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Blended Assessments of Learning

Focus Question

How will I determine students are learning?

Objectives

After completing all of this week’s activities, you should be able to:

Determine assessments appropriate for the learning objectives you’ve established in your blended course
Revise existing course documents as appropriate based upon assessment decisions
Configure online quizzes for your blended course
Create written student instructions for each graded assignment in your blended course

Readings

If you haven’t already done so, please select the online/offline version of the BlendKit Reader that is best for you. In addition to the individual chapter linked below, the complete reader is available as an ebook (epub or Kindle formats), pdf, or in HTML.

This Week’s Chapter

Chapter 3: Blended Assessments of Learning [html file; size=29b]

Highlights

If you’re pressed for time, focus on the following section:

Formal Assessment

Reading Reaction Form

Please use the Chapter 03 Reading Reaction Form to document your written reaction to this week’s reading. If you’ve already posted your reaction to your blog or other public platform, you may enter the url on this form.

DIY Project Tasks

This week’s development task is to decide how you will assess learning in your blended course based upon the course design documents you’ve created previously. What assessments align with the learning objectives you’ve stated? What assessments are logistically feasible? How will you implement the logistics of the assessments you choose? This process can be quite iterative, and it may lead to revisions to the earlier drafts of the course documents (i.e,. Course Blueprint, Syllabus, Protocols, Schedule, etc.) you created in previous weeks. In fact, once you’ve worked through your learning assessment decisions, this is a good time to review those course documents for any necessary changes.

Create Assignment Instructions [pdf file; size=102kb]
For each graded assignment through which you will assess student learning, use this process to create written assignment instructions to share with students.
Configure Online Quizzes [pdf file; size=78kb]
Online quizzes are one of the most common assessment methods employed in blended courses. If you decide to employ online quizzes in your blended course, use this checklist to work through the logistics of setting up your online quizzes.
Revise Course Blueprint, Syllabus, and other course documents as appropriate.
As you work through the logistics associated with your online quizzes and other graded assignments/assessments, you may find that you want to adjust your original plans as articulated in your earlier documents. Revising them will allow you to stay focused on designing one, consistent whole.

Blogging/Social Networking

Post to your blog your reflections related to this week’s activities. For a list of ideas to blog about or for help getting started, please see the BlendKit Course blogging resources.

Is there a one-liner from the readings that you loved (or hated)? Consider posting quotes from this week’s readings or sharing your thoughts related to the readings, the DIY tasks, or any related topic via HootCourse or Twitter. If you’re using Twitter, please include the hashtag #BlendKit2012. If you’re using HootCourse, you do not need to include the hashtag.

Have you found a good resource on blended learning? You might consider using the Diigo social bookmarking site to bookmark (and comment upon) any helpful web resources you’ve found this week. These might be links you followed from the course materials or resources you found on your own. If you join the BlendKit “group” on Diigo, you’ll be able to share bookmarks directly with the group. You might consider taking a look at this brief Flash-based tutorial on Diigo groups if you haven’t used Diigo groups before.

What does learning assessment look like in blended courses? Consider taking a digital photo related to blended learning in general or this week’s topics in particular. Post it to Flickr, and tag it with “blendkit.” (See blendkit tagged items on Flickr.)

Any of the above social networking contributions you undertake should eventually show up in the BlendKit Course RSS feed. Subscribe to the RSS feed using your preferred reader Note: Registered participants receive a daily digest of these interactions via email.

Commenting

Take a few minutes to read the BlendKit Course blog postings of others, and leave behind a comment or two. You may find such blog postings linked from HootCourse or by exploring the list of blogs posted by other participants. (You can find tips for making blog comments on Grammar Girl’s web site.)

Weekly Real Time Session

After completing all of Week 03’s learning activities, please join us for this week’s 30 minute webinar on Monday, October 15, 2012 at 1:00pm (US ET; -4 UTC) at http://ucf.adobeconnect.com/blendkit2012. [Note: Select "Enter as a Guest" and then input your name and location, e.g., “Kelvin Thompson - UCF” or “Kelvin Thompson - Orlando, FL”]

If you are unable to join us in real time, the recording of the Adobe Connect session will be posted afterward on the session archive page for review at your convenience.

Have Feedback?

How’s it going so far? Have suggestions for making the BlendKit Course better? Please don’t hesitate to send an email to Kelvin at anytime. However, we’d also love to compile everyone’s quick feedback via the Week 03 Feedback Form. Please consider taking a moment or two to let us know how the BlendKit Course is going for you.

BlendKit Course: Week 03 Activities