Assessment has provided educational institutions with information about student learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But has it informed practice and been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Openo argue that the potential inherent in many of the new learning environments being explored by educators and students has not been fully realized. In this investigation of a variety of assessment methods and learning approaches, the authors aim to discover the tools that engage learners and authentically evaluate education. They insist that moving to new learning environments, specifically those online and at a distance, afford opportunities for educators to adopt only the best practices of traditional face-to-face assessment while exploring evaluation tools made available by a digital learning environment in the hopes of arriving at methods that capture the widest set of learner skills and attributes.

Online and blended learning requires the reconstruction of instructor and learner roles, relations, and practices in many aspects. Assessment becomes an important issue in non-traditional learning environments. Assessment literacy, i.e., understanding assessment and assessment strategies, is critical for both instructors and students in creating online and blended environments that are effective for teaching and learning. Instructors need to identify and implement assessment strategies and methods appropriate to online or blended learning. This includes an understanding of the potential of a variety of technology tools for monitoring student learning and improving their teaching effectiveness. From the students’ perspective, good assessment practices can show them what is important to learn and how they should approach learning; hence, engaging them in goal-oriented and self-regulatory cognitions and behaviors. The book targets instructors, instructional designers, and educational leaders who are interested in understanding and implementing either summative or formative assessment in online and blended learning environments. This book will assist the relevant audience in the theory and practice of assessment in online and blended learning environments. Providing both a research and practice perspective, this book can help instructors make the connection between pedagogy and technology tools to maximize their teaching and student learning. Among the questions addressed in this book are: • What assessment strategies can be used in online or blended learning? • How can instructors design effective assessment strategies? • What methods or technology tools can be used for assessment in online or blended learning? • How does peer-assessment work in online or blended learning environments?

Written under the guidance and with the support of Dylan Wiliam, Kate Jones writes about five formative assessment strategies in action in the classroom, with a foreword from Professor John Hattie. Building on the highly successful work of Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, ideas are shared and misconceptions with formative assessment are addressed with lots of practical advice. Formative assessment in action focuses on five evidence-informed strategies that the teacher can use to support their learners to make progress. Formative assessment can help both the teacher and student understand what needs to be learned and how this can be achieved. During the learning process, formative assessment can identify students' progress as well as highlighting gaps in their knowledge and understanding, therefore giving the teacher useful insight as to what feedback and instruction can be provided to continue to move learners forward. Formative assessment takes place during the learning process. It continually informs the teacher and student as to how learning can move forward as it is happening. This is different to summative assessment, which focuses on the evaluation of student learning at the end of the process. There's a range of case studies from different subjects and key stages to show how formative assessment can be embedded across a curriculum successfully.

This volume focuses on assessing students' abilities as self-directed learners. The authors use 'triangulation' to ensure that the assessment system is balanced and complete.

Written by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, experts in the field of online teaching and learning, this hands-on resource helps higher education professionals understand the fundamentals of effective online assessment. It offers guidance for designing and implementing creative assessment practices tied directly to course activities to measure student learning. The book is filled with illustrative case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that assess the quality of student learning rather than relying on the traditional methods of measuring the amount of information retained.

The use of e-learning strategies in teaching is becoming increasingly popular, particularly in higher education. Online Learning and Assessment in Higher Education recognises the key decisions that need to be made by lecturers in order to introduce e-learning into their teaching. An overview of the tools for e-learning is provided, including the use of Web 2.0 and the issues surrounding the use of e-learning tools such as resources and support and institutional policy. The second part of the book focuses on e-assessment; design principles, different forms of online assessment and the benefits and limitations of e-assessment.

Students in traditional as well as online classrooms need more than grades from their instructors—they also need meaningful feedback to help bridge their academic knowledge and skills with their daily lives. With the increasing number of online learning classrooms, the question of how to consistently assess online learning has become increasingly pressing. However, providing such feedback through distance education presents complex challenges that instructors must understand in order to successfully teach and dialog with their students. Assessing Online Learning focuses on assessment as an integral part of learning. Building upon the paradigms and constructivist learning model established in Communication and Collaboration in the Online Classroom: Examples and Applications (2002), this collection offers an assortment of tools and strategies for evaluating learning and instructional design in online classrooms. Both conceptual and practical, this book addresses the salient issues of assessment and offers a variety of assessment tools and strategies for online classrooms and programs, such as self-assessment tools for students to evaluate their progress toward their final products, instruments in which teams can evaluate their progress and contributions, and specific tools and strategies for assessing students' critical thinking and writing skills in electronic discussion boards and in similar reflective writing environments. Written for faculty, administrators, scholars, and researchers in higher education, this book will be a valuable resource to anyone with a particular interest in the topic of assessment and online learning.