By: Rob Kelly in Educational Assessment, Online Education

Tests and quizzes are often the primary means of assessing online learner performance; however, as Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt, online instructors and coauthors of numerous online learning books, including Lessons from the Virtual Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching (2013), point out, there are more effective and less problematic alternatives.

They cite three significant drawbacks of test and quizzes:

1. Test and quizzes typically assess low-level learning. “They address only some of the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, often sticking to the knowledge level. [Tests and quizzes] measure how much information students have memorized and then can spit back out on an exam. Most test questions are not designed to allow students to engage in really critical thinking or analysis or synthesis of materials,” Palloff says.

2. Tests and quizzes often are not aligned with the learning objectives or pedagogies of the course. “When you’re having students do more authentic activities or application activities, you’re working at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy—synthesis or evaluation—but then you’re measuring the lowest level—the knowledge level—by using a test or quiz,” Palloff and Pratt say.

This misalignment issue arose in an online course Palloff and Pratt taught together. The course was primarily discussion based. They had students do things such as discuss news articles that illustrated concepts in the course. “The discussion activities were really robust, very practical, very applied, and authentic. And then they were given a final exam out of the blue that we did not write, and all the students failed. It was a picky final exam with true-false and multiple-choice questions. Every student failed because that was not the way the course was taught. They were taught to think at much higher levels, and they went into this final exam that was all about rote memorization of stuff from the textbook. … It wasn’t a good way to measure how they were actually doing in the course,” Palloff and Pratt say.

3. Overuse of test and quizzes can promote cheating. Several studies have shown that when tests and quizzes are the primary means of assessment, students cheat more than they would if they engaged in a more authentic activity, Palloff says.

Alternative assessment methods such as writing assignments, collaborative assignments, case studies, and debates can avoid the problems often associated with tests and quizzes. “There are many ways to approach assessment. It depends on the context of the course. When we teach faculty how to teach online, we try to give them a taste of a majority of those methods. I don’t know that we can cover all of them in one course, but there are multiple ways to get at the issues and make this a real-life situation for the students so they can actually learn from the process,” Pratt says.

Palloff and Pratt recommend selecting assessment methods that are learner-centered and authentic.

Learner-centered assessment methods address whether the learner has met the learning outcomes of the course as well as how the learner got there. “A learner-centered assessment is an assessment that links what the student is learning in the course to the assessment process,” Palloff says.

Authentic assessment methods can reduce cheating. One way to make assignments more authentic and less susceptible to cheating is to have students embed their own experiences in their assignments. “For example, if they are writing about human development, you can have them write about their own development. They’re writing about themselves, and that is very difficult to buy through a paper mill or to plagiarize,” Palloff says.

Mobile technology is one way to incorporate authentic assessment into a course. For example, one of Pratt’s doctoral students uses mobile phones in a 12th-grade calculus course he teaches. Students record themselves working on problems. “This allows them to move around. They can get creative. It challenges them to do a multitude of things on different levels and they’re learning calculus in the process,” Pratt says.

Palloff also uses mobile technology for authentic assignments. As part of a final project in a community health care course, she has students prepare a brief proposal to their communities about the development of a particular health service. Students then go out and interview community members and record the interviews using cell phones. “There are lots of ways to use the technologies that are available to us to enhance those kinds of products. Students can then post those online so that other students can see them and give them feedback in addition to the instructor’s evaluation,” Palloff says.

When students do collaborative assignments, they should be assessed collaboratively, Palloff and Pratt say. Collaborative assessment is a combination of students assessing themselves and one another and the instructor taking that input and doing the final assessment. In addition to providing a basis for a grade, these collaborative assessments provide useful insights on what worked and what didn’t work on an assignment, which Palloff and Pratt debrief with students so that they can reflect on what they might do differently the next time.

When used sparingly and properly designed, tests and quizzes can be useful assessment methods, Palloff and Pratt say.

Rather than relying on anti-cheating technologies or proctors, they recommend using open-book tests and quizzes “because students are going to have their text material available, and if they are working online they can look things up on Google,” Palloff says. “There are all kinds of ways that they can gather information, and, the truth is, in the real world if the student comes up against a problem or an issue that they don’t have the answer to, they’re going to look it up or ask someone. So if you construct your tests and quizzes that way you’re actually teaching students some skills that they’re going to use when they get out of school.”

The questions in an open-book test or quiz need to be complex and require students to know the material and know where to look if they are uncertain about something. When open-book tests or quizzes are well designed, students who don’t do the work will not be able to do well on them even with an open book.

Reprinted from Online Classroom, 13.7 (2013): 1,8. ? Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: alternative assessments, assessing online learning, assessment alternatives

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By: Rob Kelly in Online Education

Teddi Fishman, director of the International Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University, advocates an instructional design/community-building approach to academic integrity rather than an adversarial approach. Her stint as a police officer informs this stance. As radar gun companies introduced improved speed enforcement tools, the latest radar detectors (often produced by the same companies) rendered such improvements ineffective. “I learned that you can’t out-tech people, and you don’t want to get into that situation. You don’t want to have that arms race. Certainly some security measures are going to be necessary, but don’t get into the habit of relying on technology to establish a climate of integrity, because it can have adverse effects. Nobody wants to feel like they’re being watched all the time,” she says.

Here are Fishman’s recommendations for promoting academic integrity in the online classroom:

Let your students know you care about academic integrity. If your institution has an honor code, refer to it throughout the course. “If you don’t have conversations that reference the honor code, if students don’t buy into the honor code, it’s going to be a lot less effective,” Fishman says.

In addition, remind students of the importance of academic integrity to you personally. For example, Fishman mentions her role in the International Center for Academic Integrity and talks about academic integrity throughout the course. “You want to mention before the major assignments that integrity is important. You want to mention [academic integrity] while they’re working on their papers. That can make a difference, but I think it’s much less effective without interaction to reinforce that that is one of the mores of the community,” she says.

When students have a relationship with their instructor, they are less likely to cheat. This is why Fishman recommends making a strong effort to get to know students. She recommends entering the learning space early to chat with students during synchronous sessions, asking questions such as “How are you doing?” and “What did you do this weekend?” She also recommends using gestures. “I type into the online classroom ‘smiles’ and ‘waves’ and ‘say hello to so-and-so’ so that they understand it as a place that is like their face-to-face classroom, and I think that can help establish that rapport.”

By having these social conversations students might be less inclined to cheat for fear of disappointing someone—the instructor—with whom they have established a relationship. “You want the teacher and the student to feel responsible to each other. You want them to feel that they are engaged in the mutual process of understanding—the teacher and students are helping the student learn, and if things go really well, the teacher learns too,” Fishman says.

For instructors who do not have the option to use synchronous communication, Fishman recommends establishing relatively informal spaces to interact “so that students know that not everything is going to be a graded assignment.” She asks students to include a photo, picture, or symbol that appears alongside their name in discussions and blog posts. This helps establish relationships even if students don’t use photos of themselves. “You get familiar with that person. You might not ever know the person’s real name, but you know his or her Internet moniker and picture, and you feel over time that you know that person,” Fishman says.

Some online learners struggle with understanding appropriate behavior in the online classroom and mistakenly transfer to the online classroom the norms from other online venues, such as gaming spaces and Facebook, rather than behave according to the norms of the face-to-face classroom. To address this issue, Fishman recommends using analogues of the face-to-face learning environment in the online classroom.

For example, using a tool that is analogous to a chalkboard helps establish familiar norms in a new setting. Similarly, having students respond to questions synchronously helps establish a classroom environment. “It feels like the kind of discussion they might have in a classroom. If you do everything in an asynchronous environment, then it doesn’t feel like a classroom. I want them to see what happens in the online classroom as an interactive exchange, just like a face-to-face classroom would be. It’s not like everything should be the same [as the face-to-face classroom], but I do think there should be special attention paid to making sure that students have that feeling of interactivity by talking with each other and not just getting assignments out of nowhere and submitting them into a black hole. There have to be people attached to those actions, personalities, and interactions in order for you to establish that kind of rapport.”

One of the obstacles to promoting academic integrity is class size. If students don’t have the opportunity to establish relationships with classmates and the instructor, they may be more inclined to cheat. “In small classes where the teacher and the students have lots of interaction, there’s a sense of responsibility to one another,” Fishman says.

Financial necessity often dictates large online classes. In order to build rapport, Fishman recommends subdividing large classes into discussion groups of five to 10. “If you’re able to schedule it so that those groups aren’t all meeting at the same time, then it’s possible to still take advantage of the way you teach best,” Fishman says. For example, an instructor might do part of a lecture synchronously and have students do an assignment and then view a prerecorded lecture.
Use frequent and varied assignments. Scaffolded assignments with interim deadlines and pieces that can be assessed throughout the course can make cheating less likely. However, having many assignments can create extra work for the instructor. Fishman recommends providing simple feedback on some of these assignments, such as a checkmark for those who complete an assignment correctly and more substantive feedback for those who need it.

In addition to reducing the likelihood of cheating, having a series of assignments that builds toward a larger project tends to means that the final project is usually higher quality and requires less feedback than had the students submitted just the final project, Fishman says. Although having assignments like this can reduce cheating, it won’t eliminate it, because students can pay others to create all the pieces of the assignment.

Fishman is not opposed to the use of technology to detect academic dishonesty, and the International Center for Academic Integrity works with companies that provide these tools, “but I do think than an overreliance [on technology] can be detrimental to the relationship between the teacher and the students. You want to be able to detect plagiarism. … What you don’t want to do is feel like it’s an arms race, where you’re trying to put in so many mechanisms [so] that students can’t possibly cheat, and they’re trying to find ways of getting around all the mechanisms you have in place,” Fishman says.

When students are supported, are engaged, and have opportunities to explore their interests, they are less likely to cheat. “The trick is to design the course so that everything essential is there, and yet when somebody gets excited about a topic and wants to explore, there’s room for students to pursue that,” Fishman says.

Unlike in the face-to-face classroom, there can be technical barriers in the online classroom. “You don’t want [students] to barely master the technology so that they can barely get the assignments done. You want there to be room for them to expand, grow, play. If you get the students [to] where they’re playing with the technology, the technology is no longer a barrier. …

“If all students were engaged and actually excited about learning, then my job would be over because there would be no reason to cheat. … There’s no reason for students to cheat in an environment where they feel safe, competent, and excited about what they’re doing.” Reprinted from Promoting Academic Integrity in the Online Classroom, Online Classroom, 13.6 (2013): 5,8. ? Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: academic dishonesty, academic integrity, academic integrity in online education, cheating in online classes

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By: Amy Erickson and Catz Neset in Online Education

Remember feeling nervous before starting your first day on the job? You may have experienced butterflies in your stomach, had questions about expectations, or concerns about learning the rules and finding information. Students feel the same way with a new professor, regardless if the class is face-to-face or online. With technology, you can reduce new-class jitters and get your students on track for success.

According to Jos? Antonio Bowen, author of Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning, students are comfortable (and even expect) constant e-communication. One could even argue that they crave it. You can provide this kind of communication to your online students via a weekly announcement that shares course expectations, class rules, and how to access vital course documents. Moreover, weekly e-communication to students can provide you with an extra opportunity to create connectivity in your classroom.

Recording weekly video announcements
To begin, create a weekly video announcement that best suits your students. You can do this by using technology that is appropriate for the learning management system (LMS) used by your school. If your institution uses iPads, make sure your video file can be viewed on iPads. Consider embedding the weekly announcements in the course on the LMS or a course website so students have an opportunity to go back and access material later if necessary. Remember, a video announcement does not have to be a video of you talking. Instead it can be a voiceover as you give students a tour of the online course shell or discuss important housekeeping tasks for the class. Easy-to-use technologies like Jing, screencast-o-matic, VoiceThread, and Camtasia Relay allow you to communicate visually without being in front of the camera.

Prime each weekly announcement by describing the objectives of the current week in a minute or less and highlights the location of the current week’s assignments along with relevant resources. Include links that enhance learning and clarify material. Share specific expectations of the assignment so students understand exactly what you want. Vague instructions from teachers will illicit vague material from students.

If a student did outstanding work in the previous week’s assignment, ask the student for permission to share the work with the class in the upcoming announcement. This is a wonderful way to acknowledge a student’s hard work and to demonstrate A-level work to the rest of the class. This practice may also cut down on student emails questioning the grade that was earned.

Building relevance in your courses
Students crave relevance, so consider connecting the unit material to current affairs. Share links to news stories, Twitter feeds, or articles that make the learning material applicable to life outside the classroom. If you teach business, marketing, public relations, among others, there are numerous opportunities to wrap an assignment or discussion around the public movements (or missteps) of high-profile companies. If you can make it applicable, you can even use celebrity news stories, as students enjoy hearing about this type of material. Perhaps there is a poetry slam or book reading you’d like your students to attend. Maybe a future art exhibit is relevant to your content or a well-known speaker is giving a lecture on campus. All of these strategies keep students apprised of current events and demonstrate your efforts to connect their classroom with the real world. Sharing this information via e-communication frees up valuable classroom time that you can spend engaging students in the content of course material rather than administrative details.

Finally, do not be afraid to have a sense of humor. Showing a funny side will demonstrate to the students that you are enjoying yourself and enthusiasm is contagious.

Formula for Success:

Provide an introduction each week and share your availability Give feedback and answer questions from the previous week Showcase exceptional student work from the previous weekHighlight the objectives of the coming week and any special preparation or required resourcesConnect your coursework to relevant current events

By using a weekly announcement, an instructor is allowed to incorporate additional instruction, share feedback, create relevance, and add humor; all useful elements to creating a connected classroom.

Amy Erickson is an assistant professor at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. Catz Neset is an associate professor at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Tags: engaging online students, making course material relevant, teaching with technology, tips for online instructors

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By: Rob Kelly in Online Education

Incivility in the online classroom can take many forms. Angela Stone Schmidt, director of graduate programs in the School of Nursing and associate dean College of Nursing & Health Professions at Arkansas State University—Jonesboro, uses Morrisette’s definition: “interfering with a cooperative learning atmosphere.” So in addition to inappropriate, rude, offensive, or bullying behaviors, Schmidt considers behaviors such as academic dishonesty, over-participation or domination and under-participation to be forms of incivility. In an interview with Online Classroom, she offered the following advice on how to reduce incivility with a proactive stance and how to address it when it does occur:

Use the syllabus to set expectations. Schmidt includes the course honor code in the syllabus, which describes respectful behavior and academic integrity standards. This contract includes definitions of appropriate conduct and social expectations.

The attitudes and behaviors of the instructor can affect students’ attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, it’s important to demonstrate the behaviors you expect from your students. Avoid authoritarianism using effective interpersonal communication. Facilitate introductions by providing students with some background on yourself, including a photo and an introduction. Ask students to do the same, determining how they prefer to be addressed.

“I think a lot of the uncivil written communication is supported by the feeling of being anonymous,” Schmidt says. “They aren’t really, but they are not physically present in a classroom, so they may feel somewhat detached.”

One way to reduce students’ feelings of being detached from the course is for the instructor to maintain a consistent social presence in the course, responding and providing information in a timely manner. “Many times, faculty expect the students to discuss and interact, but they are not engaged in that interaction—facilitate with immediacy and affective cohesive responses, offering praise for appropriate responses and initiating discussions,” Schmidt says.

Not all incivility is intentional. For example, a lack of understanding of diverse cultures can lead to behaviors that seem intentionally hostile but are not. Lack of participation can be the result of a student’s apathy or difficulty understanding the course content. Understanding why a student engaged in certain behaviors can help you address the issue properly.

In some cases, a simple reminder of the expectations of the course will be enough to get a student on track. If that does not work, it’s sometimes necessary to have a private conference with the student to understand the causes of the incivility and to clarify expectations. Reference to the initial contract, the syllabus, and the policies included should be enforced only after thorough exploration.

Reprinted from Online Classroom, 13.10 (2013): 5. ? Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: classroom management, course design strategies, discussion boards, incivility in the classroom

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