Activity 6.1

Evaluation in Distance Courses

Distance courses offer a whole different way of learning and carry out many benefits for the student who cannot attend an actual class; nonetheless, it has difficulties too. For the learner, it can be somewhat difficult to adapt to the new way of studying, and for the teacher, it can be quite complicated to deal with some sort of things, like the evaluation of the student’s progress in the class.

Since the teacher is not in direct contact with the learner, s/he must find other ways to see if the student is completing the established goals for the course. Also, in order to evaluate the students, the teacher should have material to evaluate; thus, using different types of exercises (like quizzes or questionnaires) throughout the course where the learners show what they have been learning can be very helpful.

In my opinion, the constant evaluation is the most relevant in distance courses but, unfortunately, the most neglected too. As a former distance learner, I prefer to know my progress as I work in the class, because it not only tells me what do I need to fix to improve, but also, it gives me a sense that the teacher is committed with the course too. That is why the teacher should give constant feedback to the learners about their progress.

When it comes to this everyday-type of evaluation, a way to do it in a face-to-face class is by the teacher addressing the learner to talk about her/his results; however, in a distance course the teacher may not be able to do so as easily, so s/he might have to get an appointment with the learner to have a chat or just send an email to tell the student how s/he is doing.

Finally, I would say that the feedback we give our learners is really important but it is also important to be able to grade our students with such information. As teachers, we need to organize our course and be aware of what we need to evaluate and the activities we will use to do it, according to the modality of the class, in order to have a better representation of the students progress, whether they are learning or not, and even spot what can be improved in the course for future classes.

Bibliography

Willis, B. (1994). Distance Education Strategies and Tools. Unated States: Educational Technology Publications.