Assessing Learning Outcomes

Assessing learning outcomes is concerned with determining whether or not learners have acquired the desired type or level of capability, and whether they have benefited from the educational experience (i.e., have they learned, and how their performance has changed). A measure of learning outcomes requires learners to complete tasks, which demonstrate that they have achieved the standards specified in the learning outcomes. In order to ascertain the most realistic and valid assessment of performance, these task(s) have to be as similar to on-the-job conditions, that is, an authentic as possible
A major purpose of assessment in education is the improvement of
learning. When focusing on the improvement of learning, it is essential to bear in mind the congruency between the learning outcomes of a course and the measures of learning achievement.
It is not uncommon to find measures of learning achievement that
do not address the learning outcomes of the course. When this is
the case, learner motivation in the course and their performance is
adversely affected. Learning outcomes of a course must be given careful thought as quite often, insufficient attention is paid to the learning outcomes of a course. Without a clear set of outcomes, it is difficult to determine criteria for ascertaining whether we have arrived at the place for which we set out. While some skills and competencies are easier to assess, there are many others that are more difficult to assess and grade. Therefore a range of measures of achievement is necessary to assess the wide variety of skills and competencies that need to be acquired. In all cases however, the only fair form of assessment is one that is very transparent, with explicitly stated criteria for students. Therefore, it is important to clearly specify and communicate the basis for all assessment measures. When this is the case, assessment can serve as a powerful teaching tool

Teaching in the Virtual Classroom

Scenario-based learning

A very good example of learning by doing is scenario-based
learning. Scenario-based learning is a pedagogical design where
one or more learning scenarios serve to anchor and contextualize
all learning and teaching activities (see Naidu, Menon, Gunawardena, Lekamge & Karunanayaka, 2005). The scenarios in
these educational settings are usually drawn from real life situations. They may be contrived but they aim to be as authentic as possible and reflect the variety and complexity that is part of real life situations. For the teacher and the tutor this scenari provides a meaningful context which can be used to explain  abstract concepts, principles and procedures a lot more easily. For the learner, it serves to make learning relevant, meaningful and useful.Typically a good learning scenario will reflect a common occurrence from the relevant field (see Naidu, Meno Gunawardena, Lekamge Karunanayaka, 2005). It may be a case, problem or incident that is commonly encountered in the workplace. Using such cases, problems or incidences from the
workplace in the education of learners serves to more adequate prepare them for the workforce as opposed to focusing their
attention on the mastery of the subject matter content. The use of
such scenarios is particularly relevant and meaningful in professional education.
A typically good learning scenario will sound like a story or a
narrative of a common occurrence. It will have a context, a plot,
characters and other related parameters. It usually involves a
precipitating event which places the learner or a group of learners
in a role, or roles that will require them to deal with the situation or
problems caused by the event. The roles that learners might be
asked to assume are those that they are likely to play in real life as
they enter the workforce. Attached to these roles, will be goals
that learners will be required to achieve. In order to achieve these
goals they will be assigned numerous tasks and activities, some of
which may require them to collaborate with their peers and other
relevant groups, if these are part of the intended learning
outcomes of their subject. While these activities essentially serve
as learning enhancement exercises, a selection of them could be
made assessable and given a mark which would contribute to the
student’s final grade in the subject

In order to attain the goals that learners are assigned in the
scenario, and complete all the required activities, learners will have access to a wide range of relevant resources. These resources could include textbooks and other relevant reading material, multimedia content, and also experiences from the field of how expert practitioners have gone about solving or dealing with similar cases, situations, problems or incidences
The learning scenario, its accompanying learning activities, and
the assessment tasks serve as essential scaffolds for promoting
and engendering meaningful learning activity (see Naidu, Menon,
Gunawardena, Lekamge & Karunanayaka, 2005). They also serve
to contextualize learning and motivate learners who are turned off
by too much focus on the mastery of the subject matter content
and not enough on practical and generalizable skills. The assessment tasks and learning activities which the students are assigned are critical to the achievement of the intended learning outcomes. It is therefore essential that they are congruent with the intended learning outcomes for the subject. While they are embedded within the learning scenario they must be carefully designed and skillfully applied to direct students to the core subject matter content. By successfully completing these assessment tasks and learning activities, it is expected that learners will have accomplished the intended learning outcomes of the subject

Technology in the Classroom

PEDAGOGICAL DESIGNS FOR E-LEARNING

Introduction

The main point  is to explore issues surrounding the influence of media (information and communications technology) on learning, and to examine pedagogical designs for optimizing elearning.

The following are the key questions in relation to an exploration of these issues. Do media influence learning? Can we differentiate the unique influences of media on learning from the influences of instructional method? How can we optimize the influences of media on learning? Do we need different pedagogical designs for e-learning? 

If yes, then what are those designs that can optimize e-learning?

Do media influence learning?

While it is clear that information and communications technology

offers tremendous opportunities for capturing, storing,disseminating and communicating a wide variety of information,does it influence learning, and if it does, what is the nature and extent of that influence? These questions are at the heart of a longstanding debate and discussion on the influences of media on learning.

The origins of this debate and discussion on the influences of media on learning date back to the invention of radio and television. On developing a camera that used film rolls, Thomas Edison had expected that the motion picture would revolutionize education and make schooling a lot more attractive and motivating for students (Heinich, Molenda & Russell, 1993). Commentators of that time had suggested that instead of wanting to stay away from  school, students would rush back to school and not want to leave

 school. While we know that this did not actually happen, the moving image did influence our ability to represent many things in many different ways, in and outside of school.

Several decades after Edison's inventions, and based on the growing influence of radio, television and other media on our lives,Marshall McLuhan claimed that the “medium is the message”

(McLuhan, 1964). With this aphorism, McLuhan was suggesting that each medium has characteristics and capabilities that have the potential to shape, direct and enhance our capabilities (Campbell, 2000). As such McLuhan saw media as “extensions of man” which is the subtitle of his classic book (McLuhan, 1964).

The 1960s and 70s saw growing enthusiasm in the use of computers in education. This was naturally followed by similar interest in the impacts of computers on learning with many researchers concluding that while media may have some economic benefits, they did not show any benefits on learning (Lumsdaine, 1963; Mielke, 1968). Several leading researchers of the time argued that learning and any learning gain is actually

caused by the way the subject matter content is presented via a medium, rather than the medium itself (Clark & Solomon, 1986;Kulik, 1985; Schramm, 1977).

A prominent contributor to this discussion on media research- Richard Clark - has in fact proclaimed that “media will never influence learning” (Clark, 1994). He has in fact suggested that“media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence stuch achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” (Clark,

1983, p. 445). Clark concedes that media can have important influences on the cost and speed of learning, but argues that it is only the instructional method that can influence learning. He defines instructional method as “the provision of cognitive processes or strategies that are necessary for learning but which student cannot or will not provide for themselves” (Clark, 1994.p. 5). Clark's argument is that media is replaceable and therefore“any teaching method can be delivered to students by many media or a variety of mixtures of media attributes with similar learningresults" (Clark, 1994, p. 5).

Advantages of e-Learning

Contemporary trends in e-learning

The growing interest in e-learning seems to be coming from several directions. These include organizations that havtraditionally offered distance education programs either in a single, dual or mixed mode setting. They see the incorporation of online learning in their repertoire as a logical extension of their distance education activities. The corporate sector, on the other hand, is interested in e-learning as a way of rationalizing the costs of their in-house staff training activities. E-learning is of interest to residential campus-based educational organizations as well. They see e-learning as a way of improving access to their programs and also as a way of tapping into growing niche markets.
The growth of e-learning is directly related to the increasing access to information and communications technology, as well its decreasing cost. The capacity of information and communications technology to support multimedia resource-based learning and

teaching is also relevant to the growing interest in e-learning.
Growing numbers of teachers are increasingly using information
and communications technology to support their teaching. The
contemporary student population (often called the “NetGeneration” or “Millennials”) who have grown up using information and communications technology also expect to see it being used in their educational experiences (Brown, 2000; Oblinger, 2003; Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005). Educational organizations too see advantages in making their programs accessible via a range of distribut locations, including oncamp, home and other community learning or resource centers. Despite this level of interest in e-learning, it is not without constraints and limitations. The fundamental obstacle to the
growth of e-learning is lack of access to the necessary technology
infrastructure, for without it there can be no e-learning. Poor or insufficient technology infrastructure is just as bad, as it can lead to unsavory experiences that can cause more damage than good to teachers, students and the learning experience. While the costs of the hardware and software are falling, often there are other costs that have often not been factored into the deployment of e-learning ventures. The most important of these include the costs of infrastructure support and its maintenance, and appropriate training of staff to enable them to make the most of the technology