluations kind of as a check point to be sure the students are on track with the course objectives. I use the subjective evaluations as "better" judge of their true understanding of the material in the course.
Donald,
Interesting point. I too prefer a combination. I do think authentic assessments are very much accepted in other skills. I like to see them.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Robin ,
I think that is a great strategy of assessment. You can really temper the subjectivity of the subjective evaluation by using rubrics.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In the school I currently teach for we use only subjective evaluations. All of our courses require participation in discussion boards and writing of essays or making of presentations to demonstrate understanding of topics. we have scoring rubrics for every assignment. While this has worked well for us, there is a discussion of the lack of basic knowledge being given to students. Therefore we are designing self help products that reviews and teaches basic information and evaluates it with objective tests that provide automatic feedback to the learner. We hope this will help students identify and learn necessary objective information to improve their ability to answer the more complex subjective assignments.
Dr. Eileen ,
What a great post. You do hope you can glean from the information students lack of knowledge and provide students with individualized learning developed with technology using technology
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Dr. Eileen ,
What a great post. You do hope you can glean from the information students lack of knowledge and provide students with individualized learning developed with technology using technology
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In assessing students' knowledge I have used both objective and subjective evaluations. For recall I tend to use multiple choice while I use True and False to add a twist to that which they recall. Matching is especially useful in anatomy when I ask students to pit a disease with its functional organ or system. I will use essays for more descriptive and process based data like describing the revenue cycle in a medical practice.
Jerri,
These are great strategies. You want to make sure you give students opportunities to showcase what they know. Using a variety of assessment tools provides a complete picture of student learning for you.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
In my courses and I believe like most of the online courses that there is a combination of both the objective and subjective evaluations being used. There is a test that is given and then there is usually a written assignment. I think that the subjective evalutions works better because then you really get a chance to view whether or not the student really understands the content of the material.
I have used both and each has a time and place depending on the content and learning objectives.
