Revolutions, Challenges, Effectiveness and Assessments in Online Learning-Module 4     According to Tennyson (2013), because 65% of higher education institutions consider their long-term strategy to include online courses, and because the business world also now provides training to their professionals, ensuring objectives in online learning is important. Online learning incorporates synchronous and asynchronous exchanges of information, use of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis to facilitate learning, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. Social media can be used in MOOCs (massive open online courses) to change the learning landscape of higher education during the next decade (Tennyson, 2013). Measuring the success of these approaches is important.     Because I embrace a learner-based approach, I view online learning as an improvement in higher education. Although I support education on-demand, there are some concerns that need to be addressed. Tennyson (2013) has addressed various illegal activities and security threats causing the e-learning environment to be vulnerable. Some of the data that poses a security risk are loss of confidentiality and availability, breach of critical data, and vandalism of these learning management systems. Some educational institutions have acquired online learning management systems without addressing security aspects of online learning. Information and data could be accidentally or maliciously modified, destroyed, or stolen due to information manipulation by outsiders and/or insiders. This could affect the learner’s perception of a system’s reliability and trustworthiness (Tennyson, 2013), and this could affect the quality or accuracy of the answers given in an assessment. One can glean from this analysis that assessments and other learner submissions may be at risk of theft, alterations, and personal information being shared via a submission, which could then compromise the student’s personal well-being.
     Another consideration is student satisfaction. Web-based strategies are seen as a revolutionary progression because of flexibility and the ability to learn anywhere and at any time. This also costs the institution less than face-to-face classes (Chen & He, 2013). The overall academic satisfaction was measured between online and on-ground students utilizing a standardized student satisfaction survey and a method Chen and He (2013) called the ‘achievement of learning outcomes’ measurement tool. The online students performed better concerning self-directed, problem-based tasks, but rated themselves lower in perceived content mastery than students who attended in person, when in fact they performed just as well in both summative and formative assignments. Online learners reported more satisfaction with their learning experience than their campus-based counterparts (Chen & He, 2013).
     Web-based education offers endless opportunities for learners to observe and repeat the skills being taught utilizing methods that traditional teaching methods cannot. These include online discussion boards, which enhances the ability of students to experience complex levels of knowledge application in varied contexts. Student-led discussion boards allow students to accomplish the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (1956) through active debate. This taxonomy (a widely accepted framework within education) identifies six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Chen & He, 2013).     The summative assessment, intended to measure the sum total of knowledge, skills, and abilities acquired by the student in a unit or course, has been the assessment of choice for some time. Since the early 1990s, there has been a trend to incorporate formative assessments because they do not necessarily contribute to the student’s grade of the course, and may or may not be required. Instead, formative assessments provide useful practice and feedback throughout a course (Mackey, Derr & O’Connor, 2009).     If the issues of security were addressed, assessments could be designed to include a combination of discussions, periodic formative quizzes, and then a summative exam at the end of a particular period, and would include both multiple choice and short answer or essay questions.     Comparing the student participation between my on-ground to online class students, my experience has been that the online students engage more completely and immerse themselves in the content more thoroughly, possibly because they can choose to spend as much time as they desire, where on-ground classes only meet for a short, designated time. This semester, I have added a discussion component to one of my on-ground classes to see if I can simulate the online discussion experience. In another on-ground class, because of an E-book being provided that includes a new learning platform, I have also added formative quizzes as extra credit to test this approach to see if students benefit from this approach.
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                  developing formative assessments in online workplace training. International

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