May 15 2011
Assessment
Reflection on Assessment
I am used to using online assessment tools such as ThatQuiz and Assessment, which allow teachers and others to share and edit each other’s quizzes. This is an easy way to ease into the creation online quizzes especially when it comes to creating specific feedback on questions.
I find Moodle to be less intuitive that I originally thought which makes the “student view” invaluable.
Feedback
Feedback is important in learning and it is good to see that Moodle is set up for this for most question types. If set up properly, it helps students move forward and learn by their mistakes. Regular feedback on assignments has been deemed by students to be more important than face-to-face learning (Gibbs, 2004).They need to know where they went wrong.
I am reading a book called “The Price of Privilege” by Madeleine Levine, which is a worthwhile read since it looks at, among other things, the fixation that some students and parents have on the result instead of the process. They want the marks regardless of how they get them. Learning comes second.
Subsequent attempts
I like that the questions allowed students to try a questions more than once. The feedback of “partially correct” in the matching questions then allowing the student to go back into the question helps the student learn at the same time. It should help to take the focus off the mark and more on to the learning. The fact that I can add “extra” answers so that the matches are not 1:1 is something that I appreciate.
Math and Online Quizzes
The fundamental problem in any online program and math comes with representing fractions, square roots etc. The questions allowed exponents but I could not figure out how the students could answer in this format. Incorporating a Math editor of some sort would be great.
I enjoyed the process but I am not sure how much I would actually look at the statistics. I find that the idea of these quizzes being feedback oriented is more powerful than if they are mark oriented. The “process” vs the “product”.
References
Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005). “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online 11 March 2009 http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf
Levine, M. (2008). The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. HarperCollins.
