Assessment+&+Feedback

Feedback
Because there is no eye contact in an online course there is a gap in feedback compared to a face-to-face course. The instructor needs to visualize the students sitting at their kitchen table, a basement office, or on the back porch creating discussion posts, reading assigned texts, surfing the Internet for sources, and in general, wondering if they are headed down the right track. Because of this gap I hope to do the following with online courses I teach:
 * Offer online office hours twice each week. This will be using Skype, Elluminate or another product that allows for audio and chat ~ maybe even Second Life. The purpose of these office hours is to allow students to ask questions, seek direction, or receive feedback.

Informal feedback will be provided within the discussion board. As the moderator for discussion threads I will use this as an opportunity to guide the discussion and provide feedback to students whose posts merit a positive response. No negative feedback will be offered on discussion boards.

Assessments
Having participated in an Instructional Design course I will follow the A.D.D.I.E method for course development. With A.D.D.I.E assessments are created based on course objectives - even before one designs the instruction. I found this to be very helpful when I created a short course for the class. It makes sense to create the assessments based on objectives then create the actual instruction.

Formal assessments will include:
 * Rubric that provide the students with a clear path toward demonstrating they have mastered the objectives of the assignment.
 * Where appropriate an online quiz may be included using the CMS. I found the idea of assigning individuals a vocabulary word or concept, then a quiz follow-up on all words to be an effective means of learning key concepts.
 * Large projects will be broken into sections for grading. For example, in the Instructional Design class in which I participated, students were required to submit parts of the design along the way. This allowed the instructor to guide and re-direct when needed. It also allowed the students to make sure they were still on the right track. Having a large assignment due at the end without intermittent feedback could be a cause for students to be unsuccessful in a course.
 * Outside the CMS I will consider using these tools for assessment:
 * Hot Potatoes - a free software from Halfbaked Software that provides for multiple choice quizzes, fill-in the blank, cross-word puzzles for assessing a student's knowledge of a topic. The assessments are very easy to create and post online. [|Halfbaked Home]
 * Survey Monkey - surveys are easy to create and can be used as an assessment tool. Because of the way results are collected it will also be a good indicator of what objectives were not successfully mastered ~ a plus for the instructor.

Feedback Processes
 * Grades for each assignment will be posted via the CMS. Comments will be included to help the student understand where they exceeded, met, and or failed to meet, expectations outlined in the rubric. Comments will not be posted via audio ~ unless there is a compelling reason to do so.
 * Grades will be posted within 48 hours of a student posting the completed assignment. If I cannot meet the 48 hour guideline students will be informed via an announcement in the CMS.