Assessing Assessments

By far the most most neglected aspect of training assessment is lack there of. I have been in many training session that did not have any type of assessment. In those sessions that did have an assessment, the assessment was treated almost like an after thought. Some of the reasons that assessments are not treated seriously is because most training developers do not understand this process in the development cycle (Shack, 2005 p. 3). Assessments if used properly will serve as a vital reinforcement of the the content that was presented. This can be further developed by going over the assessment as part of the final stage of the learning event. Again, I have been in training session where assessments were given, but we turned them in as we left the class and we never saw or heard the results.

Although poorly written assessments abound even a well written assessment can be of little use if it does not fit properly in the the learning event; it needs to be a part of the event not just an after thought. It have to offer validity for its existence in the event other wise the students will view it as an unnecessary and uninteresting annoyance.

Shank emphasis the importance of assessment by her statement “...designing adequate learning assessments is a skill well-worth learning” (Shack, 2005, p. 6). It will take time and effort to develop they ability to write good assessments, but the pay off for both the developer and the student will be well worth the effort.

Shank, P. (2005). Avoiding assessment mistakes that compromise competence and quality. Retrieved from http://learningpeaks.com/pshank_assessmistakes.pdf

e-Studying

One thing that goes handing in hand with learning is studying. After graduating high school, I attended college for two years. I remember that every so often I would get together with some classmate in a study group. Sometimes they were productive, sometimes they were not. Some did not last very long while others were all-nighters. What ever the case, there was some good that came out of these study groups.

While forming e-study groups might be new to some, it basically follows the pattern of traditional study groups; getting people together at a particular time, in a particular place, to study a particular subject. With e-studying, the particular place is taken care of, online, so all that is left to decide is the time and the subject.

Two ideas could be an impromptu type that would meet one time or an ongoing group meeting at the same time a during the week. One could, if ambitious enough, attend a number of study groups in a week.

The key is getting people together. Time is always an issue. Often students live in different time zones so this will be a limiting factor.

Obviously the study session would be conducted synchronously; this might be a new experience for some online learner;.there are some e-learners that conduct learning in a totally asynchronous fashion. Today there are many tolls that can be used to conduct the session. If forming a study group, it would be well to list any software or hardware requirements needed, such as a videocam.

Here are some interesting tools:

Second Life
http://secondlife.com/

Skype
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/

Google Docs
http://docs.google.com/?pli=1#folders

This will help students collaborate and share notes and other things.
There are a lot of other tools out there some free some not free. Just like regular study groups, e-learning groups can be a great social network environment. They can be both fun and productive with the right combinations of people and tools.

How do you learn?

The questions is how do you learn, not how well do you learn? If you know how you learn there is a good chance that you learn rather well. Some people will be quick to say that they do not learn very well, or at least as well as they would like to or hope to do. Most of the time they would improve their learning potential if they knew how they learned.
Here is a short assessment to help you understand how you learn. There are many other assessments like this that can be found on the web, but they are basically the same as far as the out come, that is, understanding how you learn.

http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html

Understanding how you learn is important. It will help you find and utilize those learning tools that will maximize your learning potential. I am a visual learner. As a mater of fact, I have a very high propensity towards visual learning. This explains, to some degree, why I did not do very well in high school and college in the late 70s. When I joined the military in the early 80s, I did rather well because they used multimedia and computer base e-learning for about 60% of my training in aviation electronics. This also explains, in part, why some people do not do well with e-learning class environments.

There will always be those that do well in conventional style learning environments and there will be those that do better in e-learning based learning environments. So it comes down to, how do you learn? If you understand how you learn, and then pursue those learning tools that fit your learning profile, chances are you will maximize your learning potential. If you have been struggling with learning you might be using learning tools that do not maximize your learning potential.

Will e-learning replace teachers?

Some people speculate that e-learning will replace teachers. This could not be further from the truth. It would be like saying that books will replace teachers or the need for them. Like books, e-learning is a tool that enhances the learning process. Before printed books, much of learning was through word of mouth and hands on training. If anything was written down, these copies were very limited.

Even after the printing press was developed, books were for a long time scarce. Today there are thousands of libraries with thousands and thousands of books in them. Books and libraries have not endangered the teaching profession. But books and libraries have greatly enhanced the learning process.

Today we are undergoing another revolution (or evolution) in the learning process, e-learning. In the e-learning environment there are electronic-books and other multimedia based content that resemble books. Also there are millions of websites that act as virtual libraries with content on just about any subject imaginable. In fact the World Wide Web is a vast virtual library in this sense. It is hard not to find content on a subject if ones looks hard enough on the Web.
Just as teachers guide students through text books and other learning content, teachers guide students trough e-content. E-learning in some ways has made learning easier. It has also made independent learning and research easier. E-learning is not the menace to teaching as some may think it to be but actually it is developing into a vital asset in the learning process. Today through e-learning a student is able to learn more in less time.

As long as there are students, there will always be a need for teachers.

Upgrades

Sorry about the lact of content of late but I am in the process of upgrading my computer system.

Hopfully I will be back on track early this week.

I will be looking at the sujbect "will e-learning replace teachers?"