Evaluation

Did your students achieve the learning objectives and their own goals in relation to the online component of the course?
Did you achieve your teaching goals?
How can you work this out?

 

Evaluation can enable you to see how effective your course has been and how effective your presentation and support have been. It can also give you useful formative feedback during a course to enable you to make changes while the course is in progress. Evaluating online components of a course looks to the same principles as evaluating more traditional components.

step 1: select what to evaluate
step 2: select (and use) the most appropriate strategies (sources of information and evaluation methods)
step 3: analyse the results
step 4: give feedback and propose action

The Evaluation section of Leap into Problem-based Learning outlines principles of evaluating course outcomes and processes, and gives some practical advice about how to go about it. It is useful for evaluation of online learning.

What to evaluate

An online course depends more on course materials and indirect contact than a conventional course. It is not appropriate to assess the lecturer's 'performance' in lectures or tutorials; the evaluation focus shifts to 'intentions and outcomes' (Rowntree 1998). For example:

Have the students achieved the learning objectives of the course, including:

• subject/academic knowledge/skills?
• transferable/generic/lifelong learning skills?

How appropriate, well-structured, up-to-date and balanced is the content of the course?

Do the course content and processes suit the learning outcomes and the needs,
abilities and context in which students are working?

Are the assessment and other activities appropriate to the course content, delivery mode and student needs and abilities, and how effective are they?

How appropriate/effective is the guidance given to individual students, groups and the whole cohort and the written (or spoken) feedback given to them on their course activities and products?

Have all students had adequate access to all parts of the course?
(Some of these questions are guided by Rowntree (1998).)

You may also wish to evaluate the MyUni course structure, ease of access to content, ease of navigation, how easy it is for students to find things (usability).

Rowntree (1998) Assessing the quality of materials-based teaching and learning .