How to Gauge
Learning Progress:
Incremental Evaluation

On this page, we introduce some ways to receive feedback and questions in Online Classes, as well as how to use incremental evaluations to gauge student learning.

Gauging Learning Progress in Simulcast Classes

In Simulcast Classes, audio and visual being sent to students may cut out due to internet problems, students may struggle to find the right timing to ask question, and teachers may continue their lectures without ever checking if students fully understand the content. In order to remedy this, we recommend taking the following efforts to make it easier to communicate with students:

• At the start of class, make sure to let students know it is okay to ask questions whenever they cannot hear the lecture or do not understand something.

• Decide on a method for students to ask questions with and let students know in advance.

• •If students inform you during class that they have a question or issues with their internet, make sure to let other students know before answering their question or working to solve the connectivity issue.

In Simulcast Classes, students must watch video courses for long periods of time. This can cause a lack of focus and make it easy for them to become tired. To prevent this, we suggest incremental lecture times and checking for understanding using polls on Zoom/Webex.

• Please use the following materials concerning how to poll on WebEx for more information → Download

By collecting electronic comment cards after your Simulcast Class has ended, you can get questions and comments from students about class.

•Try answering comments and questions from students at the beginning of the next class or using their comments to improve your lesson. Doing so can help you improve the communication between teacher and student.

• Comment Card Example (Google) → Check it out here

It is likely harder to gauge student learning progress in On-Demand classes than in classes held in real-time. For this reason, it is necessary to check student learning progress more frequently than one would in face-to-face classes. in order to get a grasp on student progress, we encourage you to have students complete one assignment per class video, as well as to provide grades and feedback on their work.

By incrementally gauging student learning progress in this way, teachers can make sure that class is proceeding smoothly as the course goes on. Additionally, in cases where the class is not proceeding smoothly, the teacher will be able to supplement additional lectures, assignments, and feedback to help. For students as well, incremental evaluations can help them check their own understanding and realize mistakes they are making at an earlier stage, thus making it possible to improve their own studies.

In order to avoid situations where students do not understand course content even though they have finished with all classes and tests, we recommend instructors to implement incremental evaluations.

There are different varieties of evaluations with different goals and characteristics

Final tests and reports are likely to be familiar forms of evaluation. These forms of evaluation can be considered "overall evaluations". Once the course has ended, this kind of evaluation is useful for testing if students have properly achieved their learning goals.

Incremental evaluations are also called "formative evaluations". Incremental evaluations are used during the semester to check that students are achieving their goals. In On-Demand Classes, it is preferable to increase the frequency of incremental evaluations to gauge learning progress.

In order to get a hold of students' learning progress, quizzes, mini-reports, and reflections are useful tools. By allowing students to provide output during class as well, you can help improve students' focus and encourage long-term learning. Because instructors are able to use quizzes to grasp students' understanding, they will also be able to check which points require further clarification. Additionally, such activities can be used instead of taking attendance.

Checklists and rubrics are useful tools for evaluating students. Checklists show a list of all points that will be evaluated. Additionally, by showing multiple scales of evaluation for checklists, it is possible to make rubrics.

By making the standards for evaluation clear, it will become easier to grade assignments and give comments. Additionally, such standards can be useful when multiple instructors or teaching assistants need to grade assignments. Finally, it is possible to use such standards to have students provide one another with grades.

Evaluative tools are useful not only for reports, but for experiments, practical exercises, and presentations as well.

Please look at these concrete methods for incremental evaluation here.You can also download it at this link as well.