Assessing What Students Learn in Technology-Based Learning Environments

Virtual simulations, role-playing in games, discussion boards, and shared spaces are among the growing kinds of options educators are using to foster student learning. Aside from the efficiency of delivery and students' generally positive response to technology-based instruction, how can we learn about the efficacy of teaching and learning through technology?

This Web seminar offers principles of assessing technology-based student learning grounded in questions we ask about pedagogy, curricular design, instructional design, and other educational practices. It begins with a focus on assessment as a process of inquiry into the efficacy of your educational practices through the wide range of technology-based "texts" (for example, actions, decisions, dialogue, collaborative projects, visual representations) that students produce—direct evidence of how they construct meaning. Overall, a well-anchored approach to assessing student learning provides robust results that enable us to identify patterns of student strength and weakness through the various texts they produce. These patterns prompt us to examine and self-reflect on the efficacy of technology-based teaching and learning.