Additional Digital Learning Assessment Strategies & Resources

 What Challenges Might You Face With Assessments in Your Digital Learning Course?

Many digital learning instructors struggle with how they may reframe their assessments for the online learning environment. Effective digital learning assessments are not merely opportunities to try out new tools and technologies. Instead, effective assessments should authentically evaluate how well students meet the objectives of your course after the corresponding content has been delivered. Recall that effective online assessments should also:

• support alignment with course objectives. 
• prioritize mastery rather than testing. 
• promote authentic activities within the discipline. 
• vary evaluative opportunities.  
• scaffold when possible. 
• incorporate caring and substantive feedback. 
• encourage academic honesty (explore Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity (Discourage Cheating).

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Assessment Strategies and Examples

Collected below is an array of options for your online course assessments (e.g. activities, quizzes, assignments). Review the options provided and consider which would best meet the academic objectives of your course. Note that the assessments below promote higher-order thinking (based on Bloom’s cognitive domain/levels of learning)

• Case or problem-based learning assessments
  • Create a case method activity to engage students in critical thinking
  • Incorporate debates in online discussions to stimulate critical thinking and engagement
  • Individualizing assignments by selecting a case
  • Using a guided approach to support critical thinking in online discussions
  • Use Social Networking Tools to Facilitate Small Group Problem-Based Learning
  • Use Mobile Apps to Facilitate Project-Based Learning
• Reflections and reflexive learning assessments
  • Empower higher-order student engagement in online discussions
  • Scaffold student success in online learning through metacognitive prompting and reflective journaling
  • Using student-created blogs as a progressive formative assessment in an online STEM course
  • Engage individual learning from group projects
  • Incorporating self-tests for reflection
  • Using a reflective online discussion
  • Using mind watch journals to reflect and connect to content
• Collaborative learning
  • Fostering meaningful learning with renewable assignments
  • Using Collaborative Exams to Reinforce and Deepen Learning
  • Incorporate Online Group Assessment Through Virtual Posters
• Application-oriented assessments
  • Using digital storytelling
  • Using images to encourage visual creativity, display comprehension, and application of a lesson
  • Using academic challenges and experiential missions to provide learner choice and engage students

The strategies above can also be found in the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) an open resource for faculty and instructional designers that houses a collection of strategies drawn from the pedagogical practice of online/blended teaching faculty that is aligned with findings from research or professional practice literature.

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Assessment Consultation or Support

The <Replace -  Department Name> is available to answer any questions you may have about online assessments. Your instructional designer can provide you with pedagogical strategies to help you enhance the effectiveness of digital learning course assessments, while the LMS Support Team can offer expert technical support assistance to answer any questions you might have about Canvas assessment tools and capabilities.

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Note About the graphic below:

This is a UCF specific work sample to be adapted and shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License  Links to an external site..

The content on this page has been adapted from the Online Assessment Resources Available at UCF created by Amanda E. Major, Ed.D., CPLP, PMP, and Elisabeth Greenwood at the UCF Center for Distributed Learning.