Assessment in an online environment

The pandemic is speeding up the transition to online classrooms. As teachers we must adapt to this new environment and there are now online providers and online apps that help us replicate the face-to-face interaction that we are all used to. We also need to develop the skills and strategies to cope with his new paradigm.

Online tests are a good way to find out what level your students are at and what they need to work on. Your online provider may provide tests and this will help your learners see the patterns in what they need to learn and what they have to do.

Your students also need to study the assessment criteria. This is good to see what they are being assessed on and lets them know in advance what they should work on so that they are fully prepared for the tests.

Your learners should also engage in peer-to-peer assessment and self-assessment. They should get their peers to assess each other’s work so that it allows them to know where they rank in relation to the entire class and also provides good feedback that they can understand.

In-class and out-of-class tasks are also worth implementing. You need to give learners the skill they need to take responsibility for their own learning. You don’t have to do all the tests online – you can set the test to be done at home and then follow up later. It is hard to organise but good for learner development.

Digital tools can help but think about what is right for you and your learners. With regard to group communication tools, you can use the platforms Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Padlet; you can collect assessments from online quizzes and test using Quizlet, Kahoot! and Typeform; written work can be collected to create a portfolio using OneNote, Seesaw, Edmodo, and Google Docs; you can use save time with automarkers such as Write and Improve, and speech recognition applications; and you can check for plagiarism using the tools Turnitin and Grammarly.

But what makes a good test? The first principle is validity. You can ask ‘Are we measuring what we want to measure and nothing else?’ Another question you can ask is ‘Are we measuring skills that are relevant to real-life language use?’ And, ‘Are we measuring skills that are relevant to real-life language use?’ We also need to know about the test’s reliability and so we ask, ‘Are we measuring student performance consistently?’

Visit this website page to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66apPB32YyE&list=PLpmCHL8PnXq88RiE_Bc0bAaotsDCHsEay&index=3