Virtual education has its challenges. While we can easily monitor and assess students in conventional classrooms, online assessments require a lot of thought and trials to find out what works best.
Educators have been working in virtual environments for over two years now and probably have found their best fit for all their teaching needs.
Here are some ways you can try to assess students in virtual classrooms.
Online Quizzes
Online quizzes are a great way to engage students in learning. You can create various quizzes in multiple forms, like multiple choice questions, fill in the blanks, and pick the right option. They are short, quick, and easy to assess. To make quizzes unique to every child, you can shuffle the question order and make random papers for every student. Quizzes are great for evaluating a large number of students. Since all students appear for the same test, it becomes easier to compare and contrast results across different classes, schools, or communities, depending on the learning plan.
Besides using quizzes to assess students after the lesson, you can use the quizzes to determine the existing knowledge on a subject topic and proceed with lesson plans based on the results. Consider using quizzes to measure topic knowledge after completing small units or making a final grade test at the end of a chapter or course to evaluate students' performance. Online quizzes work well in stem studies.
Open-ended Answers Or Essay Questions
Open-ended questions require students to dive deep and explore their opinions, thoughts, and feelings as they comprehend them using their creative thinking and writing skills. It's one of the most popular and comprehensive assessment forms. This type of assessment is usually ideal for higher-grade students and works well in subjects like literature and social studies. Essay questions also encourage critical thinking and require longer durations for students to think, organize and compose answers.
Conduct Online Interviews
Incorporating video conferencing in your virtual teaching plan can allow you to bring personalization to the online class. Especially in subjects like music, language learning, or any particular course that requires students to demonstrate their proficiency in practical skills is essential. These brief interviews can help students gain personalized feedback from mentors, collaborate with other students to learn more and feel responsible for their studies. Conducting group interviews for team projects or report discussion is another way to utilize this assessment form.
Online Polls
Online polls may look similar to quizzes but vary a lot. Polls allow you to get instant responses from students, and you can conduct live polls in the middle of lessons to check their subject knowledge, gain feedback, capture attention, or break the ice during online sessions. They effectively engage learners by allowing students to share their opinions and make them feel heard. They're also great to do a mood check now and then as students continue to learn from home and act based on the responses.
Game Activities
While gamification is a whole sector to explore in virtual education, assessment through game-like activities in virtual classrooms can benefit students. All you need to do is turn a series of questions into a game. For instance, you can ask students to prepare several topics within a limited time and provide award points based on the number of correct answers. The student with the highest points wins and gets an edge in the next game activity. This will motivate students to study and keep them engaged. These small activities can be part of your virtual classrooms and help you identify the skill level among students. They also enhance learning by promoting the development of non-cognitive skills, such as discipline, risk-taking, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Peer Assessment And Review
It's a new class environment when students' peers become the instructor and review each other's work. It's a great way to engage learners and get an assessment done. Students evaluate and check each other's work. 'Students, as the mentors' evaluation, will also give you an insight into their skill levels. This activity allows students to reflect on their knowledge and communicate their feedback in a structured and consistent way.
Forum Posts
A forum is an open discussion board organized around a particular topic. Teachers can inform students about the topic and organize forums where every student must contribute as per their understanding of the topic. It is a great way to gauge their knowledge and support their learning. Usually, in forum posts, questions are given to students based on a lesson, reading, or topic, and they are asked to reflect and answer the questions. Provided answers are further posted to a forum, and their peers can then respond to the responses. This is a great way to initiate interaction among students and collaborate as a part of the learning process.
What other ways do you use to assess students in virtual classrooms? Please share with us in the comment section below.
