Alternative assessment refers to such assessment tasks as case analysis, simulations, and e-portfolios. Such assessment is considered more appropriate and effective for measuring higher order thinking skills.
Published in Chapter:
Assessment Tasks in Online Courses
Shijuan Liu (Indiana University, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 5
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch016
Abstract
Assessment tasks refer to tasks that an instructor requires students to complete and that counts towards their final grades in a course. Assessment tasks, in the relevant literature, are also called assessment (e.g., Dirks, 1998), assessment methods (e.g., Flinders University, 2002), assignments (e.g., Arend, 2006), or assessment tools (e.g., Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2002). While there is a plethora of literature on assessment tasks in traditional environments, there is a paucity of discussions on assessment tasks in online environments (Comeaux, 2005). This short chapter discusses (1) importance of assessment tasks in online courses, (2) opportunities and challenges that online environments bring to assessment tasks, and (3) principles and strategies in design and use of assessment tasks in online courses.