1 of 5 17TH Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning On-Line Teaching and Learning: The Value of Assessment Tools María Bonilla-Romeu, Ed.D. Department of Business Administration Inter American University of Puerto Rico San German Campus Distance learning is considered a phenomenon of major importance in education. Many educational organizations are changing their paradigms of education and are entering the exciting arena of the different modalities of distance learning. On-line teaching is of major concern when talking about distance learning, because it one of the most used approach (Charp, 2001). Technology is the major factor responsible for this phenomenon, and the wonder of the Internet represents assets to educational institutions trying to provide distance learning to people within a diverse spectrum of personal and professional realities. Because of its impact in the educational setting, it is very important that educational administrators develop and use strategic planning to assess the results of what they are doing or planning to do in distance education. Formative assessment tools are useful to provide feedback about the results of the teaching and learning process, which assure the quality of distance learning offerings. Assessment on Teaching and Learning On-Line courses are a major component of distance education offerings in many of the educational institutions. This reality represents a challenge to teachers and students who try to escape from a traditional paradigm of the teaching and learning process. Assessment tools are relevant means of increasing effectiveness of on-line courses. According to Angelo & Cross (1993), assessment is an approach designed to help teachers find out what students are learning in the classroom and how well they are learning it. Assessment is a valuable tool in education because it will assist with measuring student learning and improving instructional programs. Some of the characteristics of the teaching and learning assessment are: learner-centered, teacherdirected, mutually beneficial, formative, context specific, ongoing, and rooted in good teaching practice. These characteristics should be used as a means to increase interactivity. In a face-to-face classroom as in a virtual scenario, appropriate assessment techniques provide excellent opportunities for interaction between teachers and students, a key element to the achievement of educational goals (Frankola, 2001). Assessment and the learning experiences The physical distance between the students and teachers in an on-line scenario, requires increasing the interaction between them, therefore, assessment techniques become one of the most valuable tools to achieve this objective. By using assessment techniques, teachers have the opportunity to realize how, how much, and how well the students are learning what they are trying to teach. Teachers become more proactive in their dissemination of information through direct interaction with the students. On the other hand, by using assessment techniques, students can interchange information with the instructor concerning the teaching style and the content of the course. For teachers of on-line courses, this is an excellent way to become aware of their teaching method as they have the direct feedback from the students.
2 of 5 17TH Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning Using Assessment to Increase Interaction Teachers play the most important role in developing strategies to shorten the physical distance between them and the students, which is why it is necessary to pay special attention to the transactional distance. According to Moore (1991) the transactional distance is determined by two variables: dialog and structure. Dialog is the extent to which the software, the student and the curriculum or content, and the teachers are able to respond to each other. Structure is defined as the way in which a program responds to the students needs. Teachers can use assessment tools to shorten the transactional distance and to increase the dialog between the parts involved in the educational process: students, teacher, content, and interface/technology. Assessment of Student-Student Interaction The lack of interaction between students in the learning process is one of the concerns of the detractors of distance learning. It is well known that interaction in face-to-face courses a is key element in the development of certain characteristics in students in the learning process. A good assessment program should pay attention to developing student-student interaction in on-line teaching and learning. Peer assessment is one of the approaches to promote interaction between students. This kind of assessment technique is of more limited use because it requires training and an organized environment to be effective. (White & Bouchillon, 2000) Peer assessment is described as the process in which students are evaluating each other work using objective criteria. There are, however, several techniques that can be used to increase interaction among students in a virtual learning scenario. Newsgroups are excellent tools for promoting student interaction as well as providing a means of assessment. Their contributions to the development of topics already presented in the newsgroup will provide them with opportunities to interchange ideas with other virtual students. The participation in this forum should be mandatory to encourage students to participate. The teacher should be aware of the contribution of each student and provide feedback whenever necessary. This forum is especially recommended to present assessment techniques, such as, case studies, problem solving, and incomplete outlines. The interaction stimulated by the newsgroup provides more equality among the students and teachers in the on-line setting. This is because the lack of a face-to-face reality seems to put the students at the same level of intellectual challenge since students feel free to debate intellectual ideas and even challenge the instructor. (Smith, Ferguson & Caris, 2001, p 5.) A well-designed checklist should be a good assessment instrument to objectively evaluate the student contribution to the forum. Virtual teachers can use Rubrics and checklists to engage students in group-work. Teachers can prepare the instruments and give the opportunity to the students to evaluate the criteria and scale used in the instrument (intra-group interaction). As each group completes the evaluation, each group evaluates the work prepared by their virtual classmates and make recommendations (inter-group interaction). Different kinds of rubrics can be developed according to special activities to be evaluated, for example, PowerPoint presentations, portfolios, critical analyses, essays, and research papers. The development of concept maps is another technique useful in on-line teaching. The idea is that students develop the ability to present information in sequence. This technique is useful when a professor assigns a topic or concept to a group of no more than five virtual students, and, using the chat, e-mail or the news group, students within the group start adding parts to the map until it is finished. This technique provides a means to assess synthesis and creative thinking skills, and may also improve student selfesteem because of the contribution each makes to the finished product. Assessment Tools to Provide Student-Teacher Interaction
3 of 5 17TH Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning Effective teachers always find ways to demonstrate that learning has occurred, and they are going to expand the assessment measures they use. Teachers can use a variety of assessment tools to determine whether the students are achieving the objectives of the course. Structured chat dialog, e-mail communication, the built-in calendar, and virtual office hours are effective tools to encourage studentteacher interaction. Case studies and/or problem solving techniques provide virtual students the opportunity to interchange ideas with other students and with the teacher, and the teacher receives relevant feedback concerning student comprehension of the content. Reflections and problem solving provide the teacher a certain degree of flexibility to develop student independence. A clearly defined special project is a very good assessment technique for use in virtual courses, because it develops the student s potential and is a good means for providing the student with step-by-step feedback. Other assessment techniques that virtual professors can use are: incomplete outlines, anecdotal records, checklists, rubrics, and class assessment sheets. Virtual teachers can also use on-line diagnostic tests (essay, short answer, matching, multiple choice) to determine the degree of competence students have acquired. This technique should be used for formative assessment. Assessment of Student-Content Interaction The interaction of the student with the content is very important in on-line teaching, because the students need to know if they are mastering the content with which they are interacting. On-line teachers need to use different teaching techniques to involve the students with the content. Activities such as, using online resources to complete empty outlines, to answer case studies, to solve problems, and to conduct virtual company visits are of relevance to assess student achievement. The option of on-line diagnostic tests is highly recommended to promote student-content interaction. Student-generated test questions are relevant skills and application assessment tools. Portfolios have also been shown to be one of the most effective assessment techniques in on-line courses (Suen, 200 & Reyes 2001), because it provides more reliable information conducive to a formal evaluation. In addition, well-developed portfolio activities are highly recommended in an on-line setting to show content mastery, especially for synthesis and creative thinking skills. Assessment of Student-Interface Interaction Virtual teachers have to provide a variety of experiences in which the students interact with the technology/interface. Technology gives access to more learning resources, which is important to enrich the learning experiences. If a commercially designed platform or template is used, the teacher has the responsibility of teaching the student how to interact with the different components. For example, the teacher should use the calendar to post all the activities within the course, and other activities of interest to the students. If a platform has the built-in e-mail and chat options, it should be required that students use them to communicate with other virtual classmates. It may be necessary to provide instructions regarding the correct use of e-mail attachments. The teacher should use the tests and quizzes options to enable students to keep assessing what they know about the topics already covered as they master the software. The skills acquired using the interface will create confidence and will motivate students to keep using these tools, and make the interface transparent in the teaching and learning process. Research Findings: Importance of Assessment Techniques
4 of 5 17TH Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning The use and the effectiveness of assessment techniques in on-line courses is supported by the findings of research conducted at Inter American University of Puerto Rico (Reyes, 2001), the largest private educational institution on the Island. A random and stratified sample of teachers offering 125 on-line courses was selected to conduct the study. The results of the study showed that teachers had high knowledge of the assessment techniques. The professor who were teaching on-line courses identified problem solving, reflections, e-mail, portfolio, and asynchronous news groups as the best known, most used, and most effective assessment techniques. Other information gathered from the study pointed out the importance of considering aspects related to the design, process, and technological infrastructure of on-line courses. Professors pointed out the importance of these aspects because of their relevance in improving the assessment process. Some of the recommendations from the study are: 1) to develop faculty training activities in the area of assessment techniques, 2) to incorporate the most used techniques into faculty training and provide teachers with other techniques in order to use them in on-line teaching 3) to develop an institutional assessment process for distance learning with special attention to on-line teaching and learning. Distance Learning and assessment are two areas of interest in higher education, and this research deals with these important areas, for which we do not find many research studies. Recommendations from this study pointed out the importance of providing teachers with the necessary skills to use assessment techniques to improve on-line education. Conclusion Since distance education students and teachers are physically separated, the interaction between them becomes a major element in achieving the educational objectives. One of the basic assumptions of assessment states that to improve their learning, students need to receive appropriate feedback on time and frequently. Teachers are the key resources to provide this feedback within a timeframe, because they are the main manager of the virtual classroom. Quality of learning is expected to be related to the quality of teaching, which is why teachers have to use valid and reliable assessment tools as a medium to improve the quality of the virtual learning experience. References Angelo, T. A. & Cross, P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A handbook for College Teachers. Second Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Charp, S. (2001) E-Learning. THE Journal: April 2001, 10. Frankola, K. (2001). The E-learning Taboo: High Dropout Rates in Online Courses. Syllabus, 14(11), 14-16. Moore, M.G. (1991). Editorial: Distance Education Theory. The American Journal of Distance Education, 1(1), 1-6. Reyes, E. (2001). The relationship between the knowledge, use and effectiveness of the assessment techniques, as indicated by the professor who taught on-line courses from August to December 2000 at Inter American University of Puerto Rico. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico.
5 of 5 17TH Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning Smith, G., Ferguson, D. & Caris, M. (2001). Teaching College Courses Online Vs. Face-to-Face. [Online] www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/a3407.cfm. Suen, H. K. (2000). Challenges and Opportunities in Distance Education Evaluation. [Online] www.waltoncollege.uark.edu/disted/challenges_and_opportunities_in_.htm. White, J. & Bouchillon, W. H. (2000) Enhanced Assessment Through Student Participation in Assessment in Business Education (132-142), Reston, VA: National Business Education Association. Biographical Sketch Dr. María Bonilla is a full professor in the Department of Business Administration at Inter American University of Puerto Rico, San Germán Campus. She coordinated the Distance Learning Academic Project for the Academic Affairs Vice Presidency of the University. Dr. Bonilla has trained faculty in interactive videoconferencing and on-line teaching techniques. She designed and offered the graduate course Fundamentals of Distance Learning using videoconference and on-line approaches. She has been a resource in seminars and conferences in Puerto Rico and at international forums. She has also published several articles related to distance learning. Dr. Mara Bonilla has a certification in Distance Learning from Texas A & M. Address: P. O. Box 5100, San Germán, PR 00683 E-mail: romeu@caribe.net Phone: 787-264-1912, Exts. 7543-7544 Fax: 787-899-0524