3.3 Adapting assessments for online learning

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While you may technically be able to recreate some of your assessments in the online environment without any adaptations, you should consider how traditional assignments may be more challenging for online students. Many students rely on reminders you provide during in-person class meetings to keep up with course work. Online learning requires more self-direction, a skill many students are still developing. Large projects that span multiple weeks can be challenging for all students, but especially for online students who may have challenges with time management or collaborating with peers. There can also be challenges related to time zones and internet connectivity. For example, students not physically located in Canada may find the traditional 2-3 hour exam window at 2AM their local time; students in rural or remote areas may not have a dedicated, high speed internet connection for the duration of the exam. As you’re developing your online course, we encourage you to consider the following recommendations to help support students success:

Papers/projects

  • In order to provide guidance and support for a large paper/project, consider scaffolding student learning by dividing the assignment into small components. For example, you might divide the project into four small components: proposal and introduction (10%), literature review (10%), rough draft (5%), and a final paper (20%). 

  • Consider providing multiple opportunities for feedback on larger assignments. Looking at the example above, each of the three assignments that lead up to the final paper provide opportunities to help ensure students are producing high quality work. Further, if you (or Teaching Assistants or peers) provide feedback on the early components, students are more likely to submit a good final product, potentially reducing the marking required.

Exams

  • Consider reducing the duration of longer, synchronous exams. This may involve dividing the exam into two smaller parts (e.g. replacing a 2-hour exam with two 1-hour exams), adding an alternative assessment (e.g. adding a presentation), or implementing two-stage exams [pdf].

  • Consider lowering the weight of high-stakes exams. This might involve dividing an exam into small parts (as recommended above) or distributing the course marks more evenly over the term. Many online faculty opt for frequent low-stakes quizzes rather than a mark that is based just on mid-term and final exam scores. 

  • If you’re interested in evaluating high-order learning outcomes or concerned about academic integrity, consider alternative assessment options. Alternative assessment options include:

If you’re interested in more information about alternative assessment options, there are additional idea on Keep Teaching. We also recommend exploring Alternatives to Traditional Testing Links to an external site. from the Center for Teaching & Learning at UC Berkeley and Alternatives to Traditional Exams and Papers Links to an external site. from the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at Indiana University Bloomington.

Assessing participation

Providing incentive for students to participate in course discussions or attend synchronous class sessions by assigning marks can be a helpful way to motivate students to participate in course activities.  However, it is important to be mindful about how the marks are being assigned and the kind of behaviour the grading scheme encourages.  Simply marking participation by setting a minimum number of posts in the discussion forum doesn’t necessarily encourage the types of behaviour that lead to meaningful learning and may promote superficial engagement by students. When assigning grades for participation, it is important to clearly communicate expectations so that there isn’t a disconnect between students behaviour and instructor expectations.  Educating students about exactly what is expected in terms of participation is vital to enabling them to engage at the expected level (McKinney, 2018).

The two most common ways instructors assess participation in online courses are through engagement in synchronous class sessions and in asynchronous discussions. As with other assessment approaches, we encourage you to provide feedback to students about their participation multiple times during term so they have the opportunity to improve their participation if necessary.

Synchronous class sessions

  • Rather than assigning points simply for attendance, integrate an activity to reinforce the learning from that session. Simple active learning techniques such as the one minute paper or muddiest point (discussed more in Modules 4 and 6) can be used to both assess student participation and also provide a formative assessment opportunity.  

  • Consider flexibility when grading student participation or attendance in synchronous class sessions and provide options for students who cannot attend.  Is it possible to provide alternate activities for students who need to watch session recordings since they live in other time zones or have other access challenges?

Asynchronous discussions

  • Create a rubric that sets clear expectations for participation.  It can be helpful to think about participation as level of interaction, quality of contribution and quality of interaction.  More information about rubrics is available later in this module. 

  • Don’t try to mark each individual post or contribution.  This can be time consuming for instructors and can inhibit students’ ability to freely engage if they think every post is being graded in detail. Instead, focus on giving a basic completion grade or look at a body of contributions over time.

  • Rather than marking individual posts, ask students to make connections between their discussion posts and course learning goals and to explain why they think their contributions are meaningful.  They can also self-assess their contributions based on a participation rubric.