Digital Assessment Strategies in Online Teacher Education

The emergence of e-learning as a vehicle for teaching and learning is presently unquestionable. This research aims to address the following issues related to this topic: (i) which modes and strategies of assessment to use in teacher education virtual learning environments; (ii) how to define the authenticity of the assessment strategies; (iii) which indicators to use in order to warrant the validity of digital assessment strategies; and (iv) how to reflect on the relationship between the certification of competences and the use of alternative assessment strategies in teacher education virtual environments. The findings illustrate the participants’ recognition of the formative character of the proposed assessment design, and particularly for the open-ended e-folio. Suggestions are offered for the improvement of the proposed assessment design, so as to better promote the formative character of assessment. The Challenge of e-Assessment Within Higher Education, the preparation of graduates to take their professional place in society demands benchmarks through which student entry, progress, qualification and graduation is recorded. It is commonly recognized that the mechanism through which such certification operates is that of assessment. Moreover, as Maclellan (2004) clearly makes explicit, “If alternative assessment is providing the data that inform educational policy, the extent to which alternative assessment is valid has to be of central concern”(p.313). Assessment is currently recognized as one of the most powerful strategies to drive learning (Schwartz & Webb, 2002). This is true, not only, for traditional face-to-face settings, but also for virtual learning environments (MacDonald, 2004). A significant body of research supports the view that the design of assessment is critical in determining the direction of student effort, and that assessment is vital in providing a channel of communication between students and their mentors (Black & William, 1998). This role for assessment is increasingly important for campus-based universities, as well as in a traditional distance-learning context. Several authors (Birenbaum et al., 2006) state that current assessment practices in European countries fail to address learners’ needs because they tend to focus on assessment of learning instead of on assessment for learning, are limited in scope, promote teaching for assessment instead of teaching for learning, and ignore individual differences. ICICTE 2013 Proceedings