Online Collaborative Learning and Assessment (OCLA)
المؤلف:
Sherria Hoskins & Carolyne Jacobs & Heather MacKenzie
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P199-C18
2025-07-04
541
Online Collaborative Learning and Assessment (OCLA)
The major educational and learning theories that underpin the development and the educational value of online learning and teaching have been examined quite extensively in the literature (Parry & Dunn, 2000; Chang, 2001a, 2001b, 2003; Wong et al., 2001; Jones & Harmon, 2002; Beatty & Nunan, 2004). The theories are namely, constructivist learning theory and situational cognition. According to Chang (2001a, 2001b), constructivist learning theory (Dewey, 1916; Jonassen, 1991) maintains that knowledge should be actively constructed by cognition. The teacher plays two major roles: first as a facilitator and an adviser of instruction to help learners to create a knowledge construction environment and second as somebody to give guidance and support to help learners become actively involved in the learning process and construct their own knowledge. The theory of situational cognition states that learning should be applied to real-life situations and should emphasize students' involvement and understanding in the learning process (Bandura, 1977; Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Apart from learning theories, theories of assessments also make important contributions to online learning and teaching. Authentic and portfolio assessment, which represent new directions in assessment, have become appropriate constructivist approaches to assessment, and have been effectively incorporated into real world, classroom, or virtual contexts (Reeves & Okey, 1996; Birenbaum, 2003; Gardner et al., 2002; Wagner, 2001), with an emphasis on co-operation between instruction and assessment. The former, authentic assessment, can show students' learning processes and the assessor can monitor their growth. The latter, portfolio assessment, involves learners submitting a portfolio for assessment purposes. A portfolio is a systematic, multidimensional and organized collection of evidence to monitor students' knowledge, skills and attitudes (Vavrus, 1990; Chang, 2001a, 2001b, 2003), a storage mechanism for student's work (Herman et al., 1992), a collection of a learner's work assembled over time (Feuer & Fulton, 1993), and focuses on process as well as product (Reeves & Okey, 1996). According to Chang (2001a, 2001b), portfolio assessment helps teachers to understand the learning that is taking place and the changes in learners, stimulates involvement and self-assessment in learners through the interaction with the teacher which involves discussion of the portfolio, and provides true and rich information for reflecting and assessing the performance and achievement of learners. In a nutshell, portfolio assessment is considered an effective means of measuring the changes in students' cognition and learning process, involvement and interaction, and assessing higher-order cognition abilities and affective attributes.
The benefits of OCLA have been discussed by many teachers and educators (Curtis & Lawson, 2001; Roberts, 2004) and include changing the way students learn and how well they learn, changing the learning experience for students, making it student-driven and student centered, it provides a new focus on the effectiveness of education, so that education becomes less impersonal. With OCLA there is also increased support for mentoring and guidance. With the building of a sense of community within the class, there is a feeling of inclusivity in the educational experience, building community within the class. IT becomes essential infrastructure costs are reduced, and so on. These values and benefits of OCLA were the motivating factors for the design and implementation of the learning and teaching of the subjects described in this study.
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