Creating Effective Online Assessment Activities
A good online course will have assessment activities. Instructional Designers know that planning for assessment activities starts at the beginning of the course development process. Good assessments are not an afterthought. They are a way to show your learner how will they retain the information learned by giving them an opportunity to put their newfound knowledge into practice. Furthermore, assessment activities are also a way for designers to measure whether or not the course learning objectives have been met successfully. When constructing your assessments consider the following suggestions.
Best Practices For Developing Effective Assessment Activities
1. Simulate
The underlying goal of most training—particularly compliance training, which is the world I come from—is to change behavior. Essentially, if an employee is doing A, and you want them to do B, then you have to demonstrate what actions they need to take in order to achieve B. The safest learning environment is one of simulation. Mistakes are welcome and learning happens just in time.
In the world of eLearning, Virtual Reality is your best friend. Now, if seeing the phrase "Virtual Reality" makes a bucket of dollar signs flash before your eyes, fear not! Virtual Reality is expensive—there is no way around that reality (pun intended)—but there are less expensive ways to simulate behavior. For instance, you can create scenarios using your authoring software that offer a simulated atmosphere and pair it with conditional question-and-answer responses. The key to this method is to offer immediate feedback if a learner selects the incorrect response. That way, learners know how to correct their behavior right away. Then, you can give them the chance to "try again."
2. Practice
You know what they say; practice makes perfect! This rings true for online learning, too. Giving learners multiple ways to practice the new behavior they have learned is critical. You should use a variety of methods to achieve this, like matching activities, knowledge checks, drag-and-drop games, and click-to-reveal.
As an Instructional Designer, you will need to be creative in designing how these assessments will work, but more importantly, how they link back to the learning objectives. The learning objectives are the anchors for your course and a good way to know if you have met them is through the success of your assessment activities. Each assessment activity should directly correlate to a learning objective. This means that, as abovementioned, if you want your learner to do B instead of A, then give them opportunities in the course to actually do B. That way, they can mimic the behavior in the real world.
3. Reinforce
An excellent way to reinforce learning is through a final knowledge check or quiz. This will pull together the entire course and consolidate the work the learner has done up until this point through the assessment activities. Formative assessment activities are not typically scored as they are not intended to be punitive; they are intended for learning. Summative assessments, however, are generally scored; they are where the course content comes together. It's also the final way to measure the learning objectives.
A final assessment will draw from the formative assessment activities, course content, and learning objectives. Ensure you ask at least one question that highlights each of the course's learning objectives so your data will represent the entirety of the course content. Since users have been practicing along the way and receiving feedback right away, the outcome of the summative assessment should demonstrate this.
If the scores on the summative assessments are consistently poor or below average, this is a clue that you may have to go back to the course and make some adjustments. You are not designing the final quiz in order to "fail" learners or make it difficult for them to succeed; rather, you are planning for the opposite. In fact, the average final scores are also a reflection of the efficacy of the course that you designed. This valuable information significantly aids Instructional Designers. If the summative assessment is designed in a way to maximize and reinforce learning, then learners will show that the learning objectives have been met with their results.
Conclusion
Assessment activities are the hallmarks of any good online course. Weaved throughout the course in strategically placed spots, learners can practice what they have learned in a safe environment while receiving constructive, real-time feedback. Remember, assessment activities are not penal, so avoid trying to trick your learners. If learning is a process and not a destination, then assessments are the directional signage.
