Assessment Tools in the LMS
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano
Student
assessments and evaluations are an essential, crucial part of any educational
system and process. In VLEs an LMS such as Moodle has a variety of assessment
tools that you can use to easily assess and grade your students’ assignments,
homework, reflections, and learning for
sure. These tools can also allow instructors to collect information to
quickly identify areas of student needs and to modify instructional plans to
help learner along their learning process. Let us explore a couple of the
Moodle tools available for teachers to keep track of student learning and
performance along the course.
Moodle Tool
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Implementation
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Challanges
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Assignments
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Possible Uses:
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Term papers
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Reflections
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Research papers
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Compositions in language classes
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Outlines for speeches
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Reading reports
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Lesson plans
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Take-home quizzes
There is a great variety of written content that
can be easily uploaded by students to be assessed and graded by instructors.
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Potential problems:
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Students having trouble to upload
content to be checked such as Word or PDF documents
Solution:
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Refer students to the IT Department
for additional support on how to use the platform
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With some sort of software such as TeamViewer,
instruct your student to see what seems to be the problem on his/her computer
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Rubrics
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Recommended Uses:
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Creation of assessment or grading
tools visible for students to know the criteria under which they are meant to
be provided a grade for their submitted papers
Benefits:
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The lack of need to provide
additional grading sheets/grids so students get timely feedback and a
breakdown of their grades
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Fully linked to the assignment tool
in Moodle to grade and assess student learning and subject-matter
understanding
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Potential problems:
·
Oftentimes it is due to our
forgetfulness that we instructors do not make rubrics (and other tools)
visible for students.
Solution:
·
Since teachers are in the process of
creating and consolidating a community of learning with their pupils, students
can help instructors monitor the visibility of these elements on the
platform. In case something is not available, learners can report it and the
teacher can work the problem out.
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Since
I work as an ELT (English Language Teaching) professor and most of my students
are in the process of becoming teachers, I have been using our university
Moodle LMS to ensure many of the potential uses I outline above. Let me give
you an idea of what I am currently doing:
ELT Course
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Use of the “Assignment” tool
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Reading Skills and Oral Communication V
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Students are asked to
deliver through the platform:
·
Speech outlines
·
Reading Activities created by
themselves
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Hands-on exams
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Introduction to Literature
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Students are asked to
deliver through the platform:
·
Their literary analysis of poems,
short stories, myths, plays, and the like
·
Their research papers on literary
movements and periods
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Principles of Curriculum
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Students are asked to
deliver through the platform:
·
Their reflections on the
subject-matter discussed in class, in weekly class forums, and readings
posted on the class blog
·
Term papers and research projects
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The
idea is to combine the assignment tool with the use of rubrics available in
Moodle, so students get to know what the criteria the instructor is using to
grade their assignments.
|
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LMS
platforms contain lots of features that need to and must be exploited at its
best by instructors. Based on my personal experience, the student learning
becomes more intense when these tools are actually used because they experience
–after each assignment- a sense of achievement, advancement, and reward.
Honestly, the course for an instructor does not become easier but turns much
more rewarding.
? To
fully comprehend the scope of this teaching issue, it is highly advisable that
the following topics must be expanded further:
·
Assessment tools in LMSs
·
Spotting learning issues to help students
achieve goals
·
How to modify instructional plans in VLEs
·
How to keep track of student learning
performance
·
Ulterior applications of assessment tools in
Moodle
Professor
Jonathan Acuña-Solano
ELT
Trainer, Instructor & Curriculum Developer based in Costa Rica
NCTE – Costa Rica
Member
Resource
Teacher and Curricular Developer at CCCN
Senior
ELT Professor at Universidad Latina, Costa Rica, since 1998
Contact
Information:
Twitter
@jonacuso
Email
jonacuso@gmail.com
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Pronunciation
Development
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Reading Skills
Development
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Curated Topics
Online
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Article
published on Sunday, November 03, 2013
A copy of Assessment Tools in the LMS by Jonathan Acuña is right here.
Sunday, November 03, 2013
