Assessment of learning and Assessment for learning
Assessment is an integral part of instruction, as it allows to determine whether or not the educational goals or standards are being met and it provides data for instructional planning and decision making.
There are two main types of assessment, each occurring at different points in the teaching and learning process: assessment of learning and assessment for learning. The current trend in education is the presence of both assessment systems in order to provide valid and reliable information about pupils’ achievement.
Assessment of learning involves looking at assessment information at the end of key segments in a teaching and learning cycle or at the end of the teaching and learning process to rank students’ achievement levels against a standard. It is summative and it involves standardized tests.
Assessment for learning embeds assessment processes throughout the teaching and learning process in order to readjust strategies and methodologies to enhance and guide learning. It is formative and it can include test data as well as other quantitative and even qualitative or descriptive data. Basically, in the assessment for learning, the test data is just one data element among others and the assessment process is constant rather than a single point in time.
To support teachers in the evaluation process, the six partners of Project ASSESS continue to work on the Online Exam Creator Platform in order to improve its potential and make it a valuable resource for EFL teachers. Exams covering the different linguistic skills, audio files, rubrics, worksheets, images, flashcards will be soon available to be used as formative or summative assessment and our Online Exam Creator will allow to create exams easily and quickly according to the learners’ level.
As part of the project activities, our partner from Greece, with experience in the training in the field of language education, is organizing a five-day training course whose main aim is to present the platform to EFL teachers from the partner countries but also, addressing the common problems and challenges in the assessment in EFL, in particular as regards speaking and writing assessment. The training will take place in Athens in the beginning of September.
The Benefits and Outcomes of Online Learning
Online education has been an issue since the internet started to become a crucial part of our lives. However, the outbreak of the virus forced this concept in our lives as an obligatory situation.
All the nations throughout the world have been talking about it, yet no country was prepared for it thoroughly. The citizens of the world have learnt the “how to” part on the way. We managed to do it somehow, but what about the efficiency and the effect of online education and assessment?
As an instructor at a state university in Turkey, my experience has been quite positive in many ways which can be listed as below;
*Flexibility and Self-Paced Learning
The difference among students in terms of learning pace has been vanished as all our lessons had been recorded and uploaded to the system beforehand. So, each student can go online and find the related video on the system and revise afterwards or prepare before the class hour at any time s/he is available.
*Better Time Management
As an instructor, I could easily complain that most of the time, the class hour was interrupted by natural conversations; however, in online lessons 40 minutes were mostly used very effectively and all the talking was to the point. In time both teachers and students have learnt to use all the benefits of online meetings like break-out rooms, white board, multi-user screen sharing, annotation, etc. which enabled both parties to make use of the allocated time better.
*Varied Means of Learning
In our online education experience, we experienced many different means which are called “web tools” used for educational purposes. We applied online quizzes for fun, software versions of the books and online workbooks that can be used like popular applications (in vocabulary and grammar especially), competitions and games that can facilitate learning in grammar and so on.
*Keeping up with the Developing Technology
All the improvements in technology like applications, tutorials on Youtube, audiobooks, interactive games have made education seem like behind the zeitgeist. With an obligatory push, education especially in eastern countries had to keep up with developing technology which created a more appealing interface for education. We are free from getting old and rusty.
At the end of the semester, according to a survey held in Uludağ University (Bursa, Turkey), almost 80 percent of both teachers and students favour and stick up for online education for the above mentioned reasons. And with the data collected from that research, the School of Foreign Languages plans to carry out the education both face-to-face and online in the 2021-2022 academic year.
Online Exam Creator: A Perfect Guide for Teachers
Teaching professionals and students may find assessment challenging, but the benefits it delivers may be a helpful motivator. There are obvious advantages when it comes to variable delivery methods, adding web links, documents, photographs, and videos and enriching test material.
With the shift of technology, education made its way to move into online evaluation, whether corporate certification or assessment of training efficiency, an awarding body that seeks to move off paper or expand to a new market that creates a scalable end-of-course assessment.
Ensuring the ability of students to learn is critical in every setting. Teachers and instructors can monitor each student’s progress and offer more resources and assistance when required. In addition, regular testing helps instructors detect specific students’ weaknesses in their academic areas and enhances their subject matter and delivery.
Faculty and students can take exams whenever and wherever they want via web-based exams. A time-saving benefit of online testing is that results are automatically calculated and immediately delivered to both teacher and student. In addition, instructors and teachers can analyze results in real-time. Online Exam Creator (OEC) aims to suggest a usable scale construction model for application or adaptation in assessing the exam-based writing exercises.
OEC has an easy-to-use rubric that can be used for A1 and A2 pupils learning English.
The criteria are divided into a different description
- Task Achievement (35 marks)
- Language (Accuracy and range of grammar and vocabulary) (30 marks)
- Organization (30 marks)
OEC provides time limitations, fast feedback, add media to questions, and precise marking.
OEC made an effort to make this marking scheme functional and comprehensive in evaluating the young learners’ writing performance objectively and satisfy the markers’ needs.
Online Exam Creator has several benefits. It is one of the best solutions for your organization to save time and streamline the learning process.
