University of Wisconsin Stout

EDUC 762: Assessment in E-Learning

Final Project - Online Assessment Toolkit

Troy Davies, B.A., B.Ed., M.Ed., Ph.D.

April 22, 2017
 Introduction
As an educator my primary purpose is the success of students. Effective assessment is a key facet in that undertaking.
Driven by a student-centered philosophy, I want to provide students with a vast array of occasions that enable them to
showcase their learning through meaningful activity. The current technological surge has furnished educators with a
near-infinite assortment of tools that can be applied to the task of assessing student learning. Gone are the days when
assessment was limited to a few highly depersonalized and standardized constructs that allowed for no individual
expression.

This culminating project represents an online assessment toolkit that profiles four such tools from todays gamut of
possibilities. Each tool is discussed and activities and assessments are described, but most importantly they are all linked
back to specific learning objectives. This is because use of technology is not the objective itself. Rather, technology is
best understood as a tool put in service of the objective, in service of learning. Other elements of the toolkit include
samples of a pre-course survey, an assessment taxonomy table and an assessment rubric. Together they attempt to
paint a more holistic picture of student assessment.

While I do not currently teach, I do administrate. However, it always been a hope of mine to return to teaching in my
post-retirement years. More specifically, I would like to teach university courses in Educational Administration in an
online setting. I would prefer to work for faculties of education that have as their mission the pursuit of excellence in the
preparation of school and school system leaders. I envision an institutional commitment to excellence being manifested
by a dual commitment to developing, amongst students, a strong theoretical foundation as well as practical expertise
and competence. The Canadian post-secondary online learning environment continues to grow and it provides an ever-
increasing number of teaching opportunities. So, while the course I presume in this final project is only fictitious and
imagined, it does, to be sure, bespeak a personal and aspirational aim.

Course Description
This course is titled Educational Administration 501. It is a graduate-level course that provides an introduction to the
theoretical foundations of K-12 educational administration, supplemented by an understanding of the pragmatic
application of administrative principles within practical, yet ever-changing, educational contexts. Students will be
exposed to a wide selection of contemporary topics in the hope of helping them appreciate how to make meaning of
educational administration and its practice in valuable and personally significant ways. Among others, topics will include
leadership, school operations, educational politics, organizational culture and policy issues.

The course will honor current understandings that students bring to educational administration and be built upon a
constructivist approach to learning that takes into account student experiences and reflection. As the course is delivered
in an online format, students are expected to be active and timely participants in the class online discussion forums as
well as engaged partners in any other online collaborations.

The four learning objectives featured in this toolkit would be captured within the course module that deals with School
Operations.
 Student Audience
The students taking this course would typically be certificated practicing teachers who have already earned, at a
minimum, a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree. Normally, students will fall into one of two categories. First, there are
those students who currently work as classroom teachers but aspire toward a career in school administration and see
the earning of a graduate credential in educational administration as a means to that end. Second, there are those
students who already managed to obtain an administrative position, but now wish to pursue the academic formation
commensurate with the job. In addition to these two main groups there is usually a small set of other students enrolled
for various other purposes. Given the majority of students are working mid-career professionals and many have families,
most choose to enroll in their degree program part-time. Hybrid, weekend, summer and online courses become popular
options for students in this demographic.

Pre-Course Survey
Teachers teach more than just subjects or disciplines. More importantly, they teach people. With this in mind, I feel it is
important to make an early effort to get to know my students as individuals. To assist in this regard I have created a brief
pre-course survey using Survey Monkey. I will use the information gathered to help customize my instruction to meet
learner needs and to help relate to my students as people first.

My pre-course survey can be found at this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GNX8QFD

 Learning Objective #1
Given a unity of study on educational human resources management, students will be able to demonstrate successful
resolution to a human resources scenario using Prezi, achieving a minimum score of proficient on the rubric provided.

Blooms Level: Application/Applying - Demonstrate

Activity Description

A key aspect of school operations is day-to-day human resources management. The activity tied to this learning
objective is rooted in problem-based learning (PBL). The strength of PBL is that it approximates real-life scenarios by
providing rich context. Effective use of PBL also makes use of scenarios that defy simple or solitary solutions. This obliges
students to confront the complexities associated with actual situations they would face in the field. Expecting students
to think through this level of complexity is certainly appropriate for a graduate level course such as this. Accordingly, in
this activity students would be provided with a challenging human resources scenario that requires their resolution as
principal. The scenario would involve a teacher who has behaved unprofessionally on repeated occasions, despite
repeated warnings. A thick description of auxiliary factors would be included in background materials including strong
and aggressive union representation, a medical condition that afflicts the teacher in question, an exemplary teacher
evaluation provided by the previous principal and the fact that the teacher is the superintendents spouse.

Assessment Description

Students will be required to show how they resolved this scenario using Prezi. In their presentation they would be
assessed relative to the intricacy and quality of the concept map they would develop on the Prezi canvas. Prezi allows
for a non-linear presentation of all of the concepts at work in the scenario. This non-linear modality makes it an
especially good fit for this particular learning objective as human resource issues often present themselves in non-linear
ways; they are typically messy and multi-layered. Students would be required to show evidence of giving due
consideration to relevant labor legislation, board policy and the progressive discipline and remediation process. Further,
there would be an expectation they draw out connections existing amongst this list of factors in their chosen solution.

Assessment Tool Detail

The homepage for Prezi is available here: https://prezi.com

An introductory video to Prezi is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCr8Cmroxw

Prezi is a Web 2.0 visual presentation tool that permits information to be shared in a non-linear fashion. Abandoning a
routine series of slides, Prezi uses a single canvas to develop a concept map on which the creator displays multimodal
content and then makes use of zooming and panning functions to illustrate the connections amongst ideas.

Benefits include:

Enabling students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of a topic by presenting information in both
engaging and visually impactful ways
 Uses two dimensional movement in all directions to graphically draw out relationships between the big idea
students are trying to convey and the various supporting details
Basic accounts are free of charge and there is the capacity to store, share and collaborate on presentations from
anywhere in the world, given Prezis cloud-based status
Students can make presentations pop by importing graphs, charts, photos, videos, voiceover, background
music and a host of other elements or files

Limitations include:

Since it is web-based it is vulnerable to network problems or unreliable internet connections

Within the free basic account, functionality and rich-editing tools can be somewhat limited
Not printer-friendly, which is tricky if the instructor desires a physical copy of the presentation
Depending on how the content is structured and delivered by the student, there is also the risk that the
presentation can have a dizzying effect on the audience
The learning curve involved in gaining mastery of Prezi can also be quite steep
 Learning Objective #2
After completion of a module on educational finance, students will critique at least five areas of fiscal concern in a
school budget using Blogger, while achieving a minimum score of proficient on the rubric provided.

Blooms Level: Analysis/Analyzing Critique

Activity Description

Responsible stewardship of limited financial resources is an imperative of any school administrator as they seek to
operate their school. Consequently, effective budgeting is a skill that must be mastered by all aspiring principals.
Students will be presented with a mock-up school budget using budget software such as www.mybudgetfile.com. The
budget will contain the usual e-pages such as breakdowns of certificated staffing costs, non-certificating staffing costs,
student enrollment funding by grade, school generated funds, carry forward equity position, line-itemed operational
expenses, and the like. However, deliberately embedded within the budget document will be numerous discrepancies,
incongruities or oversights. Students will be required to spot these shortcomings and render a correspondingly
thoughtful and corrective critique.

Assessment Description

The critique students would provide would be in the form of a blog posting on Blogger. Having students write about
their observations regarding the budgets blunders, rather than just fixing them, enables the instructor to get inside the
thought processes and rationale of the student. It also enables peers to provide comment and feedback to their
classmates. The rubric developed for assessing this activity awards points based on the level of comprehensiveness and
detail in the critique. It aims to eschew superficial analysis in favor of highly perceptive analysis that shows evidence of
the type of unique insights that can only come with meticulous scrutiny of the budget line by line. Furthermore, students
are assessed on their ability to correct the budgetary problems by proposing acceptable remedies. Given the language-
based nature of blogging as an assessment tool, students would also need to be assessed on their ability to present their
critique in a coherent, comprehensible and compelling way.

Assessment Tool Detail

The homepage for Blogger is available here: www.blogger.com

An introductory video to Blogger is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLCRPddXTRk

Blogger is a web-based blogging service provided by Google that allows for an ongoing series of postings or entries by
the owner. Blogs are intended to be updated relatively frequently and provide an online forum for owners to share their
thoughts on any idea of importance to them, which blogger enables.

Benefits include:

It is free to set up an account

The platform is quite simple to learn and use, making for a user-friendly experience
 Allows for blog site customization
Comments can be provided by readers of the blog
Seamless integration with other Google services and quick indexing by blog site by Google

Limitations include:

There is only a limited number of templates available

No self-hosting version available, so completely dependent on Google
 Learning Objective #3
Having completed several case studies on effective board governance, students will create three governance tips for a
new superintendent to be included in a class Google Doc, achieving a minimum score of proficient on the rubric
provided.

Blooms Level: Synthesis/Creating Create

Activity Description

The administration of education takes place not only at the school level, but the system level as well. At the system
level, effective governance is found in achieving the proper balance between what is the proper purview of authority of
the Board and what is within the proper purview of authority of the Superintendent/CEO. Well-written case studies
provide a wonderful teaching tool for gaining insight into what good governance looks like in action, or conversely the
picture of governance that goes off the proverbial rails. It is important that students have tips and takeaways from any
case study that they grapple with so as to be able to transfer the lessons learned into actual situations they may
encounter. Students will work through a variety of case studies and be required to create several governance tips that
arise out of what can be gleaned from the cases. These tips will be encapsulated in a Google Doc so the collective
understanding of the group can be pooled, and the tips can be added to and refined by classmates.

Assessment Description

Students will be assessed based on how insightful their governance tips are as well as the concision with which they are
expressed. This is because short and pithy tips are more susceptible to memory recall. It will also be expected that the
tips they create are consistent with governance best practices. As the instructor I will also be looking for the value-added
by edits students make to each others tips. This can be done by utilizing the track changes function within Google Docs.
Since edits and refinements are expected the end product becomes a bona fide group effort and an artifact of the class
wisdom.

Assessment Tool Detail

The homepage for Google Docs is available here: https://docs.google.com/

An introductory video to Google Docs is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_hJ3R8jEZM

Google Docs are cloud-based documents that can be created, edited and accessed and manipulated by multiple
individuals provided they have an internet connection.

Benefits include:

Free web-based application accessible from anywhere

Integrates smoothly with other Google-based applications
 Variety of file types are supported including documents, spreadsheets and presentations
Facilitates collaborative team projects to be worked on in real time from wide and varied locations
Provides a revision history to chronicle edits

Limitations include:

Searching for documents can be cumbersome if one does not properly set up an efficient file and folder system
in their Google account
Docs are inaccessible if Internet connection is down
While very large, the storage space for each user is not unlimited
 Learning Objective #4
By the end of a module on leadership theory, students will summarize two key features of a major theory of
leadership using Animoto, while attaining a minimum score of proficient on the rubric provided.

Blooms Level: Evaluation/Evaluating - Summarize

Activity Description

There are many theories of leadership. Among others these include leader-member exchange theory, path-goal theory,
contingency theory, trait theory, critical theory, transformational leadership, and servant leadership. These theories will
be examined and students will be required to sum up two central aspects of one of the theories of their choosing in a
video slideshow format, as furnished by Animoto. Using pictures, video clips, music and minimal text pushes students to
provide an interpretive and artistic rendition of their summary. It is expected that this will be an especially challenging
activity for students unaccustomed to expressing themselves in non-linguistic forms. Indeed, students will be stretched.
Patience and effective coaching by me, as the instructor, will be important. I intentionally chose an activity such as this
for the leadership topic because leadership itself is a challenging undertaking that will stretch those who practice it.
Similarly, leaders are required to express themselves in a multiplicity of ways so that their communications and
leadership style will resonate with as wide an audience of followers as possible.

Assessment Description

The video slideshow is meant to summarize the essence of two features of the leadership theory the student is profiling.
Therefore, the assessment will adjudicate how well this was done. Criteria in the rubric will make plain that students are
expected to leverage, as much as possible, the various features available to them in Animoto for the purposes of
illuminating the leadership theory they are reporting on. For instance, does the tone or lyrics of the music or song they
select align with the quintessence of the leadership theory? And, do the video clips chosen accurately portray the spirit
and character of the leadership theory? The slideshow will also need to be assessed on how well it all holds together
and if there is a consistent feel and texture running through it from beginning to end, so that the viewer is left with a
uniform and intelligible impression of the theory.

Assessment Tool Detail

The homepage for Animoto is available here: www.animoto.com

An introductory video to Animoto is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfTqCP6LLSA

Animoto is a web-based video production tool that makes use of music, text features, and uploaded videos and pictures
to assemble personal, but professional-looking, short videos that can be shared.

Benefits include:

Very easy to use with no technical understanding of video editing required by users
Automatically synchronizes music with uploaded video and photo files
 Finished product is of high quality and can be shared on many different platforms

Limitations include:

Free accounts provide very limited capabilities and length of video

Loss of control in editing, slide transition, and frames and therefore limited customization

Blooms Taxonomy is a hierarchy for categorizing learning objectives. Within the framework, the complexity and
cognition associated with each learning task becomes increasingly sophisticated at successively higher levels of the
pyramid. The assessment taxonomy table below uses Blooms theory to represent an analysis of the four learning
objectives contained in this toolkit.
Bloom categories/
Revised Taxonomy
Knowledge /Remembering
(recall, list, define, identify, collect,
label)
Comprehension/Understanding
(summarize, describe interpret,
predict, discuss)
Application/Applying
(apply, demonstrate, illustrate,
classify, experiment, discover)
Analysis/Analyzing
(analyze, classify, connect, explain,
infer)
Evaluation/Evaluating
(assess, recommend, convince,
compare, conclude, summarize)
Synthesis/Creating
(combine, integrate, plan, create,
design, formulate)
Assessment Taxonomy Table
Learning
Objective/Activity
objective verbs
n/a n/a
n/a n/a
Given a unit of study on educational human
resources management, students will be able
demonstrate
to demonstrate successful resolution to a
human resources scenario using Prezi,
achieving a minimum score of proficient on
the rubric provided.
After completion of a module on educational
finance, students will critique at least five
critique
areas of fiscal concern in a school budget
using Blogger, while achieving a minimum
score of proficient on the rubric provided.
By the end of a module on leadership theory,
students will summarize two key features of
summarize
a major theory of leadership using Animoto,
while attaining a minimum score of proficient
on the rubric provided.
Having completed several case studies on
effective board governance, students will
create
create three governance tips for a new
superintendent to be included in a class
Google Doc, achieving a minimum score of
proficient on the rubric provided.
 Sample Assessment Rubric
Rubrics are highly effective tools for teachers and students alike. For teachers, they can be used as a scoring tool and
they make explicit what is being looked for in the end product. For students, they provide a target and outline what level
of performance is associated with each point value. In the end, expectations are made clear for both parties in the
learning process. This sample assessment rubric below was developed for the following learning objective: After
completion of a module on educational finance, students will critique at least five areas of fiscal concern in a school
budget using Blogger, while achieving a minimum score of proficient on the rubric provided.

CRITERIA UNSATISFACTORY (0) PROFICIENT (1) EXEMPLARY (2)

Identifies fiscal Identifies less than five Identifies exactly five Identifies more than
concerns in the school areas of fiscal concern areas of fiscal concern five areas of fiscal
budget concern
Analyzes fiscal Provides limited or Provides detailed and Provides highly
concerns identified superficial analysis of comprehensive analysis perceptive analysis of
concerns of concerns concerns showing
evidence of unique
insight and meticulous
scrutiny of the school
budget
Proposes solutions to Proposed solutions are Proposed solutions are Proposed solutions are
fiscal concerns overly simplistic and acceptable highly effective,
identified create more significant creative and improve
problems the fiscal positioning of
the school budget
Organization Presentation of ideas Presentation of ideas Presentation of ideas
and arguments within and arguments within and arguments within
blog posting are blog posting are blog posting are very
difficult to follow and coherent and well-reasoned and
comprehend understandable compellingly
articulated
Writing Conventions Blog posting contains Blog posting contains Blog posting is
frequent grammatical, very few grammatical, generally free of
spelling or punctuation spelling or punctuation grammatical, spelling
errors errors or punctuation errors
OVERALL UNSATISFACTORY PROFICIENT EXEMPLARY
PERFORMANCE/ (0-4) (5-7) (8-10)
POINTS REQUIRED
 Plagiarism Awareness
A review of the four learning objectives, activities and assessments herein indicates that there is a relatively small
chance of student plagiarism. The human resources scenario will be one that I intentionally create and therefore cannot
be researched for stock solutions to copy. In the same way, the critique of the mock-up budget would be impossible to
plagiarize as it will involve a budget I would personally create and embed defects within that are to be discovered and
critiqued. Creating an Animoto presentation on two features of leadership theory would also be exceptionally difficult
to plagiarize, as an Animoto presentation is devised to be highly customized and personal. Finally, the case studies in
governance that will be used to elicit governance tips from students will not be cases that are in high circulation; yet
again, minimizing, though not completely eliminating, the chances of a plagiarized response. If I was concerned about
the possibility of a plagiarized response on this final activity I would make use of Google searches to see if the student
work might not be original. Across these four examples, the key theme underlying my commentary is that the instructor
can do a great deal to prevent the problem the plagiarism from occurring in the first place by using activities and
assessments that, by intentional design, necessitate unique and firsthand student responses.

Notwithstanding the limited prospects for plagiarism, above all else, I would confront the issue head-on in a proactive
manner. Expressly, I would begin the course by discussing the universitys policy on plagiarism and academic honesty,
providing specific examples of what constitutes plagiarism. Similarly, I would appeal to students sense of
professionalism by reminding them that as teachers they need to model, themselves, the high standards of ethical
academic behavior that they would expect of their own students. I believe this pro-active ethical appeal to be more
efficacious in thwarting plagiarism than the reactive, but still necessary, stance of an impending penalty if cheating is
uncovered.

Diversity of Learning Styles

Like snowflakes, no two learners are identical. The assessments selected for this toolkit were chosen, in part, so that
different learning styles could be respected. To begin, four very different tools were selected so that no one particular
set of student skills would be privileged over the other. For instance, while the governance assessment might emphasize
the verbal-linguistic domain, the budget exercise calls more upon logical-mathematical modalities. Likewise, the
Animoto and Prezi presentations would tap into the visual-spatial capacities of students.

Within all four assessments, choice and voice are inherent parts of the activity. As one example, while there are certain
standards that must be met when resolving a human resources dilemmas, any HR professional will tell you that there is
significant room for nuance, interpretation and various approaches to resolution. Effective human resources
management can be as much art as science, and thus authentic student voice can be captured not only in how students
chose to resolve the HR dilemma itself, but also in how they give expression to their chosen resolution through Prezi.
Whether through Blogger, Animoto, or Google Docs, the same latitude for individual expression and representation is
present.

As a final point, if students have a learning disability I would ask that they share that information with me so that I could
make the needed accommodations. What those accommodations might look like would be entirely contingent upon the
disability that presented itself.
 Conclusion
Famed American writer Stephen Covey once counselled, Begin with the end in mind. This is good advice for teachers
too, online or otherwise. Before busying students with various tasks, the onus is on educators to ask critical questions
regarding the purposes of any given activity they may assign. What is the purpose of this assignment? and What is it
that I actually want students to learn? are vital interrogations that a teacher must make of their own exercises. And so,
it begins with clear articulation of the learning objective. This toolkit has shone a light on that essential step of the
pedagogical process. Not only did learning objectives conform to the highly-praised ABCD prototype, they were
categorized according to Blooms taxonomy to ensure higher level thinking, were used as the basis for effective
assessment rubric construction, and most importantly they drove the entirety of activities and assessments that flowed
from them. Here, a backwards-by-design logic is very much at work identification of learning objective first,
determining assessment evidence second, and designing learning activities last, and only last. All in alignment.

With the ever-expanding menu of Web 2.0 assessment tools at the disposal of online educators, it is becoming simpler
to find means to create meaningful learning tasks for students that cater to their individualized needs and learning styles
and allow them to produce performances or artifacts that provide evidence of their learning. As analyzed in the
preceding pages, no one tool is ever flawless, each has their own benefits and limitations. These limitations
notwithstanding, student-centered educators who want to truly get to know their students, as learners, so as to meet
them in their zone of proximal development, are eager to use such tools insofar as they enable students to make
academic strides while showcasing their abilities and playing to their strengths.

The contents of this assessment toolkit help take me one small step closer to achieving that goal.
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