This document provides an introduction to online assessment. It defines assessment and describes the importance of alignment between objectives, learning activities, and assessments. It distinguishes between formative and summative assessments and objective and subjective assessments. The document outlines strategies for effective implementation of online assessments and explains how to write measurable learning objectives. It emphasizes that assessments should provide evidence that students have achieved the intended learning objectives.

1. Introduction to Online
Assessment

2. By the end of this presentation
you should be able to:
• Define assessment
• Describe the importance of assessment
• Describe differences between online versus traditional assessment
• List online assessment implementation strategies
• Know and describe the four categories of assessments
• Know how to write learning objectives
• Write measurable learning objectives
• Know and describe the assessment triangle

3. What is Assessment?
• Assessment is the general term that includes a full
range of procedures used to gain information about
student learning and the formation of value
judgments concerning learning progress.
• It is the way to measure student/learner growth,
understanding, and performance in a course, on a
particular content standard, or across multiple
content standards.

4. Online versus Traditional
Assessment
“Despite its popularity, online learning is not without its
challenges. As instructors are finding their way in the online
environment and paying more attention to good course design
and delivery, they are discovering that traditional forms of
assessment of student work-such as test and quizzes-that serve
them well in the face- to-face classroom may not work quite as
well online” (Palloff and Pratt, 2009).

5. Online versus Traditional
Assessment, continued
• Online and traditional assessments can be similar, but
implementing them online, especially if for the first time, requires
ample planning.
• Ideally the assessment process informs the teacher and the learner
about learner progress and at the same time, contributes to the
learning process. In theory, good assessment:
• Occurs during a learning activity
• Measures meaningful learning outcomes
• Does so in a fair, reliable, accurate way
• Is easy to administer, score, and interpret
• Informs the teacher about student performance and how they are
interpreting course experiences
• Results in meaningful feedback to the learner
• Is itself a learning experience

6. Online Versus Traditional
Assessment, continued
Traditional Online
Exams Discussions
Quizzes E-Portfolios
Peer-Assessments
Self-Assessments
Rubrics
Quizzes
Collaborative Activities
Wikis
Blogs
Can you think of any more examples?

7. Implementing Online
Assessments
• For online assessments to be implemented
effectively, the instructor must have a solid
understanding of how assessment fits into the
scheme of course development (Palloff and Pratt,
2009).
• Instructors need to understand the learning
outcomes (i.e. what students should be able to know
or do by the end of the lesson), their importance in
the learning process, and how to achieve them
(Palloff and Pratt, 2009).

8. Implementing Online
Assessments, cont.
• Online assessment should be ongoing and both
graded and non-graded.
• Online assessment should involve student
collaboration.
• Online assessment should have a plan for technical
difficulties.

9. Online Assessment Strategies
We will go into detail on some of these strategies during our synchronous lesson.
E-Portfolios Essays
Quizzes Peer-Assessments
Discussions Concept Maps
And more!

10. What’s Next?
Now that you have learned about
online assessment, you will be
introduced to assessment categories.

11. Assessment Categories:
Formative and Summative
Assessments can be categorized into
either formative or summative depending
on their overall purpose.

12. Formative Assessment
• The goal of formative assessment is to gather feedback that can
be used by the instructor and the students to guide
improvements in the ongoing teaching and learning context.
These are low stakes assessments for students and instructors.
Overall, they should:
• Provide the student with feedback to improve student learning
• Provide feedback to students to assist in correcting their errors
• Examples:
• Asking students to submit one or two sentences identifying the
main point of a lecture
• Have students submit an outline for a paper
• Early course evaluations

13. Formative Assessment,
continued
• Research shows a positive relationship between
formative assessment and student motivation and
achievement (Brookhart 1997, 2008).
• “Assessment-elicited evidence of student’s status is
used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional
procedures or by students to adjust their current
learning tactics” (Popham 2008).

14. Summative Assessment
• The goal of summative assessment is to measure the level of success or
proficiency that has been obtained at the end of an instructional unit, by
comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
• Typically occur at the end of student learning to identify student and/or
course achievement.
• Examples:
• Assigning a grade to a final exam
• Critique of a Senior recital
• University Faculty Course Evaluations
• The outcome of a summative assessment can be used formatively, however, when
students or faculty take the results and use them to guide their efforts and
activities in subsequent courses they become summative

15. Assessment Categories:
Objective and Subjective
Assessments are also categorized
based on nature of products that
result from student performance.

16. Objective Assessment
• An objective assessment is one that needs no
professional judgment to score correctly (although
interpretation of the scores requires professional
judgment). There is a right and wrong answer.
• Example:
• Multiple-choice test

17. Subjective Assessment
• Subjective assessments yield many possible answers
of varying quality and require professional judgment
to score (Suskie, 2004, p. 99).
• Examples:
• Essay
• Written Assignments

18. What’s Next?
Now that you’ve learned some
different categories of assessments,
let’s review learning objectives.

19. Learning Objectives
• Assessments must align with lesson/instructional
objectives.
• What are learning objectives?
• Statements written in specific and measurable terms that
describe what the learner will know or be able to do as a
result of engaging in a learning activity.
• Can be called learning objectives, outcomes, terminal
objectives, performance objectives, etc.
• Example:
• Students will list three characteristics that make the family
medicine physician distinctive from other specialists in the health
care system.

20. Learning Objectives,
continued
• Purpose
• By knowing where you intend to go, you increase the chances of you
and the learner ending up there!
• Learning objectives…
• Specify learning outcomes
• The skills, knowledge, and attitudes to be taught
• Guides the teacher relative to the planning of instruction and evaluation
of student achievement
• Guides the learner; helps him/her focus and set priorities
• Communicates with learner
• Determines the instructional strategy
• Allows for analysis in terms of the levels of teaching and learning
• Establishes criteria for evaluating performance

21. Learning Objectives,
continued
• One of the themes of Gagné’s theory is distinguishing the types of outcomes that learning has.
Gagné describes five categories of human performance established by learning. These provide the
foundation for describing how the conditions of learning apply to each category.
• Gagne’s learning domains:
• Affective
• Attitudes, mental states that influence the choices of personal actions.
• Psychomotor
• Motor skills, executing movement in a number of organized motor acts such as playing
sports or driving a car
• Cognitive
• Having certain techniques of thinking, ways of analyzing problems, and having approaches
to solving problems
• Verbal
• Being able to state ideas, “knowing that,” or having declarative knowledge
• Intellectual
• “knowing how,” or having procedural knowledge

22. Learning Objectives,
continued
• Four Parts (ABCD)
• Audience
• Who are your learners?
• Behavior
• What you expect learners to be able to do. Overt, observable
behavior.
• Condition
• How? Under what circumstances or context will the learning
occur? What will students be given or already be expected to
know to accomplish the learning?
• Degree
• How much will be accomplished, and to what level?

23. Learning Objective Example
(ABCD)
Given a series of 10 previously unstudied paragraphs,
the learner will identify the topic sentence in each
paragraph correctly 9 out of 10 times.
Who is the audience? What is the behavior? Condition?
Degree?

24. Audience
Given a series of 10 previously unstudied paragraphs,
the learner will identify the topic sentence in each
paragraph correctly 9 out of 10 times.

25. Behavior
Given a series of 10 previously unstudied paragraphs,
the learner will identify the topic sentence in each
paragraph correctly 9 out of 10 times.

26. Condition
Given a series of 10 previously unstudied paragraphs,
the learner will identify the topic sentence in each
paragraph correctly 9 out of 10 times.

27. Degree
Given a series of 10 previously unstudied
paragraphs, the learner will identify the topic
sentence in each paragraph correctly 9 out of 10
times.

28. Effective Objectives Are…
• Consistent with the goals of the curriculum
• Clearly stated
• Clearly measurable
• Appropriate for the level of the learner
• Worthy (important)

29. Remember…
• State objectives in terms of student performance or
end of instruction.
• Use action verbs.
• Click here for list of Gagne verbs:
https://deekayen.net/gagne-verbs
• State each objective as an intended learning
outcome.
• Example:
• At the end of the lesson the student will be able to write a
measurable learning objective.

30. More Examples: Physical
Education
• Affective: Student will be able to (SWBAT) listen to directions
while sitting still and not touching any equipment with no
warnings.
• Psychomotor- SWBAT demonstrate how to kick a ball to a target
5/8 times.
• Cognitive: SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of jumping rope cues
(over, hit, jump) by reciting these aloud during drills 100% of the
time.
• Verbal Information: SWBAT state the rules of a basketball game.
• Intellectual Skills: After participating in both vigorous activity and
walking, SWBAT identify that the heart beats faster after moving
vigorously.

31. Now, You Try It!
• Go to discussion board 1.
• Link to discussion board 1 is in the
menu at the top of the webpage.
• Think of any content area.
• Write two examples of learning
objectives (in two different learning
domains) Remember to include each
part (ABCD).
• Return to this presentation once you
write your objectives.
• Feedback will be given by our group
prior to synchronous lesson.

32. Tying it All Together
Now that you are familiar with
online assessments, categories of
assessments, and learning objectives,
let’s see how it all fits together.

33. The Assessment Triangle
• The assessment triangle
consists of objectives,
learning activities (listening
to a lecture, engaging in a
group discussion, making
rounds with a clinician,
etc.), and assessment.
• If these three components
are congruent, then
teaching and learning is
enhanced.

34. What Does This Mean?
• Assessments should provide us, the instructors, and the students with evidence of how well the
students have learned what we intend them to learn.
• What we want students to learn and be able to do should guide the choice and design of the
assessment.
• There are two major reasons for aligning assessments with learning objectives.
• First, alignment increases the probability that we will provide students with the opportunities
to learn and practice the knowledge and skills that will be required on the various
assessments we design.
• Second, when assessments and objectives are aligned, “good grades” are more likely to
translate into “good learning”.
• When objectives and assessments are misaligned, many students will focus their efforts on
activities that will lead to good grades on assessments, rather than focusing their efforts on
learning what we believe is important.

35. What Does This Mean,
continued
• There are many different types of activities that can be used to assess students’ proficiency
on a given learning objective, and the same activity can be used to assess different
objectives.
• To ensure more accurate assessment of student proficiencies, it is recommended that you
use different kinds of activities so that students have multiple ways to practice and
demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
• We will learn about different activities during the synchronous piece of this lesson.
• When deciding on what kind of assessment activities to use, it is helpful to keep in mind
the following questions:
• What will the student’s work on the activity (multiple choice answers, essays, project,
presentation, etc.) tell me about their level of competence on the targeted learning
objectives?
• How will my assessment of their work help guide students’ practice and improve the
quality of their work?
• How will the assessment outcomes for the class guide my teaching practice?

36. What’s Next?
• Review the Summary on the next slide prior to
taking the quiz.

37. Summary
• You have been introduced to:
• Assessment
• Online Assessment versus Traditional Assessment
• Implementation Strategies (more will be covered)
• Learning Objectives
• Categories of Online Assessments
• The Assessment Triangle
• You are now ready to take the formative quiz over the content
presented in this presentation.
• The quiz is located on the “quiz” link in the website menu bar.
• Feel free to view this presentation again before taking the quiz.

38. References
• Resources from Dr. Kinuthia’s Fall 2014 Online
Assessment Course
• Additional references are listed in the “additional
resources” page of the website.