Assessment

Building the assessment into my online course about social media for business and personal branding was a challenging and creative assignment.  I wanted to create possibilities for factual recall, personal opinions and critical thinking about the unit on how to implement a social media strategy, so I implemented a variety of testing strategies such as multiple choice questions about the general information, matching for factual recall, and short answer and essay questions for critical thinking and personal insights and opinions.

This was a challenge, since I had to do the research and build the unit first, complete with lessons and activities.  Yet the creative aspect of this is that while I was writing up the content and setting up the activities, I was able to anticipate questions and put in spaces for critical thought development as well as making the unit applicable to a learner’s needs.  My assessment strategies include a social media forum to discuss the necessity of social media in business, a quiz on the content of social media strategy, a formal submission of a social media strategy for a personal business, and a workshop/peer assessment to review the social media strategy proposal before submission.  Creating the quiz was challenging, as it forced me to work deeply inside the tools of Moodle to create varying styles of questions, feedback and time limits.

While reading Gibbs & Simpson’s article (2004) and the additional articles in this unit of ETEC 565, I was struck by the importance of interaction and accountability needed in assessment.  I will continue to keep this element as a cornerstone to my assessment strategies throughout my moodle course.  The other aspect of Gibbs & Simpson’s article (2004) that reverberates within my mind is the need for detailed feedback.  This will be possible throughout the course, but in creating the quiz, I built in detailed feedback for the auto-graded portions as well as opportunities for detailed feedback for the short answer and essay questions.  I have always found the grade book and grading schemes of Moodle to be somewhat cumbersome, yet became more comfortable upon the completion of my quiz.  Opportunities exist for both detailed and instant feedback, both of which respond to the research of Gibbs & Simpson (2004).

The overall result of the readings on assessment and the practice of building assessment directly in my Moodle course is that now, when I design a Moodle course, I design the course for learning while keeping the needs of learners in mind.  This way assessment, feedback, exercises and activities all are accountable elements, and assessment can be built throughout.  Furthermore, exposing learners to the global cyberspace forces of market response, Community of Practice feedback, professional expectations and application to real-life project-based/product construction learning is a powerful force to keep accountability and creative problem solving skills high.  The creation of educational artefacts has always been a priority in my teaching practice, but varied and frequent assessment is a key component that both Gibbs & Simpson (2004) and the creation of a quiz in my Moodle course have enabled me to rethink how I create courses, course components and assess the knowledge, interaction with that knowledge, development of creative communities and assessment strategies that remain within my Constructivist learning structures.

I look forward to developing the rest of the course units and to build in solid assessment strategies throughout.

References: Gibbs, G; Simpson, C (2004). Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports Students’ Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1. p.p. 3-31.