What is Assessment? How to Measure Student Success in Your Online Course
Have you ever wondered how your students are performing in your online course? Do they understand the concepts? Do they know how to apply it to get the transformation you promised?
While you could go in one-on-one and ask your students what they’ve been up to and if they’re learning (a bit intense but also tedious task), you could also opt for a much quicker and more effective method: assessments.
What is an assessment? An assessment is a tool used to evaluate learners’ progress and knowledge in your course, mini-course, or program. They can be placed throughout your course, although the exact location — and frequency — depends on the course in question.
Why You Need Assessments Even Though Your Students Aren’t in “School”
You’re probably thinking, “We’re adults; they’re adults; why do they need tests?” Although tests and assessments may bring back long afternoons of sitting at a desk with a computer — or paper — in front of you and endless bubbles to fill in, it will look a bit different for you.
Mostly because you’re right, we’re adults, and they’re adults, but we’re still learners, and adult learners operate differently from school children.
Whereas school children are being tested on their memory so they can work towards comprehension, adults already have a knowledge base and are working on comprehension and implementation. Adult learners tend to spend more time categorizing new information alongside existing information than trying to learn from scratch.
AKA, they want to learn what they came to learn, where they can apply it, and how they can apply it. Assessments allow you, the educator (because that’s what you became when you created a curriculum and put it into a course or offer to be sold), to see if they’re actually achieving these three things.
If they are, you know your course is working, and they can smoothly proceed through the rest of your curriculum or graduate your course and get the results they purchased it to achieve. If they’re not, you know where in your course to clarify or streamline information to get them there.
It’s a win-win.
How to Make The Most Impact With Assessments in Your Course
If you want to see the most significant impact from your assessments — and make the biggest impact on how your students learn and engage with your course material — you have to review and use the data gathered.
Setting up assessments is great, but it doesn’t mean much for your students’ improvement if you just drop them in your course and pretend like they never existed.
Your assessments should also include questions that truly gauge the comprehension of your course — so creating 20+ yes or no questions probably won’t help your students (or you) as much as you think it may.
On a final note (for now), it’s important to remember that you are also learning. You’re amazing at what you do and you truly care for your students and about the results they achieve, but being an educator takes time and experience — as you learn and experience more, update your assessments to better serve your students.
Getting Support With Your Assessments
Adding assessments to your pre-existing course or adding them to your upcoming course launch can be hard to navigate (especially if you’re learning their importance now in this blog post). It’s okay — and even encouraged — to get support.
Join me for Office Hours to see where and how you can add assessments to your course to provide a better student experience — and see even more impactful transformations.
