Self Asessment in Online Langauge Learning

Self-assessment, Student initiative, and Self-direction

Self-assessment is a key component of learning. When students reflect upon their own learning goals and assess where they are in relation to mastering those goals, they are more able to develop strategies and plans to reach mastery. Self-assessment practices facilitate student initiative and self-direction and nurture intrinsic motivation, which are a few of the many important 21st Century Learning skills that all students need.

A few colleagues in our CLASSRoad "Teaching Languages Online" course have developed a learning activity which aims to facilitate student self-direction and initiative. The activity is as follows:

All students have a check-list of course level novice learning goals/objectives phrased in “I can” statements. (e.g. I can briefly describe a family member and I can issue simple invitations to do an activity.) Students use the checklist to set goals for the semester, collect evidence of their learning and post them to a classroom wiki in order to showcase their progress. Throughout the course of the semester, students check in with their teachers and discuss their progress and strategies to use to meet their goals. (See reference here)

A list of "I can" statements for each unit of study is indeed an effective tool to nurture student self-reflection and mastery of learning outcomes if done consistently throughout the year. However, merely having a checklist of "I can" statements along with tools to collect evidence of learning is not enough. There are other factors that need to be considered if one is to utilize "I can" statements and have students reflect upon them effectively. Being mindful of student age levels and peer pressure are quite important when designing the checklists that student will be using and the process of self-reflection.

Considerations for Self-assessment for Younger Students

I teach very young students - grades K-6. Here are a few changes I would make in order to adopt this activity to my teaching goals and my particular classroom context.

1) "I can" statements must be written in very simple student-friendly language. Some of my students cannot read yet or very well (i.e. think of a grade 1 or 2 student), so the statements must be free of technical jargon or grammatical terms that confuse and impede self-reflection.

2) Students must be taught what mastery of that learning outcome looks like, sounds like, and feels like - particularly those who are younger. At this age level, student think in very concrete ways, so offering exemplars of what various mastery levels of a learning outcome (i.e. an "I can" statement) and explaining them to students will aid them when doing the self-reflection.

3) The self-reflection form itself should be simple, positive, and student friendly.  For example, if a student is assessing hem/herself against a learning outcome, a "Yes/Not Yet" is probably more positive than a "Yes/No." Depicting various levels of mastery in the form of images displaying the growth of a plant might be more effective and simpler to comprehend than a likert scale of 1 to 5.  In addition, a graphic that visually shows growth emphasizes that learning is all about growth and is never something absolute - it is always relative, dynamic, time- and context-dependent.

Images of plant growth can symbolize various levels of mastery for a particular learning outcome. So the images above from left to right could represent "Beginning-Intermediate-Advanced-Mastery" respectively (or any other verbal scale).

 4) A safe and caring classroom environment must be maintained so that students do not feel the need to be dishonest in their self-assessment. If students fear that they will be judged by their classmates and ridiculed because of grading themselves lowly on a self-assessment, then they will tend to always grade themselves higher than they should. Peer pressure and fear of being judged negatively by others could destroy the process of self-assessment.

5) Teachers must give students feedback over their self-assessment to ensure that students can see how well and accurately they are assessing themselves. One way to do this is to give students and checklist, have them self-assess, then have the teacher assess the student and return both assessments - the teacher's and the student's - for comparison. When a student see his/her own self-assessment along side his/her teacher's, then they are more likely to reflect on how honest they were in their assessment.

The same level of teacher feeback must be given when student select evidence that demonstrate their learning to be placed in their portfolio.  Students should be able to determine of a piece of work really reflects that level of mastery. Otherwise, the self-assessment process has failed.

Considerations in a Distance Learning Environment

In a distance learning classroom environment, self-assessment could be easier in some ways but more difficult in others. For example,  the somewhat anonymous nature of online instruction may eliminate the negative effect of peer pressure on student's self-reflection practices and may cause students to give more truthful self-evaluations. However, it may be difficult for teachers to assist students in their self-assessment, model the process, and give feedback due to the clear separation of time and space and absence of face-to-face student-teacher interaction.

We all know that when learning goes to an online environment, there is always an accompanying challenge related to using the online tools needed to create and manage student work. Aside from this obvious digital learning curve, appropriate tools still must be in place to ensure that student are not confused about the self-assessment process and to provide clear examples of what each level of mastery looks like and which pieces of student work would represent them.

Choosing the right technological tools, platforms, and LMS can aid in facilitating student self-assessment. Some LMS come with survey features built-in where teachers and students can both reflect and provide feedback. In this case, students can view their own assessment in comparison to their teacher's, which in itself is a powerful way of teaching and improving the accuracy of self-assessment. Moroever, teachers need some way of tracking student self-assessment and maintaining records of their progress against particular learning outcomes. Some LMSs provide learning outcome management and alignment tools and other useful features in simple and visual interfaces.

Two Heads are not Always Better Than One - Reflections on Working in Groups

It was unfortunate that I was not able to do much group work during this course as I had hoped. I more or less did all the assignments individually. I don't blame anyone as everyone has their own circumstances - and that is quite OK. 

Different Students Have Different Intentions for Taking the Course

For some students, auditing the course may be all that they desire. That is, their intention may not be to complete all the assignments or watch all the video lectures or participate in all the discussions. They may only desire to get a taste of the course - and again that is OK.   

Others may be taking the course just to finish the minimum requirements and perhaps have chosen not to do Group work altogether. Some students may have intended to get the full experience and do all the work in full - and perhaps a little extra. As educators, we must consider student motivation and intention when designing course activitivies and requirements.

The Hype Curve 

For some of my group members, I am speculating that their motivation died down after the first week. This phenomenon - namely, losing interest and excitement about something - is quite typical when interacting with anything new. You see it in marriage, where the beginning is fiery but loses its passion as time goes on. You also see it in technology. It is similar to the commonly referred "Hype Curve" that describes how people react to the introduction of new technology. You usually notice a wave of enthusiasm and eagerness to use the technology and everybody is raving about it and how it is the best thing ever (e.g. iPads are going to change the way we look at computing!), and then after a while there is a period of disillusionment (e.g. iPads are awful, the worst idea ever!) followed by true realization of its potential (e.g. iPads are perfect for anyone who wants to do light computing on the couch or laying down!).

Taken from "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell, pg. 409, 1st Edition, 2008

 
Similarly, when a new course is offered (whether be online or offline), student enthusiasm is quite high and everyone speaks about how the course will be exciting and great; however, after a while, that enthusiasm vanishes and we see a period of lull in participation and commitment to the course. Lastly, participation picks up at some point and consistent efforts are seen by some students - not all - until the course ends. There are only a few students who can keep their motivation high enough from beginning to end and persevere.

I have also seen similar trends in Ramadan when it comes to people attending prayers in the Masjid. At the beginning of the month, the Masjid is full and there is much excitement and resolve to worship Allah and make the most out of the month. Then we see a period of relative emptiness for about 2-3 weeks. It is the people who you see in the Masjid during this time who are the same people who will be consistent in their worship for the entire month. Surprisingly, the Masjid is full again (and actually overflows) during the last 10 days, and attendance peaks on the 27th night of Ramadan. In essence, Ramadan is a marathon of spiritual development - not a sprint. The same can be said of courses that teach and nurture skills and attitudes of any type.

Freedom!

Irregardless of the reason for my group members not participating fully in the course, I was able to cope by doing the assignments myself. It was not a bad experience at all. I found that I had the freedom to do what I pleased and dive as deep as I wanted and expand the scope of the assignment as widely as I wished since I was not limited by any group consensus. 

I believe that distance learning courses should not force students to work in groups. There should be an option for anyone to complete the course individually if he or she wishes. As we know, student learn in different ways and have multiple intelligences. Some students may actually thrive on being able to move ahead as quickly as possible not being limited by the lack of motivation and enthusiasm of others. For such students, perhaps all modules should be provided at once. The question of delivering lessons gradually or all at once in an online course is an important one for this very reason.

Interest Curves - Lessons from the Field of Game Design and Entertainment

In order to address the issue of lack of participation and that of dwindling student motivation, course designers must design courses with appropriate "Interest Curves" which keep the learner engaged until the very end. The concept of an "Interest Curve" is taken from the field of game design and entertainment, and it is essentially a plot of how a participants engagement changes with time throughout the experience. The hype curve seen above is not a great interest curve for educational experiences. What we are looking for is something more like this:

Taken from "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell, pg. 248, 1st Edition, 2008 

Or this: 

Taken from "The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell, pg. 248, 1st Edition, 2008

As you can see, these "Interest Curves" describe learners whose engagement increases with time. Typically, in game design, this is achieved by carefully designing levels that create challenges that followed by periods of ease but the challenges increase with time. This way, the player is always in a state of "flow" because things are never too hard or too simple - there is always an appropriate balance to keep the player from being overwhelmed with difficulty or extremely bored. Hence, the interest is always there. Similarly, a good book keeps the reader's interest through its plot structure and character development. The same can be said of television production, plays, musicals, theatricals, and movies.   

When designing courses, a designer must think of following reflective questions:

• What activities have been added to sustain student engagement throughout the course?
• Is my course too difficult? Too easy? Too overwhelming or burdensome?
• Is the course too long? Is it too short?
• What social activities have I incorporated to build a strong community of learning?
• What makes my course exciting?
• What elements of my course must I change to keep students interested?

Assessment, Assessment, Assessment

Lastly, when assessing group work, there must be a way to honor the contributions of each individual student of the group.  I anticipate that there will likely be conflict if some students do not feel that their group members are caryying their fair share of the work. Clauses in the syllabus that outline expectations for group work and how assessment will be conducted is important so that everyone is on the same page. 

Personally, I have always favored students coming together to discuss ideas and then have each student submit their own work; I think it is a better alternative than having everyone do something as part of a collective whole. Unless you have a team whose members all share strong motivation and passion towards a project, the outcome will be mediocre at best. In cases where students are not sharing that passion, working individually should be an option - otherwise all students will lose interest.  I think the ultimate goal in any course should be pushing students toward excellence and if a student believe that his or her team is holding them back, going solo may be better in the end.