Module 3 Assessing Collaborative Efforts

When participation in a collaborative learning community, the instructor primary goals is to determine how to assess students learning. Assessment is based on teaching activities that provide different opportunities for students to give feedback as well as instructors assessing themselves (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). When assessing students in an online learning environment, educators can develop different activities for assessment. For example, the students assess their peers using a rating scheme. Educators can assess students by encouraging students to participate in open communities where they can receive feedback. In addition, educators can assess students based on student contributions in the online environment.

Another aspect of assessment is students’ skill and knowledge they bring to the course. The fair and equitable assessment of learning is based on the degree of students’ growth throughout the course versus where the student started from and where they ended up. Those students who started without a lot of knowledge of the subject matter, but in the end has shown a lot of growth should be considered in the assessment process. Students should be given every opportunity to learn, and gain the skill and knowledge to be successful. One way to do this is for the educator to provide authentic context (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). Real world experience should be used to allow fair and equitable assessments.

Also, when students enter the online community, it can be challenging for them. The other members of the learning community can help with this challenge by gaining trust from those members who see online learning as a challenge. For this to happen, instructors must design learning experiences that are individual and community based. The assessment plan for these activities would change because the collaboration portion of the class should be based on peer interaction, and these activities should be assessed based on peer interaction and outcome results.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of distance education: Assessment of collaborative learning. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of distance education: Learning communities. Baltimore, MD: Author.