George Siemens points out that assessing learners is difficult, especially in an online collaborative learning community. This type of assessment is difficult because traditionally assessment was individualized solely based on facts or skills individuals retained over a given period of time. However, collaboration calls for a different type of assessment. Students collaborate online in many ways, discussion boards, wikis, and blogs to name a few. Siemens mentions that these online forums are a good way for peers to assess each other using methods such as rating scales. However, peer assessment is only a small portion of the overall assessment. Educators must evaluate learners as well. This evaluation could be done by monitoring students' participation in online forums. Did the student participate? Did the student actively comment on others' posts? How much time was spent in the online forum? Did the student respond in a timely manner? All of these questions can help the educator assess the student's collaborative effort. These questions can be answered by looking at the forum, which keep accurate logs of student activity.
Siemens also discusses making the assessment process fair and equitable. He points out that the different ability levels of the students can make assessment difficult. Students who had limited ability in the beginning of a course could make great gains throughout the course, while students who have always been strong in the area make little gains throughout the course showing little change in ability. My answer to that is grade accordingly. Students who had weak post in the beginning should get lower marks for those posts and marks should improve as the quality of the posts improve. On the other hand students that have been strong throughout the course should continue to get high marks. Therefore the grading has been based on ability throughout the course.
Students that do not want to collaborate in a course first should not be in the course to begin with. Students should be aware that most online course call for some sort of group interaction. It's not much that can be done about students who are not willing to participate. However, other group members could encourage participation of that group member by asking questions to get them involved in discussion. This could make the unwilling member feel as though his or her opinion matters and make them more comfortable in a learning community providing a sense of trust that Siemens states in important. The instructor should directly ask the student why he or she is not participating and give tips for collaborating. Siemens points out that students are more likely to participate if they know that contributions are being assessed. If a student fails to collaborate assessment marks should be low. One can not be assessed for work that is not done.
Resources:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Principles of distance education: Assessment of collaborative online learning featuring George Siemens. [DVD]. United States: Walden University.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Principles of distance education: Learning communities featuring George Siemens. [DVD]. United States: Walden University.
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This is a very good outline regarding the assessments for online communities. It is not very easy to assess an individual when they operate as part of a community, but you gave a few of the strategies that Siemens thought were adequate. Palloff and Pratt also mentioned that an individual portfolio for the collaborative group would also help serve as an assessment tool.
ReplyDeleteYou also mentioned the person who is reluctant to participate in collaboration groups and how the group might ask that person questions so they will be pulled into the exercise. That is a very good strategy for an inclusive situation such as a collaborative online group.
C. Penny Penagraph
I am glad that you pointed out an individual portfolio, that does allow for students to show what they can do individually apart from a group. As far as reluctant members I just feel that if you try to incorporate them and make them feel needed they are less reluctant.
ReplyDeleteGreat Overview, it is important to encourage fellow students who may not be comfortable in an online environment. It's good to make everyone feel apart of the community.
ReplyDeleteRenee,
ReplyDeleteHave you had any experience with your students or school using wikis, blogs, or other collaboration tools? I like to see what other schools are doing in comparison to my school.
The assessment process being fair and equitable is still something that, philosophically, is a challenge for me. Does student A, who shows huge growth, deserve a better grade than student B, who has a higher ability, but doesn't show any growth throughout the course?
I wholeheartedly agree with you about students not enrolling in a course if they are unwilling to work with others. I do think many students are under the impression when they take an online course they will simply be required to do their own work, pass their tests and be done. Essentially, this is a reflection of a majority of our own schools. I think it is a difficult struggle for students who have been used to learning individually all of their lives.
I like you approach regarding assessment. "Grade accordingly". Assessment should be based on work illustrated by students. If students starts of strong it important to encourage and monitor students to maintain high standards while students that start off slowly but are showing signs of improvement we should encourage and enhance their opportunities to reach higher standards
ReplyDeleteJeff-
ReplyDeleteI have not had the chance to use any of this technology at my school as far as wikis or blogs. We have all of the technology at the school but the challenge comes from the students not having access to the the technology at home. I am having a hard time proposing the use of wikis, blogs, google docs, or any time of online communication if we can only use it in class. Any suggestions? And how do you use the tools at your school, if at all?