How to assess students remotely?

In today’s education system, assessment is a crucial part of the curriculum. It helps students understand their learning and provides feedback on their progress. Whether done face-to-face or remotely, the purpose of assessment is to inform students about their learning. On the other hand, distance learning assessment is becoming increasingly popular, as it is convenient for students who have busy schedules and cannot attend face-to-face assessments. It is also practical during the health crisis of covid19. So how do you assess remote students?

Evaluation of distance learning: criteria to be met

For evaluation to promote learning, certain criteria must be met:

• For evaluation to promote learning, it is necessary for the teacher and the student(s) to define explicit expectations that are understood by all. These expectations should be easy to understand, clear and precise.
• In order to be able to evaluate learning, it is necessary to specify the evaluation criteria. The criteria should be measurable and relevant to the learning objectives.
• It is also necessary to allow everyone to train for a sufficient period of time. This is because students learn at different rates and it is important for them to have enough time to practice.
• Teachers should encourage their students to take ownership of their learning process and understand the benefits of self-assessment. With this knowledge, they can help students identify what they need to focus on to be successful in a particular subject or skill set.

This is beneficial for both the teacher and the student, as it lets the teacher know how well the student is progressing. It also gives students a sense of ownership of their learning.

• Teachers should be able to provide personalized correction if they can do it in a systematic way. They should be able to provide individualized feedback that will help the student improve their skills and abilities.
• They must leave room for error by offering a second chance. If they don’t, students won’t be able to learn from their mistakes and will be less likely to improve. 

How to assess students remotely?

Assessing students remotely is a complex process and can be difficult to do remotely. Many factors must be taken into account, such as the technology used, the type of assessment, the number of students involved, etc. Here are some tips for assessing students remotely:

Stop evaluating everything

The teacher must assess the necessary during the remote assessment. They must be able to assess a student’s skills and provide feedback accordingly. This allows for better engagement, increased motivation and better learning outcomes.

It is not compulsory to evaluate all the work and all the students remotely each time, it is however necessary to propose a corrected or elements of correction and sharing in a systematic way; it is not appropriate to practice a devaluing notation or sanction . The assessment of skills by level of proficiency will be preferred.

Indeed, the assessment of skills by level of proficiency is a common practice in distance assessment. It aims to ensure that students are on the right track with their development and progress in schools. The assessment is done by measuring their performance in certain areas like reading or writing skills which are considered more important than others.

Teach students to self-assess

Self-assessment is one of the most important skills students need to develop. It helps them understand what they are good at and what they need to improve.

This process helps students assess their strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement. It also helps them understand how they can improve in the future.

In addition, the teacher can present on the establishment site, an educational blog, or a virtual wall, a selection of self-correcting tests with notices allowing them to know what each quiz will be used for, and targeted instructions for using them.

Balance sheet assessment

It is very difficult to know whether students will do their tests alone or with a family member. We must trust our students: most do the work seriously if it is interesting and if they understand the meaning. Here are some ideas for properly assessing remote students:

• Propose new complex tasks by asking students to justify their answers.
• Create mental maps to represent the theme studied.
• Case study: activities that present problematic situations to a group, which must find the solution.
• Create an online portfolio .

Use quizzes and MCQs

Assessing students remotely via quizzes and MCQs gives feedback on their progress.

Plus, it allows students to get feedback on their progress and use those reviews to improve their grades.

The teacher can ask his students to do quizzes. And students who pass the exercise must explain the expected answer or self-correct. 

In this case, the student can then send the result of his self-correction to get personalized feedback. This feedback is essential for the students, it will reassure them. It should be taken as such.

Assess students orally

Assessing students orally is a type of assessment done by the teacher to determine if the student has mastered a particular skill. The teacher asks the questions and listens to the student’s answers, then scores them accordingly.

This type of assessment requires more effort than other types of assessments because it is not as quantitative as other types of assessments. 

The teacher should be able to identify whether or not a student has mastered a particular skill by listening to their responses and scoring accordingly.

The advantages of this type of assessment are that it allows greater flexibility in terms of when, where and how it can be used in teaching? 

In addition, students should always be prepared to explain their thoughts or ideas to their teacher.

Conclusion

Remote assessment is an effective and efficient way to assess students in the classroom. In this method, students take online assessments through a computer and submit their answers electronically. The assessment can be administered remotely, meaning teachers can grade without having to be physically present in the classroom.

Students and teachers can now work on their assignments remotely using tools like Google Docs, laptops, iPads and more to complete their work. This transition has many benefits, such as saving time and energy, reducing paper waste, and creating a fun learning environment.