Learn to Learn: Formative Assessment of Online Course Quality and Student Higher-Order Learning
Abstract: This paper presents an ongoing project to develop and implement a student online course evaluation and student self-evaluation at a large, public university. The evaluation, called “Learn to Learn” (L2L), asks students at three points during an online course to evaluate their own role in the course as learning community both in terms of how they used course elements to further and understand their own learning as well as how proactive they have been in reflecting on and developing higher-order learning skills. While student evaluations of teaching (SETs) have faced criticism in recent years, L2L strives to reflect the student’s role in relation to the course, the instructor, and to fellow students. Such an evaluation can increase student buy-in in the course and accountability for learning while also giving instructors, instructional designers, and online programs formative and summative feedback on student success in online courses. The paper will discuss first attempts to test and calibrate the evaluation in undergraduate online courses. The paper also compares and contrasts L2L to similar types of evaluations.
Presider: Elizabeth Crawford, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga