Unit Four: Assessing Effectiveness of Learning in a Professional Network
Target Objective
Learner will appreciate the importance and the methods for incorporating formative and summative assessments in social learning activities.
Unit Objectives
- Learner will understand how formative assessment occurs in a well-constructed social learning activity.
- Learner will understand appropriate implementation of formative and summative assessments around social learning groups.
Assessing Effectiveness of Learning
Formative assessment
It is recommended that formative and summative methods of assessment be used to assess a social constructivist activity. Formative feedback will assist the collective to move in a positive and productive manner by giving frequent opportunities to improve. Formative feedback is embedded in the activity by the envirotnment. Formative assessment will naturally occur through the interactions of peers. Because the interactions of the group will encourage coordination and keeping on-task and a shared sense of motivation, students will respond to the needs of the collective and adjust their performance accordingly. The instructor as facilitator and co-learner will additionally respond as part of the group and as supporter of the goals of the activity.
Summative assessment
The goal for the social learning activity should culminate in the production of an artifact of learning. The learning artifact serves as representative of the learning of the individual and the collective. Assessment of the artifact provides the mechanism for summative feedback.
Activity
Read the article by Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick on Formative assessment and self-regulated learning. group. http://www.lyderiulaikas.smm.lt/ll/attachments/482_Formative%20assessment%20and%20self-regulated%20learning.pdf
Reflect
After reading the article consider how you might build in effective self-assessment tasks with peer/instructor feedback. Select one of the seven principles developed by the authors that you found most insightful and journal about how you could improve your practice using this principle.
Resources
Rapple References and Resources
