Assessing Collaborative Efforts

The problem of assessment is noteworthy in almost any educational setting.

How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed?  How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a ccouse affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?

Assessment, no matter where, brings up questions. 

There is assessment that tests skills that are memorized then regurgitated to provide proof that the material has been retained. This assessment is individual in nature. Seimens suggests that there is a shift away from this individualized and memorized relaince on assessment to a group, collaborative, assessment.  The online learning assessment is still guided by the professor.  The professor or the institution provides a framework, or boundaries, of a content area, through application, that needs to be assessed.  Online learning, schools, and hybrids can use the group to assess the paticipating memebers.  The group can be given a set of guidelines of which to assess each other using commentary that leads to an expanded experience.  Learning through application, learning by scaffolding, and learning through corrections provides the learner the ability to expand the experience. 

Interestingly, Seimens also mentioned a peripheral form of assessment. Lists? This is a new concept to me.  It is interesting that so many could provide a learning community with some expert advice, or contributions. 

Assessment in a community that is paid for as opposed to an open forum, a MOOC?...  We, even if a better system is yearned for, take our classes to obtain the paper that proves we made the mark.  The mark is the responsibility of the professors in conjunction with the institution.  Online learning communities can use web tools to count the amount of times a person logs on.  In addition, it can provide data of where the students went and the amount of time a person spends in an area.  This is also a new concept to me and made me wonder about quality.  How do you assess the quality of the data based on time and clicks?

The concepts of fair and equitable are issues I think we have struggled with online and in brick and mortar institutions.  The terms are not equal.  I don't think being fair means you are equally distributing grades in a classroom.  This lead me to ponder about the issue of objective and subjective grading?  The differences in the teachers', at any level, expectations and applying that expectation in mark form.

Collaborative learning and assessment provides a forum where a learners skills are not based solely on memorization. Although memorization of a skill can be vitally important.  This online collaborative assessment looks at the knowledge being applied. Montessori, in some regards, gone digital.  The members are providing "feedback that extends learning".

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Principles of Distance Education.