Title: Session 3
Course: Connecting with Students Online

Assessing Student Work

This week we will experiment with ways to make simple edits in Moodle, management of the gradebook and grading student work. We will also discuss the evaluation of student work in an online environment.
Read
- The Many Forms of Assessment: http://www.edutopia.org/comprehensive-assessment-introduction

A quick overview of the different forms assessment can take.
- iNACOL standards for online learning

These standards are presented by the International Association of K-12 Online Learning. Please focus on the Student Assessment section.
- Making simple edits in Moodle: Teachers using assignments.pdf

Sometimes, when teaching an online class, you will find that links don't work, that additional information needs to to be added to an assignment, or that you want to change an assignment in a small way, so that not all students are doing exactly the same assignment at the same time. You can learn to do this, by reading about how to make simple edits in Moodle.
Explore
View the videos on the following topics about which you are not familiar with, or on which you want more information. Note that many of these are YouTube videos, and will need to be viewed from outside of school:
- Providing Feedback to students
  - http://www.indiana.edu/~icy/media/de_series/assessing_online_learning.html
- Grading Assignments
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlm1CJd8hAg&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
- Using Quick Grading
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kU1PGVnmYI
- Grading Quizzes
  - Moodle_Quiz_Grading.pdf
- Grading a Forum post
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnvaonDhtAA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
- Working with the Gradebook
  - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Grades
- Managing the Gradebook when new items are added.
  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcnu_1EeHak&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Develop
Activity #1:
After you have become familiar with the above items, use the Connecting with Students Sandbox course to experiment with the items you learned about.
- Look at the gradebook, and how it is set up.
- Look at student work in the various assignments and quizzes that are self grading, and quizzes with essay questions.
- Practice grading student work and student quizzes.
- Using the items created in the previous session, check the settings in the gradebook to see how to manage them.

Activity #2:
Open the Communications Tasklist that you began in Session One. Complete Parts II and III of the tasklist for this week. Remember that this document will be submitted at the end of Session Six. If you would like personal feedback on your tasklist before session six, please share your document with the course facilitatior (if you are using GoogleDocs), or email it to the course facilitator for comments and suggestions.
Discuss
What types of assessment issues might you find in an online class? How can you best deal with them? How can you use assessment to meet individual student needs?

Please note specific points from the readings or from your experiences that support your response. Please make at least three substantive contributions to the discussion using the Discussion Forum Rubric, found on the main page of this course.
Optional Reading
- Accommodating Individual Learning Needs: http://thejournal.com/Articles/2001/09/01/Accommodating-Individual-Learning-Needs.aspx?Page=1

An article in The Journal which looks at how to best establish opportunities to individualize e-learning experiences.
- Assessing student Online Learning: http://www.indiana.edu/~icy/media/de_series/assessing_online_learning.html

A professor from the University of Indiana presents an overview of the variety of ways to assess students online and looks at which are most popular.
Broken Links
While we check links regularly, it is not always possible to make sure that all web links are always working. If you encounter any broken links, or other issues with the course curriculum, please contact your course instructor. Thank you!

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